Painkiller

Of the many exciting offerings this year's Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3) held for PC gamers, one title clearly stands out in my mind. Not for pushing the visual envelope. Not for redefining the boundaries of first-person shooters (FPS). Not for concept, and certainly not for any slight hint of originality. In fact, it is Painkiller's lack of originality that drew me to it. "What?" you say? To put it plainly, I have eagerly, yet patiently waited for Croteam to announce the next episode, or full on sequel to one of my all-time favorite games, Serious Sam. I am still waiting. In the meantime, People Can Fly (Developer) has decided to step in and up the ante for whatever Croteam may or may not sooner or later unveil.

In a nutshell, Painkiller is the next "check your brain at the door", mindless, action-packed, adrenaline inducing FPS title set for release, though not soon enough (October 2003). Precisely in the vein of Serious Sam, complete with the "oh crap! My nose itches, and I can't scratch it!" effect that non-stop, relentless battles tend to cause, Painkiller sets itself apart from its predecessors with… errr… hmmm… its name?

All joking aside, Painkiller does have its stand-outs, placing itself properly on the timeline of gaming evolution. As one would expect, with the ever progressing state of technology, and the boundaries imposed by next-generation games alone, Painkiller looks substantially better than any former game of this type – again, Serious Sam being the most recent comparable. People Can Fly could have taken the tried and true approach of licensing an engine, such as the Unreal Warfare engine, Quake III engine (Die already Quake III engine! Die!), or even the most logical choice, the Serious engine. But that would have been 1) Too easy and 2) Quite lacking. Now before you say "the hell you say! The Unreal Warfare engine is the most capable readily available engine – Source and Doom III engines withstanding", one has to realize the design of each engine and their aim. Croteam designed their engine to suit one specific purpose: Effortlessly provide more onscreen enemies/characters/mayhem than any engine could currently muster, present the largest levels seen in an FPS, and look pretty while doing it. While I hesitate to say that the Unreal engine is incapable of simultaneously performing these feats, I do know that I have as of yet to see an example. Due to the Serious engines aging looks and capabilities, People Can Fly were left with the only logical choice: Build their own gosh-darned engine!

And that they did. Painkiller needed to incorporate many of the graphical and physics achievements we've come to know and love since the release of Unreal Tournament 2K3, combined with the chaos Serious Sam (pick your 'Encounter') offered up. Boasting "100X the polygons of the latest shooters, while adding increased texture quality and the latest lighting and shadowing techniques", plus complete implementation of the Havok 2.0 physics engine, Painkiller is already headed in the right direction. I was able to get an in-depth briefing on the game as well as a few minutes of playtime at E3, and later some quality time with an early build DreamCatcher (Publisher) was kind enough to send along.

Let's get it On!

This is, of course, one of those games where storyline means next to nothing. But since someone went through the trouble of creating one and explaining it to me, I'll go ahead and relay it. The following paragraph can probably just be skipped, as again, story means nothing here. But I digress.

Caught in the middle of an unholy war – literally, you must battle all Hell has to offer in order to gain entrance to the pearly gates where your recently deceased beloved now resides. Fortunately for her, she was a decent and loving person in life, earning herself a ticket to Heaven. Unfortunately for you, you were not. The only way to be reunited with your loved one is to purify yourself by doing Heaven's bidding and kick demon ass! Oh, and there's a plot twist in their too.

So basically: You are some guy, in some place, shooting lots of things. Lots and lots of things! For more than 20 levels! YAY!

While it's still too early to place full judgment on the graphics and gameplay, I think it's pretty safe to say that Painkiller is going to be a hard game to beat. It will definitely set the new standard for chaotic shooters to follow – no doubt about that. Even in the incomplete state we received the previewable in, Painkiller visually outpaces any other game currently on my hard drive with ease. The build I played through contained three levels: Chaos Cathedral, Ruins (Boss Arena), and City on the Water. Each level showed off different aspects of what the Pain engine is capable of, and impressively so.

Chaos Cathedral, due to its dark indoor setting showed off the lighting and shadow aspect of the engine remarkably though not effortlessly. Optimizations have not yet been implemented, though I expect the final product to perform much more smoothly. However, the "can't scratch my nose" effect ensued, as endless waves of undead and hell spawn sought my very soul. The 'Ruins' was by far and wide the most astonishing level of the three. As I helplessly scurried as quickly as I could to put as much space between my character and twenty stories of an ungodly beast, I took a few fleeting moments admiring both the artistry of the enemy and design/destruction of the level. The level consisted of nothing more than a largish coliseum with huge arching stone structures and pillars, and the demon I was to do battle with. Doing my best to avoid the shockwave created by the enemy's enormous hammer that was able to send both my character and already fallen debris skyward, I tightly squeezed the trigger of my gattling-gun, hoping to inflict any sort of damage. As the beast tracked my every move, met by large strides, pillars and arches crumbled as my pursuer grazed past them. This was the physics portion of the engine at its finest. I have never seen destructible environments like this. The same stone blocks that had fallen to the ground were now both obstacles and threats. By the end of the battle, there were countless fragments and large chunks of stone strewn about the arena, making it truly look and feel as if some monumental battle had just taken place – one did!

The final playable level, City on the Water, featured a Venice from Hell motif. Enemies attacked from the balconies and rooftops of practically every building in sight. This level also showed off some of Painkiller's physics prowess, primarily that of the enemies. Sheer amounts of joy were expunged as I carefully took aim at oil drums within close vicinity of tubby hellish machine gun toting demons. A few quick bursts detonated the canisters, sending my foes airborne some several dozen feet into the air. Had they survived the initial explosion, I could have fired at their helplessly flailing bodies as they rained from the sky – which I did. A number of stairwell battles took place as each multi-tiered building allowed, resulting in an even more detailed look at the rag-doll physics as enemies tumbled down the stairs – the side-effect of my wrath. The best display of the rag-doll physics actually occurred in error, as a model's arm clipped through the ceiling from a well placed rocket. The lifeless body jiggled and swayed whilst dangling from the ceiling, as the momentum caused by the blast tapered.

Unfortunately, the beta only contained one weapon in each level. Chaos Cathedral featured a rather odd weapon that seemed to be a cross between a shotgun and machine gun. Whether you shot single rounds or emptied the short magazines, the weapon would pause between fire button presses as if pumping a shotgun. This caused an annoying delay between successive bursts of fire, though the weapon's secondary fire more than made up for this. The shotgun/machine gun weapon lobbed grenades which caused acceptable amounts of damage. The latter two playable levels featured a gattling-gun, which fired much more rapidly than the previous gun, and launched rockets as a secondary. I suspect there will be many more weapons available once the game is released.

Another notable feature of Painkiller is the ability to bunny-jump. For the unfamiliar: Bunny-jumping is a technique used to increase moving speed as well as jumping distances, usually by a "tap jump-tap jump again just before hitting the ground from the first jump" and repeating this as you move in no particular direction, gaining an increasing amount of speed and momentum. I was able to move my character at insane speeds once I got the hang of it, and used it to a large degree on the Ruins level, escaping certain 'pain'. Older deathmatch style games, such as Quake employed this feature, though I believe by accident. Regardless, Painkiller purposely employs it, and to great success.

Painkiller will include multiplayer support, though modes are still undefined. Certainly deathmatch and capture the flag are a given. I wouldn't hold it against People Can Fly if that is the extent of it though. That'll suit me just fine.

Personally, I can't wait for the final build of Painkiller. With its next-gen visual style, and – for me – highly enjoyable gameplay type, I expect Painkiller to be the next good joyride since Serious Sam. Even the hardware challenged should be able to enjoy this game, as the minimum system requirements are:

• OS: Windows 98\ME\2000\XP
• CPU: 1 GHz Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon processor
• RAM: 256 MB
• CD-ROM or DVD-ROM speed: 4x
• Hard Drive space: 1.2 GB available
• Video: 32 MB Direct 3D compatible video card
• Sound: DirectX 8.1b or better compatible sound card
• Input: keyboard and mouse

Of course, more enjoyment can probably be had on cutting edge hardware. J Keep an eye out for this one!