Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12532 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Mindscape
• Released on: 2006-05-05
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: Xbox

Manufacturer's Description
Stranded in a place between Heaven and Hell, your time of judgment is at hand. The Underworld is on the verge of unholy war, and you are but a pawn in the infernal battle. As you fight for your purification, the truths behind the deceptions are revealed.

Painkiller is a first-person shooter containing 19 unique single-player levels. The levels are illuminated through both static and dynamic lighting, including accurate real-world light using a light distribution model that creates photorealistic ambient lighting and separate real-time lights for enemies, objects and weapons. All the levels also incorporate advanced vertex and pixel shaders, including water, glass, volumetric lights and fog.

Graphically, Painkiller is unmatched. Played out over more than 20 completely unique and different levels, the proprietary 3-D "PAIN Engine" puts out 100 times the polygons of the latest shooters, while adding increased texture quality and the latest lighting and shadowing techniques.

Painkillerallows players to shoot anything that moves and, once killed, the souls of enemy monsters can be consumed to increase player health. Once shot to pieces, monsters and objects leave gold coins behind, which allow players to upgrade speed and weapons as well as maps and numerous other power-ups between levels.

Painkiller features 20 different enemy monsters, each with their own unique behavioural patterns and attacks. Painkiller's weapon system has been designed specifically to avoid weapon overkill, by providing the ideal number of weapons, with primary and secondary modes, so that each is truly useful. For advanced Painkiller players, primary and secondary weapons can be used in spectacular "combo" attacks.

Finally, Painkiller's adrenaline-numbing effects give an extra punch in multi-player mode. Up to 32 players have been allowed for across five multi-player modes including Deathmatch, where the player takes on the world; Team Deathmatch; People Can Fly, a modification of Deathmatch One on One with rocket launchers; Voosh, where all players have the same weapon and The Light Bearer, which assumes that Quad damage never wears off.

Customer Reviews

Painkiller: Hell Wars, Finally gets a very Late release for the Xbox


It happened slowly, but the Xbox is near enough dead (software wise). Considering the console's demise, we're almost tempted to soften our stance on games like Painkiller: Hell Wars. When there's less and less promising content to liven up the big black console.

Those who have been paying attention may remember Painkiller from 2004. It was the shooter in which a violent car crash ripped you from life, leading to the need to destroy hordes of demons in order to reunite with your wife in the afterlife. It had a cool stake gun that used Havok physics to send enemies flying head over heels and finally hang against a wall.

The Hell Wars subtitle makes this release sound like an expansion or sequel, but it's really just a port of the original and the PC expansion, making this a reduced quality Gold Edition. Exactly why this has been in development hell since 2004 and why it has taken until 2007 to be released is anyone's guess.

The story and accompanying action are almost too simple for words. A few cutscenes will introduce vague characters, which tell you what to do, but the actual level design is purely straightforward. From one chapter to the next, the only tactic is to kill everything that moves, then proceed. It's amazing that this sort of approach is still considered workable, even when throwbacks and nostalgia are able to make a dent in the marketplace.

Predictably, the approach gets old fast. A few bones are thrown, like the tarot cards which can be earned, then burned to provide power-ups for the duration of a chapter. There are also destructible elements of the environment, but over time there's very little to distinguish one area from another. The locales are disjointed, and all drawn from the tried and true "dark shooter" rulebook.

The action is mindlessly repetitive, and those who like to lose themselves in the art of the gibfest will walk away mildly impressed. The primary culprit in the game's underachievement is the lame AI. You won't find any deviation from groups that attack from all sides, firing indiscriminately and refusing to do anything more than take occasional cover (behind other enemies) or simply charge straight on.

But such mindless behaviour can still be entertaining in short bursts of gameplay which bring back fond memories of the original's 2004 release date. Painkiller's five major weapons may not be amazing, but combining oddities like the stake gun with the tarot card buff system create a more satisfying form of action.

On the downside, the game does has some problems aside from its repetition. The standard defence for simplistic shooters has been visual accomplishment, as in: yeah, it's dumb, but it's so pretty! Painkiller doesn't have that crutch to lean on. It's still mildly impressive for the old black box, with some big environments and suitably vivid hellish design. Boss battles are unbelievable, with bullets littering the whole screen and more blood and guts than Manhunt and GTA put together. Unforgivably their is a price for all of this carnage, the framerate isn't even locked down to a constant, reliable standard.

Thankfully multiplayer does the old box proudly, even through the basic modes are all too familiar deathmatch variants. There are a couple standout options, however. In one, unlimited ammo is mitigated by weapons which automatically change at intervals. In another, a quad damage powerup is passed among the players. But with the increasing migration to the Xbox 360, the online population is fairly thin. Finding a game isn't easy, and instant action is almost unattainable.

Amid the Xbox's near dead content-parched landscape, a budget title like Hell Wars seems like a gift. But why oh why did it take so long to release is a mystery. With many retailers in the U.K. refusing to stock and downsizing original Xbox game sections in their stores (Possibly due to the next gen's stance on the market). This game may find its self forgotten in years to come or a rare gem on eBay. If you see this game in game store near you, do one thing. Reach into your wallet and buy it while you

great game
This is a fun game to play why? I will tell you why because you never get fed up of playing it and that is something alot of games lack these days even though the levels are abit short and the game seems too easy at some points but to me that made it even better. All in all a great game.