Visually, Painkiller looks remarkable. First off you have the wonderfully huge environments, each with their own unique look and style. With over 24 levels total, you’d figure that repeating textures would be in store, but alas the developers over at People Can Fly have done a wonderful job of making each and every level distinctive. The game utilizes the Havoc 2.0 engine as well, so expect to push over barrels, blow up crates, and destroy plenty of background fodder ‘til your heart’s content. The enemies in Painkiller are just as interesting, varying from reaper style monsters, to screaming banshees. The game does a good job not repeating baddies in later levels as well. Oh and the bosses…tremendous. Throughout the game you’ll encounter bosses and sub bosses that are totally unique from the level monsters, and they come out you in all shapes and sizes. What fun is having cool environments if you don’t have nifty weapons to deal with them? Painkiller has this covered for you as well. Heck, your basic weapon is a blade gun that slices, dices, and juliennes! You also have a wonderful assortment of shotguns, machine guns, and things that go boom all at your disposal. If you like your FPS titles dark and blood-soaked, look no further as Painkiller is for you.

Audio does its job, but it’s nothing to write home about. It’s very good mind you, but honestly there is nothing here you haven’t heard in hundreds of FPS titles before it. It gets by and it does what it sets out to do just fine. No complaints, just no kudos to mention either.

Painkiller delivers the goods in the game play department. Playing like a typical FPS, but adding some thinking elements when it comes to thwarting off certain baddies is a nice touch. Not only are the bosses intelligent and have certain critiques when defeating them, your run of the mill level enemies have a touch of the brain juice as well. Granted, playing the game on it’s lowest setting will have you literally blowing your way through the game without much thought, but bump up the difficulty and you’ll have enemies thinking, strafing, and forming attack strategies, much like a real life counter part. To say the least, if you have the game on a decent difficulty setting, the A.I. will kick your butt.

Painkiller delivers in the modes department; not just in the amount of them, but the diversity of game play options you get to choose from. Obviously you have the massive 24 level solo campaigns. For you multiplayer gurus you have plenty to choose from. The basic Free For All that pits you against 31 other players in an everyone for themselves Deathmatch. Team Deathmatch, like the aforementioned, only on teams. Voosh; a Deathmatch setting that allows for only one weapon type with unlimited ammo. The host determines the weapon choice, and it can be set randomly between matches. The Light Bearer is kind of a keepaway, as you take a Quad and run with it. The player who holds it longest wins. Lastly you have a modification on the Deathmatch mode with the aptly named People Can Fly mode. This one on one affair uses rocket launches; the trick is that your opponent can only be killed while airborne. While a capture the flag mode would have been nice, there is enough multi player mayhem to satisfy any FPS fan with an itchy mouse finger.

Painkiller’s strict freshness comes in the genre it’s based in. The environments created, enemies that spawn, and weapon you use sets this apart from most FPS’s on the market. If you like your FPS game fast and furious with buckets of blood and hideous creatures, then Painkiller fits the bill.