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Painkiller

aka: PK, Painkiller: Verega Ristitud

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

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

Related Games

Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell
Released 2004 on Windows
Painkiller: Gold Edition
Released 2004 on Windows
Painkiller: Redemption
Released 2011 on Windows
Painkiller: Overdose
Released 2007 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.

Last modified March 9th, 2023.