Painkiller is a game that I've attempted to beat many times, and I can confidently say I've played through at least 80% of this game, but could never push myself to complete it. I think I've always wanted to like it because there are many reasons to, but at its core it's just an extremely basic and poorly thought-out shooter.
I remember when Serious Sam came out, most people called it a Doom-clone, which couldn't be further from the truth. Then Painkiller came out and people were comparing it to Serious Sam. I suppose because both games feature big crowds of enemies. But there's a major difference here.
Serious Sam often places you in big and open environments that sometimes have buildings or other obstacles laid out in a manner that lets you maneuver and strategize. It also gives you diverse rosters of enemies and weapons, each of which perform different functions. Certain weapons are more effective against certain enemies, which incentivizes you to constantly switch between weapons to target enemies that might be more dangerous or closer to you at that point in time. There is a lot of complexity to Serious Sam, which I feel often flies over people's heads (maybe even the developers' heads sometimes).
Painkiller has none of that. Most enemies function the same, the roster of weapons is very small and, aside from range, there's no significant difference between most of them. You have your shotgun, your rifle equivalent (nailgun) and your machinegun/grenade launcher. The rest are just variations. Each room functions as a tiny arena that you're locked in with respawning enemies. In most cases enemies spawn from 1-3 same places and you can easily just stand there and shoot at the same spot. Or find a place they have trouble getting to, let them congregate there and do the same. The entire gameplay is dead simple.
That being said, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun. Mainly due to the physics. But of course after a while you get tired of doing the same crap over and over again. The devs tried to spice things up with atrocious boss battles, which only make it worse.
I have to give this game props for how it came across in 2004 though. It was one of the best-looking games of the year, and ragdoll physics at the time were still a new and exciting thing. In addition, it has a pretty cool art-design, especially with some very creatively-designed (from a visual standpoint) enemies.
But in the end it's more of an artifact of the era. It was getting rave reviews at the time, and you can kinda see why, but in retrospect it's clear that the graphics were one of the major contributing factors to this. Whereas, when it comes to the gameplay, you can do much better within the same genre.
P.S. Forgot to point out: this Black Edition includes the first expansion, Battle Out of Hell, and it's terrible. It has some creative locations and designs, but gameplay-wise it's noticeably worse than the original game.
I remember when Serious Sam came out, most people called it a Doom-clone, which couldn't be further from the truth. Then Painkiller came out and people were comparing it to Serious Sam. I suppose because both games feature big crowds of enemies. But there's a major difference here.
Serious Sam often places you in big and open environments that sometimes have buildings or other obstacles laid out in a manner that lets you maneuver and strategize. It also gives you diverse rosters of enemies and weapons, each of which perform different functions. Certain weapons are more effective against certain enemies, which incentivizes you to constantly switch between weapons to target enemies that might be more dangerous or closer to you at that point in time. There is a lot of complexity to Serious Sam, which I feel often flies over people's heads (maybe even the developers' heads sometimes).
Painkiller has none of that. Most enemies function the same, the roster of weapons is very small and, aside from range, there's no significant difference between most of them. You have your shotgun, your rifle equivalent (nailgun) and your machinegun/grenade launcher. The rest are just variations. Each room functions as a tiny arena that you're locked in with respawning enemies. In most cases enemies spawn from 1-3 same places and you can easily just stand there and shoot at the same spot. Or find a place they have trouble getting to, let them congregate there and do the same. The entire gameplay is dead simple.
That being said, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun. Mainly due to the physics. But of course after a while you get tired of doing the same crap over and over again. The devs tried to spice things up with atrocious boss battles, which only make it worse.
I have to give this game props for how it came across in 2004 though. It was one of the best-looking games of the year, and ragdoll physics at the time were still a new and exciting thing. In addition, it has a pretty cool art-design, especially with some very creatively-designed (from a visual standpoint) enemies.
But in the end it's more of an artifact of the era. It was getting rave reviews at the time, and you can kinda see why, but in retrospect it's clear that the graphics were one of the major contributing factors to this. Whereas, when it comes to the gameplay, you can do much better within the same genre.
P.S. Forgot to point out: this Black Edition includes the first expansion, Battle Out of Hell, and it's terrible. It has some creative locations and designs, but gameplay-wise it's noticeably worse than the original game.