Painkiller

aka: PK, Painkiller: I nebe má svého zabijáka, Painkiller: Verega Ristitud
Moby ID: 12938
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Description official descriptions

Painkiller is a "bullet hell" first-person shooter with a gothic storyline and frantic gameplay.

Players are cast as Daniel Garner, a regular guy who gets killed in a 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. Lucifer is plotting to overthrow Heaven, and is using Purgatory as a staging ground. The offer is simple: stop Lucifer's armies and earn Daniel's heavenly reward.

Spellings

  • Painkiller: Крещеный Кровью - Russian spelling
  • 恐惧杀手 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Credits (Windows version)

401 People (355 developers, 46 thanks) · View all

President and CEO
Managing Director (Europe)
Executive and Line Producer
Vice President Marketing
Lead Product Marketing Manager
Marketing Director (Europe)
Marketing Brand Manager (Europe)
Product Manager France
Product Manager Germany
Product Manager UK
Product Manager Spain
Product Manager Italy
Marketing Creative Director
Illustrations
Graphics Management
Director of International Communications
PR Coordinator
PR Manager (France)
PR Assistant (Europe)
PR (Kohnke Communications)
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 45 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 81 ratings with 5 reviews)

A new incarnation of Quake...or not quite?

The Good
The candy. Ohhh the eye- candy. Absolutely stunning graphics, great level design (extremely straightforward, but graphically impressive), amazing textures. And artistic choice of coloring. The physics (Havok 2) are also impressive- one can spend hours experimenting with the rag doll effects, the angle of impalement, the effect on each leg, member, head and so forth.

Another attempt for "depth" is the Tarot Card system. Each level carries an objective- kill all monsters, collect all gold, destroy all objects, complete level only with a certain weapon. If the objective is completed, the player is awarded with a Tarot card. These are used in game, costing a given sum of gold coins, they give away 2X damage, speed, etc.

The multiplayer aspect is of great importance- the expected modes are all there, and some new ideas are brought to flesh correctly (namely, the People Can Fly mode). The community of Pro-Gamers have been expecting this game, and major tournaments have incorporated it in their schedules.

Other cool stuff: the mini-bosses, the big-bosses, the dark mood. The demon mode: a time-limited god-mode called forth when 65 souls (dropped from perished enemies) are collected. The story (if you like silly scenarios while blasting away at the legions of doom).



The Bad
This is an extremely straightforward and simple game- Daniel dies, gets stuck in the Purgatory and must banish 4 great generals of evil... and the zillions of demons before them. All exits close when the player enters a new area- the monsters come rushing in and head straight for the bored Daniel. No tactics are involved- just speed and quick turns. Once all are dead, on to the next area. The weapons- yes, they are very perty... but the shotgun is too powerful at times. Each level presents a maximum of four different monsters- there is no variety in terms of monster models within a level. AI is completely absent.

I do not like comparisons, but many have used Serious Sam when describing Painkiller. Well, Painkiller is in fact, even more straightforward and simplistic at its core. No weird levels, no reverse gravity, no round, revolving stages: its the same "all exits close/monsters appear/monsters are slain/exits open" again and again. Its level design, in terms of architect, visualization and imaginitive use of tools, seems to suffer greatly at this point.

Other uncool stuff: The cut scenes: they seem to be missing something- i think it's called "persuasiveness". The story (if you want profound stories wrapping your gaming experience).

The Bottom Line
Somehow, it +feels+ like a Quake-game, simple and straightforward. At times, TOO simple- not even a duck command is included.

As one, a flood of mods is expected (the first mod is up as you read these lines...). My point is: Painkiller is a decent enough game. It will get a lot better.

Windows · by Kuv (59) · 2004

Return of old-school FPS

The Good
Daniel Garner is in Purgatory since his car accident. He's been separated from his wife Catherine, who is waiting for him in Heaven. Something about being not pure. One day, Sammael, an angel, gives him a mission: kill four guys. Four generals of the hellish army. Daniel accepts. If he succeeds, he'll join Catherine. He's standing in a Cemetery, weapon in hand, waiting for his first serious battle with a demon. He's the Painkiller. He's you.

Nice introduction, no? I could have done better, well, I did but in my native language, French. But we're not here to discuss about my creative skills. No, we're here for one of the most enjoyable FPS I've played: Painkiller. And well, it brings some good ideas, aside from the fact that Painkiller is an old-school FPS, you don't need brains for playing it. Just follow the successive areas, kill some demons and enjoy the gameplay.

First good point is the Black Tarot. How to obtain the cards? Play on Insomnia or Nightmare difficulty and you'll have the card... if you pass the unique challenge in each level. Let me explain the difference between silver and gold cards. Silver ones are useful during the level, even if you can only carry two at the same time. Be wise when you're choosing them, remember that for a boss fight, you can't use a card like Soul Catcher but if you have Forgiveness (gold cards use per level is two times instead of one), don't hesitate to pick it. Gold cards are limited in time and use, so, it's up to you to trigger their effects at the right moment because, unless you've chosen Mercy (3 uses) or Forgiveness (see above) as silver card, you can only make one use per level.

Second thing, difficulty makes harder the quest of the cards. Daydream is the easiest difficulty setting - I'm always playing in the easiest mode first - but Tarot isn't available. Add to this that you can't play 3 levels. That means that if you want to really enjoy the game, you must play in Insomnia where Tarot card is available, as one of the 3 blocked levels (Abandoned Factory in chapter 3 and its waves of Skeleton Soldiers). Then Nightmare is harder than the two previous ones: cheats codes don't work anymore - aaargh, I wish I could play with the god mode for some passages - . But you can play another level who was forbidden to access: Prison in chapter 2. I'll make a confidence: I don't know how I survived it but I did. And then Trauma, only available after beating Nightmare, will give access to the last level you couldn't play before - Forest in chapter 4. But you can't play chapter 5 because of a different ending and enemies don't let green souls, useful for morphing into a demon. And you've understood that your usual Black Tarot deck must change for surviving in this cruel world... in the cruel Purgatory.

Third positive point is the fact that every level has specific enemies s to it, even if it's an advance version of another one: Templars in Babel for example shoot three arrows when the Templars in the Palace are only shooting one. Enemies have a great design, I love the Samourais or the Arabian Warrior. Rare are the games with this particularity.

Fourth good point is the originality of the weapons. Don"t be sad about the fact that you have only 5 available. But each one has two (or three - discovered by the players) ways to kill the demons: for example, stakegun is also a grenade launcher. So, you have choice between the Painkiller (the unlimited ammo weapon), the Stakegun, the Freezer Shotgun, the Rocket Gatling and the Electroshuriken (or Electrodriver). Stakegun is probably the most original weapon and Electroshuriken the most beautiful.

Fifth point is the quality of the graphics, even with 4 years of age. Levels are beautiful and I can't only applause for the variety of them: from an old Asylum (scary and shocking - don't let children play with PK) to a Castle without forgetting an Old Monastery or Docks, you're traveling between insane places to religious buildings or to modern places. The game is divided in 5 chapters with a boss at the end, generally a general or for the last level, Hell, Lucifer himself.

And last but not least, the soundtrack is marvelous: vocals, hard rock, everything is just at the right place. My favorite are the ambient from Atrium, Cathedral, Old Monastery, Military Base, the Palace and Castle. Oh yeah, when you're hearing the beginning of an hard rock track, be prepared to fight against demons!

The Bad
If Painkiller was perfection, I would have erected a statue to the first game to ever gain a 20/20 on me since I'm 13/14. Before, I was too young to really see the defaults of a game. But back to Painkiller. It's not perfection. And here are the reasons:

Repetitive fights are getting on your nerves, especially with the Skeleton Soldiers in chapter 3: you never know when it will end. And you're even wondering if it will effectively end.

Difficulty can also be a negative point. Even if the way of presenting it is original (well, it's not the usual "more enemies in highest difficulty"), Nightmare and Trauma are really challenges. In Nightmare, I've never passed the Swamp Thing for example - I've played the last blocked level because one player solved the problem of accessibility, it's perhaps cheating but it was first for making Chapter 5 available in Trauma.

Another one negative point is the useless cards like Divine Intervention (effect: placing cards in the board doesn't cost a thing) who is totally useless for players.

The fact that you have only 5 weapons can be a disappointment for some players (but remember, it's a two in one). It's not an arsenal like Half-Life or Rainbow Six but originality is the keyword here.

And some moves are difficult to master: Lead Jump (well, the fact that you can direct your jump with moving your mouse) and PK Jump (use your painkiller on an object when jumping and you'll jump higher) for example.

The Bottom Line
Painkiller is a victorious return of the FPS old-school like Doom or Serious Sam, where Will Rock, released in 2003, failed. Lock, load and shoot is your motto. 2004 was also the year of Doom 3 release. What a year for the old-school FPS! Last thing before concluding the review: I played with the demo on my 5-years-old laptop (in 2008), with some slowing times. But the complete game, I couldn't install it on my laptop (normal) and on my previous computer. Luckily, I've got a new one on 2006, so, I could enjoy the magnificent graphics. I just wanted to point that if you've bought a computer before 2003/04, Painkiller will not work - my previous one was from 2001/02.

Painkiller is a good game, you'll have a lot of fun with its famous stakegun and I must warn you, Painkiller can cause addictiveness. And even if I'm writing in 2008, Painkiller didn't lose of its charm. I strongly recommend it. With its add-on, released later in 2004, Battle out of Hell and perhaps Overdose, the free mod which became a costing stand-alone, Painkiller is one of these games with a coherent universe.

Windows · by vicrabb (7272) · 2008

The gimmick is not really one after all.

The Good
I had completed my task of beating the top rated and hyped up shooters of 2004 and being impressed by the visuals and gameplay of Farcry, UT2004, Half Life 2 and the little disappointing Doom 3, I had one last game to nail and that was “Painkiller”. 2004 certainly was a good year for the FPS genre, we saw a lot of varieties in the shooters, from horror to sci-fi to a debuting tropical tactical shooter, oh yeah there was Halo 2 but no real FPS fan cares about that garbage. This particular game by a relatively unknown company called People Can Fly added into the variety by bringing back the old school fps style in the modern age. Yes this game is supposed to bring back the gameplay of the original Doom, Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem 3d etc. But not quite.

Painkiller certainly bases its core gameplay upon the elements of those titles. But the thing that makes Painkiller have it's own identity is that it has excluded many of the famous cliches, such as finding keycards to open doors and carved in a little twist of it's own. The gameplay is simple, blast through hundreds of baddies and after you cleared an area move to another checkpoint until it's time for the exit to spawn. Each enemy after killed leaves back their soul, collect 66 of these and you morph into this badass demon. Oh and trust me the effect given for that feature is spot on.

Also you have something known as Tarot cards. While being extremely fitting to the game's theme, these cards can ease the frustration you may face in a level. Each level has an optional condition you must fulfill and if you do, you unlock a tarot card. Conditions range from finding all secret areas, playing a level with a particular weapon only, to beating a boss in under a specified time. These cards are either Silver or Gold, silver having 2 slots and Gold having 3. Silver cards are the equivalent of a passive skill in a RPG, while gold cards can only be used once and last for a particular time limit. Now if you're really good with shooters, you won't rely much on these tarot cards, in fact the game can be beaten without them. But they can help you greatly in fulfilling the other tarot card conditions, if you've played the game you'll understand what I mean. No matter what this does add depth into the game, you will think about which card combination to choose which will help you collect all souls or take down the bosses in less than 4 minutes. Therefore Painkiller is not simply a mindless shooter.

The three most important aspects of a FPS is Weapons, Enemies and Level Design. Painkillers succeeds greatly in those areas. The weapons are kind of unique and at the same time uses modern aesthetics such as alternate fire. Each weapon acts as 2 weapons for e.g. The Shotgun is also a Freezer and the shuriken gun is also an electro-gun, you get the point. Also what surprises me is that this somewhat cheesy combination works very well. The freezer compliments the shotgun the best, so does the lightning and shuriken and the Rocket Launcher/Chaingun combination is the most chaotic thing I've seen since Unreal Tournament's redeemer. The Stakegun is insane fun, it's fun and satisfying to see stakes impaling the monsters to the wall.

The developers have certainly paid attention to the monsters and bosses in regards to concept, modeling and detailing. I'll admit they certainly lack the personality the monsters in the Doom and Halflife series have but 99% of modern fps games do. PK's enemies do come close to that greatness no doubt, there is lot of diversity here, from monks to old haggard ladies to bikers to Arabian warriors, there is just so much here. The bosses? Some of them are freaking huge and are really intimidating especially that Necrogiant!!! Doom 3's Cyberdemon is a joke compared to the intimidating and size factor of these guys.

Level design? Seriously, one of the best in any game, any genre. There are a few which are just “good” for e.g the train station, cemetery etc. But some will blow your mind. They set an atmosphere, engross you in, make your keyboard wet with drool! Speaking of drooling, that's all you're going to be doing on the last stage entitled “Hell”. I'm serious I was taken away but the final output and concept behind it, very unpredictable. I was expecting the cliched look you got from similar themed games. But props to whoever was responsible for this level. Overrated shooters like Halo are aeons away from this kind of level design. Simply put the level design is this game's highest point.

The graphics are perfect so is the sound. From the creepy whispers at the start of a level to the Celtic like chanting at the end. Music is well composed and fits well into the levels. The physics go on par with Halflife 2. It's no secret that they both use the Havok physics engine but it's implemented well into the game. From the falling rubble to the ragdolls getting impaled into the wall. The technological aspect of this game is pure win!

The Bad
You're probably going “Hey where the hell is any mention of the story”. Well the story is the weakest link in this game, no doubt the plan looks good. You play a guy Daniel driving his wife to her birthday dinner, he takes his eyes of the wheel and he bangs into a truck. They both die she ascends to heaven he is stuck in Purgatory because of a few sins. He is asked by Samael to kill 4 generals of Lucifer and then he can ascend and meet his wife.

Sadly while it sounds interesting at first, the execution is bad. Sure they have put in a lot of work on the cut scenes which happen after every chapter. But it's just not interesting at all even though I love games based on the concept of hell. I feel this is where they could have done a lot more, like have back stories to each level or something. There is just nothing that motivates me to take interest in the story except going “Oh boy nice filler cutscene there, I think i can see Eve's nipple..DAMN YOU PASTIES!!!”.

Now I did write a whole paragraph on tarot cards, so sorry here is another one. Some of the Tarot card conditions are just ridiculous. If you're going to try and unlock all tarot cards expect excessive frustration, they should have put that on the box cover. And speaking of tarot cards, well some of them are either gimmicky or just useless. Not saying all are but what I really would like was some more thought put into it.

Another gripe is that, 2 levels are locked out from the 3 difficulties and only available on Trauma, the final difficulty level.

The Bottom Line
Now for a simple game like Painkiller, what makes it so entertaining even in the modern day when you got more complicated titles like Farcry and System Shock? It takes the fun factor of olden shooters, pushes forward a lot of eye candy and eargasms, drives insanity into your keyboard and tops it off with some well thought of ideas. It is sad that it lacks a good story and a bit annoying factors regarding the tarot cards. But at least this game put on more on the table than so called “revolutionary” titles such as Halo did. Painkiller is not everyone's cup of tea but if you enjoy modern mindless shooters such as Serious Sam and such you will love this game. The Old School revival tag is not some gimmick it's for real!

PS: If you're not going to play this at least check out the hell level from screenshots or youtube.

Windows · by dreamstealer (126) · 2009

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

E-Sports

On October 14, 2004, the CPL (Cyberathlete Professional League) announced that Painkiller was chosen as the official game for their $1,000,000 CPL World Tour. The competition maps are designed by Todd Rose, Richard Heath and Russel Meakim from Ritual Entertainment.

A month later, on November 20, 2004, the CPL announced that they had cut a deal with Dreamcatcher Interactive that gives them worldwide rights for the use of multiplayer Painkiller in any online or live tournament with cash or merchandise prizes.

German version

In the German version, blood was re-colored green and enemies don't burst.

Leak

In January 2004, four months prior to the release, a hefty multi-player alpha build was leaked to the internet. Dreamcatcher was unable to trace the source and could only warn fans that the leak was not representative for the final game.

Patch

The latest patches (1.61 and higher) adds new graphic features, such as the Bloom effect and more resolutions. Two more weapons are also added, an SMG with a Flame Thrower and another gun similar to the shotgun and Stake Gun.

Protagonist

Daniel Garner, the hero of Painkiller, was originally envisioned and prototyped as slick, gun-toting Latin American with a wardrobe reminiscent of Miami Vice, before being reinvented as a the tough and troubled everyman he is in the final game.

Technology

Painkiller is one of the few games 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 maintain 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 maintain 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 recommended 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.

Awards

  • Computer Games Magazine
    • March 2005 - #3 Game of the Year 2004
  • Computer Gaming World
    • March 2005 (Issue #249) – Single-Player Shooter of the Year
    • March 2005 (Issue #249) – Best Weapon of the Year (for The Painkiller)
  • GameSpy
    • 2004 – Most Pleasent Surprise of the Year (PC)
  • PC Gamer
    • 2004 - FPS of the Year

Information also contributed by Ghostbreed, PCGamer77, rstevenson, Scott Monster and Zovni

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Related Games

Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell
Released 2004 on Windows
Painkiller: Gold Edition
Released 2004 on Windows
Painkiller: Overdose
Released 2007 on Windows
Painkiller: Redemption
Released 2011 on Windows
Painkiller: Resurrection
Released 2009 on Windows
Painkiller Triple Dose
Released 2008 on Windows
Painkiller: Hell & Damnation - Anti-Christmas DLC
Released 2013 on Windows, Linux, 2014 on Macintosh
Fear Surrounds
Released 2021 on Windows
F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon
Released 2005 on Windows, 2006 on Xbox 360, 2007 on PlayStation 3

Related Sites +

  • All About Painkiller
    Fan site about Painkiller and its add-on, Battle out of Hell, with gallery, guide, secrets, videos, etc.
  • Hall of Pain
    Fan shrine to Painkiller and its add-on with a complete list of enemies, videos, a mod created by Varus, the webmaster, called The Hills and an interactive Tarot Guide. Also available in German.
  • Official Website
    Official Publisher Website for Painkiller (Flash required)
  • Painkiller Euro
    European painkiller fansite with news, cups and tools.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 12938
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Brian Gladman.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, tarmo888, Sciere, Xoleras, vicrabb, Patrick Bregger, Đarks!đy ✔.

Game added April 23, 2004. Last modified March 11, 2024.