Painkiller Black: PC Video Game Review

Painkiller Black, the special edition of People Can Fly's premiere effort, Painkiller, allows gamers to completely lose themselves in a constant stream of enemies, weapons, enemies, detailed environments, more enemies, and epic boss battles which lead into a repeat of the whole thing from the start.

A first-person shooter of the most blatant sort, Painkiller tells almost no story. The protagonist, Daniel, is separated from his loved one after a fatal accident kills both of them. She proceeds to Heaven, while Daniel, deserving of neither Heaven nor Hell outright, is drafted by the forces of Heaven to descend into Hell and defeat Satan and his strongest minions. Cutscenes after boss battles introduce Eve as an ally to Daniel during his journey, but besides these cutscenes, no story is told; the focus is entirely on the action.

Painkiller:Black consists of the original Painkiller, with 24 unique levels, plus the additional 10 levels of its expansion Battle Out of Hell. Stages are all visually distinct, ranging from an eerie orphanage, to a reenvisioned Venice, Leningrad, the Pentagon, and obviously, Hell itself. The stage variations help keep stages feeling fresh, despite reused enemies throughout. Music is also highly varied, with quiet ambient noises giving way to blaring rock tracks, mostly unique to single stages, during combat. Overall, the presentation is of the highest caliber thanks to the effort put into visuals and audio.

Gameplay is where Painkiller comes through most. Almost completely ditching the FPS genre's mainstay puzzles (key collecting, find the switch), you know you're making progress if you've found more to kill. Painkiller is unashamed in its run-and-gun style, and this focus on the action makes for a far better experience than most shooters on the market. Weapons are highly varied, ranging from the classic shotgun, to a lightning/shuriken gun, rocket launcher, stake gun/grenade launcher combo, and more. The ragdoll physics employed by the game engine ensure that the weapons' end results are that much more satisfying, with enemies being pinned to walls by stakes or tumbling through the air from an explosion. Tarot cards, earned from meeting unique goals in each level, also give the player special abilities to aid them against enemies, especially the game's multi-story tall bosses.

Multiplayer is the games only weak point. Deathmatch modes are largely the standards of the genre. People Can Fly mode is the only slight variation, arming all players with rocket launchers and emphasizing aerial combat, but not providing anything fundamentally different, and not up to the level of polish of the Unreal Tournament or Quake franchises. The relatively small community online for Painkiller exacerbates this problem, further making this a game to buy for the single player carnage.

Overall, Painkiller is a very solid title; fun, diverse in its visuals, and easy to just pick up and simply play, as opposed to grinding through or scouring a level for a key, when all you should have to do is press onward with guns blazing.