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E3 2009: Painkiller Resurrection Impressions

by: Chuck -
More On: E3 2009
Ah, Painkiller…the fantastic old school FPS game that scripted events and emo heroes for pure unadulterated gibs and gore gameplay. A lot of people forget that the original Painkiller was one of the first games to make use of the Havok’s physics engine (pre-dating Half-Life 2 by almost six months). I was a fan of the series when it came out and the game was good enough to draw the attention of Epic who purchased the game’s original developer People Can Fly. Dreamcatcher retained the rights to the franchise and have brought in developer Homegrown studios to turn out a new expansion pack.

Not a lot has changed in terms of the game’s formula.Painkiller:Resurrection builds on the original games principals of allowing you to wipe out waves and waves of enemies in bizarre but beautiful levels with the odd ginormous boss along the way.

New engine enhancements include better destructible environments (something of an extension of the game’s existing physics engine) along with a host of engine tweaks to modernize the existing engine. We also saw the ability to use the painkiller weapon to launch enemies in the air and juggle them, something you can also do in the multiplayer side of the game.

The multiplayer side gets ‘Bot support which will scale with the number of players in the game (i.e. ‘Bots are removed/added as players join/leave the server) as well as a bump up in total number of players on a server (to 32).

The Painkiller games aren’t quite as sexy or popular as other FPS games on the market but they are good mindless fun. The game will be available in September for $19.99