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a mind numbingly repeatative Serious Sam clone.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: May 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I should have read more online reviews of this game before I wasted my money on it. Let me say that I did not enjoy Serious Sam. Serious Sam, as with this game, is a bunch of wide open areas with tons of bad guys swamping you at every turn. The weapons are woefully inadequte for mass combat. The boss levels are tedious and aggravating. There is a serious lack of ammo in relation to the number of bad guys you encounter. There is a variety of weapons, but in most cases only one or two weapons are useful at any one time. I have a good system and video card (amd 3200 64 bit, 512mb ram, geforce fx 5200) and I have to turn most of the graphics stuff down or else it runs completely sluggish. This is typical of a Dreamcatcher FPS.

The good aspects of the game are that it looks great. The levels are detailed, spooky, and dark. The Asylum level is nifty with the background screams and such. There are definitly some fun parts of the game.

Overall, unless you enjoy mindlessly circling hoardes of monsters and using your quicksave constantly, I would advise against purchasing this game. This game is two steps backward as far as FPS games go.

Seriously, it is decent eye candy, but worthless as a FPS.

What the hell is this????!!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: August 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

You gotta be kidding me... This is why I threw my DOOM game away! All this game is about mindless shooting! No plot to the game at all, just run around and kill things! Hey! I LOVE FPS but this is ridiculous! This is the first game I've bought in a LONG time that isn't worth the money. Oh sure, the graphics are ok, even a bit spooky, but geez, gimme a break! It must've been designed for mindless gamers without any other purpose other than to shoot things... What a waste! You go from one level to the next, mindlessly shooting creatures. Over and over and over again... Don't waste your money! Buy Far Cry. It's by far the best game out so far...

Good game-back to FPS basics

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: April 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This review is based on the demo.
Painkiller is an addicting and fun, albeit simple shooter. Watching an enemy fly into the air and then crash to the ground is hilarious (a bit demented but hilarious). Don't expect intelligent AI, think back to Doom or Wolfenstein 3D but with incredible graphics and great sound. An onslaught of enemies with plenty of ammo. Great game for those who just want to kill and blow stuff up without the extra sneaking and hiding. No complex puzzles or "move the chair here...run along the top and jump to the banister while blowing a hole in the wall...crouch and you will find the secret weapon" stuff, just all out in your face action.

Even though the game is not OUT YET...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: March 31, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is a blast from Quake's past.

I am rather surprised to see so many customer reviews of a game that has not even gone gold yet. Additionally, I am NOT very surprised to see "thinking man" shooter fans bashing a game, which, by design, is a brainless, arcade, and FUN distraction. Thankfully, you cannot compare this game to the "been there, done that" mainstream creativity pit that tactical shooting games have mostly fallen into lately. Comfortable game development often doesn't lead to innovation.

Believe it or not, folks, not ALL of us are blindly in love with mainstream titles like Battlefield, Counter Strike, or America's Army. For us (and quite a few others), there is Painkiller, and the game delivers very well... or so I believe. Like the others that have posted reviews bashing this game, I have only played the fabulous demo at this point. My verdict is this: This is better than Serious Sam and Quake, but right up their ally. That's a good thing.

Disappoints

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: August 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Basic Game Design: Enter a room, be swarmed by monsters

Graphics: Dark graveyard decor soon palls. Difficult to appreciate when you are being swarmed by monsters...

Overall boring - no hooks in this game

A frag fest with a great physics engine

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Painkiller is little more than a platform to show off cutting-edge game physics. There's no AI, no puzzles, and not much story--but that doesn't mean it isn't a blast. It's just one big frag fest, but it's one big frag fest done right. And that's coming from someone who didn't like Serious Sam (too repetitive). I never got tired of seeing how the baddies react to the weapons in Painkiller. The stake gun yanks them backwards and pins them against walls, the electrical weapon leaves them sizzling and jerking after they're dead, and the painkiller weapon (imagine a big horizontal blender blade) grinds them down to ever smaller chunks. It's not a "great" game, but it is a very good game that pulls off its modest goals with great success. Hopefully upcoming games (and you know what they are!) will have physics this good along with their more ambitious AI and story elements.

A slaughter

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: February 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Having played the demo:

+++Good things
+ Original Weapons (a stake gun, how sweet :))
+ A dark and squalid atmosphere (nice marriage between the detailed textures,the fog and the music)
+ A lot of monsters, like the old-fashioned doom-like.

---Bad things
- I would like our avatar to go faster (used to Unreal Tournament) for a fps like this (not a prob with my config, it was not lagging, I play with a p4 2.4ghz, ati radeon9800, 1gig Ram)
- Not that original (very quake1,2-like), seem to lack some story (but that could get more interesting in the full game I guess)
- It's a killing-rush, nothing smart really as in a Half-Life

Therefore I give it a 4 stars.

-1 because it's not that original, and 4 as it is seems very well developped.

ItsPainsMeSo

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: April 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game has some serious issues. I'm experiencing so many problems to get this game to run. Also, it will locked up my computer when I exit the game to Windows. Just goes to their Dreamcatcher's website and see all the problems that some of the people are having. Hopefully, the fix that is scheduled for release on th 19th will resolve these major glitches.

1 word: WOW

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: May 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I got one word for this game, WOW. This game will keep you glued to the screen for hours. Insane graphics and soundtrack. Incredible AI keeps you stuck trying to beat this game forever.

This does Doom better than Doom did SoD

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: June 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

For fans of old school FPSs this game is a must buy. You find yourself in halfway between Hell and Heaven. Those 'above' say you weren't pure in your life and killing Lucifer's generals would make you worthy to enter Heaven and see your long-dead girlfriend. Simple story, awesome gameplay. As you battle your way, getting ever closer to Hell's gates you fight horde after horde of Hell's minions

Gameplay:
This is your typical first-person shooter. Shoot, strafe, and jump your way to victory. Unique weapons add to the flavor. I particularily enjoyes the configurations provided by the weapons. Between primary and secondary fire, you come out with balanced weapons that work up close and devastate from afar. The addition of "demon morphing" adds a kick to the fun. If you're a fan of Cowboy Bebop, just think of going into a red-eye franzy.
Add in a card system where you can add attributes to your character and you will find yourself a non-stop killing machine.
The save system is very nice, offering a plethora of auto-saves before any large horde. It also has the standard quick save and manual saves for backup fulfillment.

Graphics:
This game is absolutely stunning. The level designers are absolute genii. There are some levels, the last boss battle especially, that literally have you running around just trying to get a glimpse of everything they have constructed.
It is, therefore, very graphic intesive. I had some slowdowns on my system at 1024x780 and had to lower my resolution to 800x600. However, with all the settings turned on, the way the game utilizes the anti-aliasing on my FX5200 I was hard pressed to tell the difference in resolutions.
They Pain 3d engine has some stunning physics models to boot. The ragdoll physics in one of its crowning achievements. Every enemy and item in the game has a center of gravity, and that center is exactly where you would expect it to be. There is nothing better than vaulting an enemy into the air with a well placed blast from your shotgun.
The monster models are spectacular and the rendering of the bosses will make your jaw drop. In a word, they are big.

Sound & Music:
The sound effects are good, both direct and ambient. Nothing is repeated that needs to be repeated and there was never a time when I wanted to take off my headphones for fear of boring my ears. The game makes good use of any EAX hardware you might have, adding that extra environmental oomph to your gameplay.
The Music is very good. I prefer the ambient music, but you will be hard pressed to hear it over the ever persistant battle music. However, my only gripe is that the battle music gets tedious after a bit. It serves a purpose letting you know monsters are about and for that it's alright. It's just not my kind of music so it grates on my nerves after a bit.

Overall
Contrary to the caps-lock induced speil of the games many flaws below, all I have to say is if you don't have a good gaming rig, this thing will be a pain. The only bugs I found had me, at the worst part, restart the level. The game crashed to desktop once but that was do to me running too many programs in the background. The game is fun on normal difficulty and actually challenging on hard. The ability to unlock cards, and extra levels as you go up in difficulty adds replayabilty so you won't find yourself lacking a replay. All in all a worthy buy that I highly endorse.

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