Mature
ESRB Rating
Genre
Perspective
Non-Sport
80
MobyRank
100 point score based on reviews from various critics.
3.9
MobyScore
5 point score based on user ratings.

Description

Painkiller is a graphically impressive FPS with a gothic story and frantic gameplay, designed to bring old-school, over the top fun back to the genre.

You play as Daniel Garner, a regular guy who gets killed in an horrific car crash while taking his wife out for her birthday. She, being the saintly woman she is, gets admitted to Heaven. Daniel, due to his shady past, does not. He finds himself in Purgatory -- a place somewhere between Heaven and Hell. It isn't long before Daniel is recruited by his "caseworker for the dead" to fight the minions of Hell. You see, Lucifer is plotting to overthrow Heaven, and is using Purgatory as a staging ground. Your offer is simple: stop Lucifer's armies and earn your heavenly reward.


Alternate Titles

  • "恐惧杀手" -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
  • "PK" -- Abbreviated title
  • "Painkiller: Крещеный Кровью" -- Russian spelling
  • "Painkiller: Verega Ristitud" -- Estonian title

Part of the Following Groups


Merchant Title Platform Price  
Amazon
Painkiller Windows $2.00  
ebay.com
Painkiller    
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User Reviews

Return of old-school FPS vicrabb (6643) 4.43 Stars4.43 Stars4.43 Stars4.43 Stars4.43 Stars
The gimmick is not really one after all. dreamstealer (92) 4 Stars4 Stars4 Stars4 Stars4 Stars
A new incarnation of Quake...or not quite? Kuv (75) 3.8 Stars3.8 Stars3.8 Stars3.8 Stars3.8 Stars
Have some Quake with your Serious Sam. Zovni (9205) 3.14 Stars3.14 Stars3.14 Stars3.14 Stars3.14 Stars

The Press Says

Gry o2 May 16, 2004 9 out of 10 90
GameZone Apr 07, 2004 8.6 out of 10 86
GamersHell.com Apr 14, 2004 8.5 out of 10 85
Gameinatrix May 26, 2004 B+ 83
Strategy Informer Jan 03, 2005 8.2 out of 10 82
Wham! gaming Apr 18, 2004 8 out of 10 80
Withingames Apr 30, 2004 4 out of 5 80
Thunderbolt Games May 06, 2004 8 out of 10 80
PC Games (Germany) Apr 25, 2004 74 out of 100 74
IGN Apr 12, 2004 7 out of 10 70

Forums

There are currently no topics for this game.


Trivia

Painkiller is one of the few games I know that doesn't force real-time rendering for it's video display. Usually whenever a game or program has a graphic load that exceeds the hardware's performance it starts to "skip" the rendering of certain frames in order to mantain the timing of the animations as intended. This results in the familiar "frame-skipping" or "jumping" that we known so well.

Another alternative to this problem is to forget about trying to mantain real-time animation and draw every frame at the speed the hardware can manage, however this is hardly used for videogames and usually only appears as an option on 3D rendering programs. The reason for this can be seen on Painkiller and that's because if you play it on a machine that's below the reccomended specs, the game will be actually easier to play! As whenever the cpu load gets too high (which starts to happen when many enemies appear) the game goes into slo-mo!


This entry to the MobyGames database was contributed by Brian Gladman (208) on Apr 21, 2004.
 

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