Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Surprisingly good"

I've been playing Painkiller a 2004 fantasy FPS. When I was playing the game I thought it's rare to see games like this today. The game has very good graphics for its time. It supports 1080p resolution and has a ton of graphical options in the menu. It still looks very good on my machine that I built last year.

It has four difficulty levels. Daydream, Insomnia, Nightmare and Trauma. The last one is unlocked if you can manage to unlock all 23 black tarot cards which give you nice bonuses in the game. This achievement/collectables system is very good if you ask me. They can completely be overlooked by an achievement hating player. I managed to unlock 6-7 cards, I don't remember exactly. I did some of them unknowingly but used what I unlocked in the game and they are nice really. I played the game on Insomnia difficulty.

The story is addressed with movies in between chapters. The game has 5 chapters and about 30 levels it should be if I remember correctly. In every chapter the player is introduced to new undead or monster units and you get a couple of new weapons throughout the game. There are many interesting enemy units in the game making it harder for you to get bored of shooting them. After I finished the game I was looking in a walkthrough if I missed something because I didn't like the ending even if I knew it was done so for the sake of the sequel and yes there was two endings. However, the better ending is achieved if you can unlock and play the game on Trauma difficulty and this time the game lasts for 4 chapters only.

Another important aspect of the game is giant bosses at the end of the chapters. When I say giant I mean it literally and almost all of them involves some kind of puzzle solving to defeat. The game turns into some kind of platforming also with leaving you to wonder which route should you take next or would you die if you jumped off from a crane down to containers on a ship as you get closer to the end. Level design is wonderful ranging from real world places to cliché horror settings.

In the end, I thought this game was very well made. The devs surely had both enough time and resources to do this game. It's really a pity that we see games like this rarely today.