ic-games Review - Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell Review - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

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Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell

Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell Review

Information
Reviewer: James Collins
Developer: People Can Fly
Publisher: Dreamcatcher
Reviewed: PC
Genre: First Person Horror
UK Release: 03rd Dec 2004
Article Date: 18th Dec 2004
Difficulty: Hard
Retail Price: £19.99
Price Comparison:
0

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 85%

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Pros

Scary

A worthy expansion

Tarot system

Cons

Confusing Bosses

Short

Screenshots

2 of 30

The first Installment of Painkiller had our central character, Daniel Gamer fighting against purgatory. This came about after Daniel and his wife were involved in a horrific traffic accident. Whilst his wife ends up in heaven, Daniel ends up in purgatory instead. If he wants to complete his journey to Heaven then he must first "complete" a task. The forces of hell were planning a final onslaught on Heaven, and you had to single-handedly kill all four generals of Lucifer's army.

But you did that right? So what does the next episode offer? Well if you were a fan of the original Painkiller you’ll be pleased to know that Battle out Of Hell brings more of the same to the table. Still blessed with the amazing Havok physics engine and the impressive Painkiller's proprietary 3D engine which is said to deliver over 100 times the polygons of even the most recent first person shooters and with texture quality on high, it's certainly not hard to see why, graphically Painkiller is in a world of its own. Refreshingly, even with everything ‘maxed out’ with our mediocre test machine with a lower end Barton 2000 and Radeon 8500 inside, everything ran smooth as silk.

Quite impressive considering the sheer volume of hell spawn that was on the screen during some of the hectic battles. 350,000 polygons displayed at any one time with barely any slowdown has to be quite a feat considering most developers rely on the end users powerful machines rather than refining code. (Each enemy has around 4,000 polygons each, you do the math as to how many you’ll encounter at any one time!) With full rag doll physics and skeleton based damageable models - limbs, heads and other body parts flying over your head as you blast them with your chain-gun carnage becomes a regular occurrence. If that wasn’t enough, the award winning havok 2.0 engine guarantees a highly damageable and interactive environment. Unlike “Chrome” the rag-doll physics are not just highly over exaggerated, but with close shotgun blasts you actually get some considerable model damage.

In comparison with the first episode, Battle out of Hell features much shorter levels with noticeably fewer enemies to dispatch. This seems to have been a deliberate act as one of the major complaints about the original was that some levels did become dull. Developers People Can Fly seems to have taken this complaint on board and insisted upon shorter but sweeter maps. Shorter levels also make replaying a map to get better tarot cards more tantalizing and so that replay factor is assured.

The Tarot system makes a welcome return and the use of these cards seems to take a far more logical path now. Before the tarot cards just seemed to serve as weird bonuses, in Battle out of Hell some level of strategic planning is required. For example certain levels will rely on the use of the bolt rifle. You’ll soon notice that the bolt rifle consumes massive amounts of ammo, however, if you unlock the correct cards next level you could be running around with limitless ammo and body parts hitting left right and center.

The only place where Painkiller: Battle out of hell lets the side down is the confusing end of level bosses. Countless times you’ll arrive at a boss stage and be dumbstruck as to what you’re supposed to do. The lip synching during the FMV stages is also laughably poor, which is a disappointment in a game with obvious high production costs. The expansion pack is also a little on the small side with most competent gamers able to polish off the story mode within 10 hours at most. However when you take into consideration the new maps and extra weapons brought over to the multiplayer you are still getting your money worth.

It’s pretty easy to sum up the Painkiller expansion, Battle out of Hell; as it’s simply more of the same. That’s great news for anyone that enjoyed the first installment but anyone who wasn’t impressed with the first outing is going to find little here to change their minds. Personally we found the frantic gameplay, gorgeous graphics and downright scary soundtrack was right up our street and Painkiller, and its newly released expansion pack are more than worthy contenders to that elusive list of brilliant FPS. People Can Fly have given the fan base exactly what they wanted; another dose of the Painkiller franchise. We only hope it’s a much larger dose next time.

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