Painkiller

18.12.2007

But at least this scream would subside quickly, because everything you shoot at in Painkiller: Overdose exits with a hellish roar. And hellish is definitely the right descriptor for every facet of this game, where you play as the tortured half demon-half angel Belial, who is the unwanted progeny of a warrior of light and a mistress of darkness. Having been released from prison after a lengthy incarceration, no one quite knows how to deal with you, and so now you just want to get revenge on all your tormentors from the nether regions. So the whole point of the game is to go around slaying demons.

Painkiller: Overdose revolves around nutty creatures and weird weapons. You’ve got to kill off – ex post haste and with clear minded determination – off-kilter birds, wriggly mummies, bound-up mummies, and rooted tree creatures. A veritable freak show parades past your eyeballs, and you keep wondering whether you yourself might be the biggest freak of them all in this loony scenario. This is reflected by Belial’s oft repeated statements, “Tastes like chicken” on gobbling up creatures, or “Kiss my half-demonic ass” after having offed a few adversaries.

Quantity rather than quality. This is particularly true of your adversaries. Mad firebugs pop out of nowhere, as do psychopathic geishas, westernized ninjas, bony magicians, and all sorts of other totally off the wall demons. Luckily you’ve always got just the right insane weapon ready to hand. Each weapon has two firing modes, thus allowing you to stop your enemies dead in their tracks, all the better to pulverize them a few seconds later. Or you can fire a trio of arrows from your crossbow into the countenance of a horrid looking hellish foe, and then finish him off by dispatching a few exploding death heads in his direction. And the whole time, you gather the souls of fallen monsters, for each of which you earn a life point. Once you’ve earned a certain number of these, you pass into a kind of magic state where you unleash your wrath and destroy anyone you want to.

Hordes of demonic creatures come at you and try to pull out your horns. There isn’t much variation in Painkiller: Overdose. First of all you expunge a set number of creatures from a defined area. Once you’ve successfully perpetrated this carnage, a red spot appears on the ground that saves the information about your progress whenever you pass over it and also points you in the right direction. Once you’ve traversed this red spot, you generally end up in a new area. Doors are locked and you have to once again begin defending yourself against a horde of abstract beings. All this time you gather ammunition, life giving souls, gold or equipment. If all of this sounds pretty humdrum it’s because it is. So if you’re looking to strengthen your prefrontal cortex, Painkiller: Overdose is definitely not the game for you.

What is good about the game, though, is the various themed levels. Sometimes you’re fighting your way through a burning and fallen Rome, then you’re back to the desert passing by statues and ruins, or you’re raging your way through a richly colorful mystical forest. The various levels serve their intended purposes well. In other words, a large area or arena facilitates your goal of initiating the next round of carnage. Sometimes an apocalyptic atmosphere reigns, while at other times the ambience is almost cozy. Like Painkiller: Overdose itself, most of the levels are quite linear, although the use of tarot cards helps break up the monotony. You acquire these cards by encountering them in one of the levels or by carrying out a task such as destroying all objects, finding all ammunition and so on. The cards also serve as cheats to some extent that allow you to use certain special skills or affect the course of the game.

As for Painkiller: Overdose’s graphics, they’re somewhat outdated. A lot of the textures are fuzzy and washed out, objects are unduly angular, discs shatter into a few Counter-Strike like elements, and sometimes you feel like you’re back in the Quake 3 era. But there are also some strikingly appealing color effects, and many of your adversaries look convincingly menacing. The weapons are pretty cool looking too, although their main virtue is their impressive audio characteristics. Some of the sound effects are pretty good, if you can ignore the gruesome background music. Heart-rending cries make your hair stand on end, and the crashing and banging sound like the real thing.