PainKiller - the fun of killing

all images courtesy of painkiller.wikia.com

Back before First Person Shooters introduced the game-breaking mechanics of regenerating health and reloading there were games that really understood what was fun about the genre.

The Shooting. 

That's right, hold onto your hats because I'm going to tell you that Painkiller is a good FPS because it is a game about shooting and nothing but.

Each weapon has multiple affects that interact with each other for deeper gameplay, allowing players who have developed their skills to attempt at different play styles.

Stake Gun

Each weapon has two primary functions and a third function that is a combination of the two.

An example would be the crowd favorite weapon, the Stake Gun/Grenade Launcher.

It's primary fire is shooting wooden stakes; when used skillfully you can nail enemies to walls, where they will woefully hang like modern art pieces.

Its secondary fire is grenades, which is as simple and fun as it sounds.

The catch here is: if you are skilled enough, you can shoot a grenade and then peg it with a stake mid-air, which will propel the grenade and do more damage on impact.

Then there is my personal favorite, the Shotgun/Freezer. Which is as simple and fun as it gets.

Shotgun

Use the secondary fire to freeze enemies and then shatter them with a big, meaty shotgun round.

This is not only useful for when you are being surrounded and need to make a path, but also can be used to single out stronger enemies and take them down more efficiently. 

By this token, the player creates situational usages for each weapon, and in this a deeper, more thoughtful style of play is created in those who refine certain skills.

You can go here for the full list of weapons and their interesting usages.

Each weapon is designed for gratification, the sound and visuals of each weapon feels good.

This is more something that you have to experience for yourself, but I will provide a link to a video HERE so you can see all the weapons in action [Be Warned, it's a low quality video!]

To add to this, i'd just like to say that the developers put a lot of effort into the simple things that make playing gratifying. Since you will be hearing the shotgun blast a hundred-trillion times, they designed it to sound really deep and powerful. The Stake Launcher sounds makes me feel like i'm operating a medieval contraption, and for some reason I never get tired of the sounds the Electrodriver makes, I could shoot shurikens and lightning out of that thing all day.

Not to mention the visuals. Enemies splatter satisfyingly and non-uniformly within their physics engines, and every gun performs a unique little show of its design every time you pull the trigger.

Regenerating health and Reloading are bad ideas!

Regenerating health, at first glance, looks harmless. But it's the mechanics that are symptoms of it that ruin the overall game.

When a player has a set amount of health, that regenerates after not taking any damage for a specified amount of time, the main priority of the player then becomes making sure their health does not hit 0, instead of, you know, shooting things and picking up health packs.

abandoned factory -- taken by arkena from gamefaqs.com

It constrains the possible level design by creating the need for something the player can duck behind and wait for their health to regenerate, and I don't know about you, but ducking for cover and waiting for my health to regenerate becomes boring after a while. 

I would much rather be running around a coliseum or a hotel firing willy-nilly than be forced down a linear hallway with the mandatory road-block or bookshelf to hide behind every twenty feet.

I like to stake bad-guys to the wall by their scrotums up-close-and-personal, not wait until an enemy leaves cover long enough for me to take aim on him with my dinky assault rifle.

Next is Reloading. In Painkiller, the pace of the game is mitigated by the availability of ammunition. You can fire to your hearts content, completely uninterrupted, but once you've spent all your ammunition you better start looking for some more. You don't have to make sure the coast is clear, or get some distance between you and the bad guy to reload your gun. Just make sure you have bullets for your favorite gun and fire away.

With the sacrifice of realism [reloading or replacing magazines/clips] comes an aspect of the game that paces the game well and allows the player the full enjoyment of the main priority of any First Person Shooter game; SHOOTING.

Enemies flesh out the experience.

A gun is only as fun as the things you shoot it with. So enemy design is just as important as anything else.

I'll describe a few enemies to sell the idea that the things you will turn to mush in this game are thought out and well designed.

The Templar Knight

The simple task of flanking an enemy and putting some hot metal into his butt can be complicated by having to also dodge flaming crossbow-bolts.

Prepare to exercise your ability to strategically run and gun whenever you encounter this shield-toting, crossbow-slinging titan.

The Sado Commando 

On top of bringing gimp masks to a gun fight, the ball-gag in their mouths are explosive. 

Well, they also brought two Mac-10s to the fray, which can be devastating if you aren't careful, but if you take a step backwards he'll leap forward to close the distance between him and you. It is when he is mid-air that you get a few free shots at his ball-gag, and with enough skill it becomes as relaxing and gratifying as popping off sporting clays on a warm summer's day.

The Skeleton Soldier

A rather weak enemy if there is ever less than a million of them at once. But if there does happen to be a swarm and a nearby Maso Commando [different than the Sado Commando] it can turn into a hot mess in an instant, literally.

A once weak group of enemies, when set aflame, becomes twice as fast AND twice as strong, turning them into a panicky situation at best. 

Imagine a small army of flaming soldiers sprinting full speed at you from the other end of the room, and you have a split second to come up with the best [or only] solution to get rid of them all before you are absolutely incinerated. 

That list bit is actually a good analogy for the game as a whole; it's a big room where fire and bullets compete for screen time, where you act as the only cheerleader for both sides, and the only thing that keeps you shaking your pompoms is the gratification of the act itself.