Painkiller Hell & Damnation Review

They don’t make games like Painkiller: Hell & Damnation anymore. On a personal level I like to think there’s a good reason for that, but whilst playing this game it really is like looking through a window to the past, which is funny because the original Painkiller was ‘only’ made in 2004. Still, play through either title and you’ll instantly be reminded of the days before Epic found Gears of War, and before they made that film of Doom with The Rock. Jumping because it’s faster to move that way (which is a bonkers way of designing a game), small compartmentalised levels with no story and a lot of mobs… it’s all there.

The single-player campaign offers up a marmite situation like no other – you will either love it or you will hate it. Well, moderately dislike anyway. To make sure we’re all on the same page, this campaign is actually a brand new story that uses remade versions of the old levels.

It’s like a budget Halloween convention or something…

Daniel Garner is still dead and still rather pissed off that everyone is screwing around with him, but along comes Death with an offer: Collect 7000 souls (an odd and very arbitrary number), and he can finally meet his beloved wife. This simple and rather open ended premise takes you through all the old haunts from the original game, from the Cemetery, to the Opera House and more, and all you really have to do is kill everything in sight.

And here lies the core problem with games like – it’s mindless. The game is split into four chapters, each chapter containing three levels (with the first chapter having four). These chapters are bookended by cutscenes to fill in what little plot there is, but all you really do is go to the next location and kill everything. It’s not like you have to go hunt the enemies down either – they all come straight for you and so you actually spend most of your time running backwards to give yourself enough room.

Sometimes you’ll go into an area just to kill everything, only to come straight back out again. It’s all rather pointless. There are secrets and relics dotted around the map, if you care to spare the time to indulge in the crazy-backwards-arse thinking that you need to discover these things, but that’s about it.

That gun is pretty cool. That boss not so much.

Multiplayer is an entirely different story though – the jumping to increase speed (still bonkers), the pinpoint accuracy...for highly competitive gamers Painkiller offers a platform that positively oozes skill. The principles of Quake/Unreal skill-based gameplay haven’t died in recent years; they’ve only evolved into new forms like Counter-Strike, Call of Duty and Halo. From the 8-player ‘Survivor’ mode to the more traditional offerings of (Team)Deathmatch and Capture the Flag, this is an experience every bit as fun as modern shooters today, and every bit as classic as games of old. Some of the weapons may need re-balancing, especially that electric gun, but this is where you’ll spend most of your time, and it’ll be fun.

In a way, it’s the weapons that are the real stars of this game. Classic ones like the shotgun and the stake thrower from the old game return, and new ones like the Soul-Catcher (whose main function is through sharp spinny blades at mobs). My personal favourite is what I call the “ShankTron 500”, which is essentially a Close-quarter weapon that has a revolving set of blades that you use to chop people up.

Every weapon as a secondary functions as well, although these require separate specific ammo to use which can be rarer than the primary ammo. Plus it is nice to turn into a Demon every time you collect 66 souls, then you just waste everybody simply by looking at them (and then clicking). It makes a rather intriguing tactical choice out of the whole thing – do you collect the souls (which double as health) and risk triggering the great slaughter at a naff moment, or do you deliberately hold back? The choice, as they say, is yours.

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAAHAH!

I could say a lot of technically bad things about Painkiller – mindless, stupid, old-fashioned, bizarre… but it’s been given so much care and attention that none of it really matters. It does the mindless, oddly pointless single-player campaign extremely well and the re-done levels are both visually diverse and interesting; great homage to the original game. Multiplayer is compact and refined, and provides a highly competitive platform that’s a lot of fun (for we are all competitive creatures).

Would I recommend that you buy it? Well, that’s a more difficult question – as a fan, absolutely… but outside of that you’re looking at an old-fashioned FPS with highly religious themes, and a niche audience. With such a star-studded market, there’s plenty of other games you could spend your money on. But if you’re looking for something new… well, you could do worse.

Shanking the feet of this giant troll thing was oddly satisfying… right up until the point he stomped on me, that is.