Video Game Review: Painkiller Redemption and Painkiller Resurrection

On the subject of Painkiller, I have kept quiet long enough over the years. It’s probably my fave game of all time – probably. But with this past year’s release of Painkiller Redemption, the duct tape has been ripped off my mouthy mouth.

In 2010, Painkiller Resurrection was released - a struggle to keep the faith for those hardcore fans of this deliciously frightening horror franchise, and riddled with problems and technical issues. Then, Redemption hit the market, filled with something like 6,000 monsters to slaughter, supposedly six or more hours of gameplay, and a seriously puzzling mix of the hohum and improved gameplay.

First off: Mr. Lahey was drunk off his ass for about half the time he’s been playing this – and it took about five or six hours. It’s been touted as seven to ten hours of gamplay. Uh, I don’t think so.

Painkiller Resurrection and the new Redemption are really two halves of a whole. Resurrection (often maligned among PK fans as one of the worst games ever, but I half disagree), had bundles of technical problems, slow-moving graphics and errors, and plenty of new and old monsters that were just goofy and worn out. But, it had that deliciously creepy atmosphere that was so engaging about the first two Painkillers, and some interesting scenarios. At the very least, it took you some new places that were genuinely scary that even Painkiller Overdose couldn’t touch.

Remember that sense of wonder and being at least a little scared by Painkiller 1 and 2? And Overdose, with Belial’s snarky commentary, was amusing, but the game was about half the man the first two creepy installments were.

So Resurrection, with all its technical flaws, took that to another level. That, and its more stable multiplayer/survival mode were a major plus.

On the other side of the coin is Redemption. The graphics and action are vastly improved. It goes old school and returns to the characters of Daniel and Belial. Getting into demon mode doesn’t crash your whole fucking system.

But it lacks that spark of the first two, even Overdose. Certainly Resurrection had a creepier vibe. Redemption is more like one big survival mode, where the monsters spawn endlessly in front of you and it becomes extremely pedestrian to kill the bastards en masse. There’s little intellectual entanglement here, little problem solving to get yourself out of this paranormal mess.

Probably the worst infraction here is that the maps are simply gussied up maps from the multiplayer version of the original Painkiller. This is something not everyone will know because you can almost NEVER get onto the multiplayer function of PK.

Basically, the game consists of hundreds of creepies that spawn in front of you in an endless stream, and you need only kill them quick enough, morph into a demon after the usual 66 souls collected, and mow the rest down.

As heavy as the inundation of monsters becomes, it is quickly a formulaic approach to killing them and getting through the levels.

The graphics are extremely well done, error free, and nicely detailed, in spite of their boring qualities. But they lack the atmosphere the first PK had. There’s absolutely no movie scenes in between to tell a story. I’ll give Resurrection this: with all its flaws: at least it was a nicer balance between story and fighting action.

But Redemption is all action and no thought. It’s kind of like one of those sugary pop drinks that you like the taste of, but you wind up feeling empty and hollow.

On the other hand, Resurrection was such a mess in so many ways it’s become much hated. But it succeeded in being scary and surprising, and more engaging than this.

Now if only somehow the Painkiller folks could combine the best of the two into something new and badass. This would breathe new life into a franchise that has faltered ever-more disturbingly since the end of Painkiller 2. Perhaps if they took a cue from the Steam folks and Half Life 2, with its startling mix of storyline and action, and then a really awesome multiplayer system that worked well, Painkiller would have a mega hit on their hands.