Zero Punctuation: Painkiller

[The Rogue Wolf]

Holy crud! Yahtzee actually reviewed a game I own! That hasn't happened since Orange Box!

Painkiller (and the add-on, Battle Out of Hell) are pretty much a one-trick pony... but it's such a fun trick that you can enjoy it for quite a while. The architecture really is good (I don't know if I'd use the term "stiffy", though) and there really are a ton of enemies (though you won't see more than a few in any given level). The boss fights? Well, they're all much larger than you- one of them is literally skyscraper-sized- and all require a combination of "discover the weakness" and "pour on the firepower" gameplay. It's all a nice retro throwback painted up nice and pretty, with what could laughably be called a "story" slapped on via (thankfully skippable) cutscenes.

However, a friendly warning: DO NOT BOTHER WITH PAINKILLER: OVERDOSE. I've played the demo for that and was revolted. It's as if they took all the fun out of the game, threw in weapons that don't make sense, and replaced Daniel with some half-demon, half-angel character who spouts idiotic one-liners that even Duke Nukem wouldn't touch. I mean... ugh.

In my modest opinion, a lightning shouriken is no rival for the Bioshock's magic hand that shoots bees.
Maybe if you mix both...

BioShock already had a magical hand that shoots lightning. No shurikens though...

But what if the magical hand shot lightning bees? And what if the lightning bees had hands that shot magical shurikens?

That'd ROCK.

 

[stompy]

Somehow, I doubt my computer will run Painkiller...

And beside my shitty computer, I'd like to commend The Escapist on their new design layout (this is the right place, right?).

 

[LordCraigus]

As always a great review. I'm glad to see Yahtzee giving time to a lesser known title. I'm the sort of gamer who has had a lot of great experiences with lesser known and niche games (Painkiller being one of them) so I hope he reviews some more in the future.

 

[Archedgar]

That was fantastic. I enjoyed the review and hope that he goes back to review older titles instead of giving in to the massive outcry of Mario Kart fans and other such popular games...

I think I'll look into painkiller, it looks quite good, I mean, rampant slaughter in a video game hasn't been seen in ages, even in FPS games. Pfeh. Softies.

 

[lindsay40k]

No key hunting in Doom?

Fail!

 

[SimpleReally]

That mario kart comment at the end made my day

 

[Random Argument Man]

That was fantastic. I enjoyed the review and hope that he goes back to review older titles instead of giving in to the massive outcry of Mario Kart fans and other such popular games...

I dont think that Yatzee will review Mario Kart on wii. Why?

1st Because we will have the argument "Nintendo tends to wack their own franchise too much" (Nothing personnal just using deduction).

2nd Just watch the Brawl review and you will have something quite similar for Mario Kart...

3rd When there's a review about a game that fanboys cried about, after the review, we will see the "OMG YOU SUCK, THAT GAME IS SO GOOD YOU HAVE NO TALENT, bla bla bla" argument...oh wait I mean the idiotic ranting.

(Sorry if I made some grammar errors in this)

User requested ban. -mod

 

[BustaNinja]

I personally like the new lay out, and after playing the demo for Painkiller, I noticed it was a game Yahtzee should review. I played it kinda dazed at two in the morning, and I had fun. Not the chore that most gaming is for me (leveling up and what not) but I was able to pick it up, nail some guys to walls and call it a day.

Only complaint about the review was the store section. My only response is "Wait.... Painkiller had a story?" guess thats what I get for gaming at two in the morning

 

[mephidrossxx]

I will go try to get Painkiller it sounds very funny.

 

[Xaositect]

Wow, Ill admit I was a little sceptical about a review reaching back a few years (despite the very good reasoning of the approaching gaming drought), but this review did great on two accounts. It delivered the same good jokes I watch ZP for (eg. only better with tits and on fire) and it also inspired that foaming-at-the-mouth desire for carnage I usually only get with RTS games, but this time to go back and play a mindless FPS killfest. (like, I dunno, maybe painkiller?). Instead of wanting to see two armies crush eachother under waves of weapons fire and explosions, I wanted to crush an army with a gun that fires shurikens and lightning. Curious.

*cough*wahay man utd champions*cough*

 

[Leo Sasquatch]

Hopefully they've sorted out the truly egregious bug in Painkiller that meant you couldn't leave the docks area as the exit button wasn't present on the level. I bought the commercial Gold version, played it through to the docks, and got completely stuck. I wandered around for an hour trying to find the way out before going online for a walkthrough to find the only solution was to download a 330MB patch to go from v1.6 to v1.64. On dialup, this took a while...

The rest of it was pretty decent, but after a while I just had to go play Galaxians or something to remind me that video games did once have actual colours in them aside from thirty seven shades of brown and grey.

 

[Muphin_Mann]

I also can't get it to run.

Since Escapist have decided to host their videos on their own site, which was already shockingly slow at loading even webpages, now that thousands of people are trying to access the Yahtzee video simultaneously it is causing massive slowdown on the site and it is not possible to see the Yahtzee video.

Why would they host a very popular video on an already slow site? It doesn't make sense.

Perhaps, good fellow, they dont have much of an alternative. I just wait until its been up for several hours, as you can see by my post being on like page five.

 

[Axel Ryman]

That was fantastic. I enjoyed the review and hope that he goes back to review older titles instead of giving in to the massive outcry of Mario Kart fans and other such popular games...

I dont think that Yatzee will review Mario Kart on wii. Why?

1st Because we will have the argument "Nintendo tends to wack their own franchise too much" (Nothing personnal just using deduction).

2nd Just watch the Brawl review and you will have something quite similar for Mario Kart...

3rd When there's a review about a game that fanboys cried about, after the review, we will see the "OMG YOU SUCK, THAT GAME IS SO GOOD YOU HAVE NO TALENT, bla bla bla" argument...oh wait I mean the idiotic ranting.

(Sorry if I made some grammar errors in this)

In other words, Team Retard will return.


I WANT A GUN THAT SHOOTS SHURIKEN AND LIGHTNING.

Time to find this game.

 

[Odjin]

Huh, and here I was looking forward to a "The World Ends With You" review.

You must be new here.

Not really. But your concern is touching.

I mean that.

Well... Yathzee reviewing TWEWY would be fun... I mean this game offers a couple of serious flaws as mentioned here ( http://www.moddb.com/forum/thread/so-the-world-ends-with-you-eh#481869 ) . Although he hates JRPG... that said... this game doesn't deserve the name RPG since it's more like a failed attempt at RP :O

 

[Cowabungaa]

I've played the demo and already loved it to bits. Really, spiking things against walls is just f*cking A when you just had a really really bad day at school, and this game is an anger-vent like no other. Now pass me the full version and my family will notice I start swearing a lot less.
By the way, on a side note, I wonder what Yathzee will do with Spore when it comes out (I can only imagine 1 thing: Giant Walking Communist Penises of DooOOOOoom, I mean c'mon it's Yathzee, woohoo).

 

[Johnmcl7]

Interesting choice of review especially if people go seek out Painkiller, I've always thought this was an underrated game. I really enjoyed the all out violence which all works smoothly and is quite satisfying.

The replay value is surprisingly good as well, obviously there's the initial challenge to get all the tarot cards but the difficulty levels aren't just that the bad guys get tougher...instead on the top difficulty level you no longer get your health back on checkpoints and you don't get souls either which forces a different style of gameplay. Rather than go straight into the mobs and cut them all up with the painkiller as you can on lower difficulties you need a somewhat more strategic approach and good use of the Tarot cards can really make a difference.

Have to say though I though the expansion pack wasn't that good, tried to complete it twice but just got bored of it...it all looks much the same but it just didn't seem to have the same flow which made the original so enjoyable.

John

 

[TuxedoZombie]

We get it Yahtzee! You like old-ish computer games... that doesn't mean you have to review them.

 

[ProjectileVomit]

Huh, and here I was looking forward to a "The World Ends With You" review.

Don't count on Yahtzee reviewing though. Didnt he said in one of the review that he hates J-RPGs?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

We get it Yahtzee! You like old-ish computer games... that doesn't mean you have to review them.

That doesn't mean he can't, either.