Painkiller

"No One in Their Right Mind Should Buy This Game"

Okay, let me first start out by saying that this is not going to be like one of my normal game reviews. I'm not going to score this game like I do in my regular reviews based on graphics, sounds, gameplay, etc…

Why not? Well there are a few reasons. First and foremost, I had so many technical and buggy issues with Painkiller that I don't feel it would be fair to judge a game that I was barely able to play. Secondly, this is the lowest scoring game I have ever scored on Gamefaqs, and I feel that despite this, I simply must tell people out there that are thinking of purchasing this game that they should not.

Not only this, but I have a nice, long history of trying to get this game to work on multiple PCs, with multiple patches, with multiple versions of the game. So I feel the need to share my story with anyone thinking of buying this game. Simply put, do not buy this game.

By the gamefaqs definition of a “1” scored game, it is an un-playable mess, and that is what I have encountered with Painkiller. Let me back up a bit and explain myself a bit and my PC gaming background.

I have been playing PC games since the dawn of the original Diablo, Duke Nukem 3D, and the original Quake. So I have spent a good bit of time in my gaming life in front of a PC. Since I've been PC gaming for so long, I've become very accustomed to installing games, removing them, knowing where the games drop their files, installing patches, installing expansion packs, updating map packs, playing games online, and pretty much everything else that comes with PC gaming.

On top of this, I've been building my own gaming PCs for years now, so I'm very familiar with the hardware end of things, understanding system requirements, the importance of video driver updates, etc…..

So for me to come out and say that Painkiller is the buggiest and most technically pathetic game I have ever played is saying something, since I have been through years and years of PC gaming.

The Beginning of My Painkiller Story

My story and involvement with Painkiller began a long time ago when I became a zealot of the Serious Sam games. I'm talking about the First and Second Encounters. I still have yet to play Serious Sam II. After completing the First and Second Encounters, I was looking for something along the same lines, meaning a mindless fps shooter in the same vein of Serious Sam.

When I first heard of the game Painkiller, I was so excited. From what I gathered at the time, it was a darker version of the Serious Sam games with some really cool weapons and lots of blood. So when Painkiller finally came out, I rushed out to the store to buy it, and made sure that my PC was up to snuff, which it was.

I installed the game first thing and tried to play it right away. However, this is where my problems with Painkiller began.

Dare You Read On?

When I double clicked the icon to start the game, the very first screen that came up, which was for the logo of the company that made the game, froze within seconds. I could not exit out of the program and my PC had completely locked up. I had to do a hard reboot on the PC to even get it to respond at all.

After seeing this happen a few more times, I tried to re-install the game to no avail. I soon gave up on the game and figured that a patch would get released in due time, so I sat tight and waited for that to happen. Unfortunately, it did, and Painkiller received a few patches.

I downloaded the new patches and re-installed the game at a much later date. However, I encountered the same problems as before and the patches seemed to fix nothing for me.

After this, I started to think that it was my computer, even though all of my other games were running fine on it. So I took it to a friend's house who was running a decent gaming PC with Windows 2000. We tried to install it on his PC, but ran into the same problem with the game locking up right away and not even letting us play it.

Thinking that there were still bugs to be ironed out with the game, I put Painkiller back on my shelf and waited for another patch to be released. In the interim, I decided to pick up the newly released “Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell” Expansion Pack. This way when the game gets fixed, I will be able to play it right after I finish the first release of Painkiller.

At this point I had become tired of waiting for patches and updates for the game, so I forgot about Painkiller, but left it on my shelf for later playing. I played many games in the meantime without any problems.

The Story Goes On

Within the past year, I decided to build my 4th gaming PC to replace my older one. I finished it, and the system specs are once again far above what Painkiller requires. With everything loaded and installed on my new PC, I was ready to do some gaming and test out my new SLI rig.

I installed Bioshock, which ran beautifully. Then I installed two free MMOs which I play every now and then, Archlord and Flyff. Both of them installed, updated and ran fine. Then I decided that it was time to see if Painkiller would run on my new, freshly installed PC. I installed Painkiller, and at this point I was full of apprehension, almost to the point of not even caring anymore.

Sure enough, the game would not start after the install. I patched it and tried again, but I had no luck. Seeing how I had now tried this game on 3 PCs, with and without patches, and with different brands of video cards, I decided to toss the game along with the expansion pack and consider them junk and wasted purchases.

However, this is not the end of my story.

The Recurrence of Insanity

Having completely forgotten about Painkiller and the horrible time I had with it, I was at the store just recently and noticed the “Painkiller: Triple Dose Pack”, which featured Painkiller, Battle Out of Hell and Painkiller Overdose which was a new game in the series.

I quickly shrugged it off and walked away. I went home and thought to myself: “What if this release finally fixed the bugs that plagued the original game?”

I decided to get it since it was only $20. I took it home and found that the package had the original Painkiller and Battle Out of Hell on one DVD, which was nice. So I installed it, hoping for the best.

While things actually ran this time, there were still some major issues and gameplay crashes. I would say about 50% of the time I tried to play this new release of Painkiller, the game still locks up at the game developer screen and required a hard boot of the PC to unlock. When the game would run, it was pretty fun, but at the end of every level, it was a crap shoot to see if the game was going to end suddenly and crash out.

At this point, I was so mad that I had been suckered into buying the game again and just tossed it, never to play it again. I was more concerned about the game harming my new PC due to all of the lock ups and required reboots to play the game.

Conclusion

No one should buy this game unless they want to deal with a game that is pervaded with technical issues and bugs that will crash your computer over and over. It's really a shame too since the game was fun for the short while I was able to play it, but it's not worth risking my PC for.

Behold, my lowest score I have ever given to a game on gamefaqs. I normally would not even bother wasting my time writing a review for something so bad, but if this review deters one person from buying this game and not having to deal with what I went through, it will be worth it to me.

I also felt the need to tell my story since it's quite expansive and almost unbelievable. Well I'm going to go see if I can pick up Painkiller: Hell Wars for the Xbox and finally give Painkiller the full play through that I want to.

I just hope the game doesn't melt my Xbox or cause my house to explode. >_>

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 09/02/08

Game Release: Painkiller (US, 04/12/04)