What do you get when you mix Doom with Warhammer: Darktide? You get Painkiller, a reboot of the original game from 2004. Now, you may be thinking that this means we have a masterpiece on our hands. Killing hordes of demons while listening to a kick-ass soundtrack. It’s a co-op game also so you can kill with friends or the AI if you have no friends to play with. Lot of fun, right? Unfortunately, this is not the case when it comes to my time in Purgatory with Painkiller.
We Have DOOM At Home
The plot of Painkiller is simple and honestly, forgettable. You play as one of four souls who are stuck in Purgatory and must complete raids to defeat the demon, Azazel. Metatron, an angel tasks you with killing Azazel and his demons. That is it. Some MCU level dialogue from your characters and you quickly realise that yes, this story doesn’t matter. Just turn off your brain and kill demons. Which is disappointing because this premise is interesting. And the playable characters, while not the best written characters of all time, can have some interesting conversations about their backstories. But this falls apart when they randomly stop talking because of all the action that is going on.
Like I previously mentioned, Painkiller is similar to the DOOM games with its fast-paced gunplay and the fact that you spend your time blowing demons to bloody bits. The design of levels, or raids as they are called, and even some of the boss and enemy designs scream inspiration from DOOM. It even has a good little rock soundtrack when fighting the demon hordes. Shooting guns and obliterating demons doesn’t hit like it should. I felt like the massive guns didn’t really pack a punch like DOOM. Lot of enemies are mostly harmless and there is execution option like DOOM where you can just rip them to shreds. The game feels toned down in the gore department despite blood being everywhere.
The Spikegun is fun to use to pin enemies and even shoot explosive grenades that you stuck to enemies. Secondary options on the guns include grenade launchers or electricity that can zap stronger enemies and stun them allowing you to finish them off with your chainsaw pretty much, which is called the Painkiller. But Painkiller‘s cracks begin to show. The gameplay, while decent, does get pretty boring after a while. It also doesn’t help that the game’s levels look the same making them repetitive. And it doesn’t stop there.
Didn’t We Already Do This?
Repetitive is the best way to describe Painkiller. One of the main mission objectives that you spend most of your time doing is filling barrels with demon blood. It felt like the developers discovered this mission type and never wanted to stray from it. Throw the barrel at a group of enemies, kill them, fill barrel, insert barrel and do it a few more times to advance. Rinse, repeat. I was shocked when there were times (rare by the way) when it gave me different tasks.
Upon completion of a raid, you can use the points you earned to unlock Tarot cards which give you perks in the next raid. These range from extra damage or reduced damage from enemies. They’re fine, nothing major but can help in making raids easier.
This is made easier as you can play up to three players online or play with two bots. The bots were surprisingly good and actually helped kill enemies are were excellent when it came to revives. Playing with bots isn’t a bad thing, so props given there. Each playable character has its own strengths but there isn’t much there. One starts with more health, or receives less damage. Nothing major. They are all practically the same. One positive I can give is the boss fights. While not amazing, they are fine and visually memorable. Painkiller is only about 4 to 5 hours long with 9 raids and even the roguelike game mode offers very little in terms of replayability. The roguelike mode throws you into the same levels but you start from the bottom in terms of weapons and kill demons. Not much else to say about it really. This game is lacking in content, the same problem a lot of live-service co-op games run into.
Verdict
Painkiller isn’t bad but it isn’t good either. It is another co-op shooter that has little content in it and doesn’t stand out from the other competition. Boss fights are fine, and the gunplay is decent. Unfortunately, they get old fast and the game just isn’t fun to put hours upon hours into. Honestly, just play Warhammer: Darktide or DOOM. They are more fun and worth your time.
