Um, dude, I already have Dom2 - we even sent some emails to one another where you said you’d send me our first game turn after E3. Might as well send that out now - hilariously, I’m about to be banned from my very first Dom2 game before my first turn was sent.
dean, that’s a good point: it feels a lot like Quake, in that Painkiller is just a checklist of “what would be cool” in a shooter, overarcing theme be damned. It reminds me a lot of Quake’s totally bizarre enemy roster, with knights next to shotgun wielding freaks next to ogres with a rocket launcher and a chainsaw.
Painkiller is pretty righteous. At first, I didn’t quite “get” it - it doesn’t really start getting interesting until the second episode, since the first episode is almost entirely limited to shooting skeletons in dungeons. But now, I can’t get enough of the incredible enemy design, the fast action, the Aria of Sorrow-esque tarot system and the varied, totally awesome level design.
Can you (or anyone else who loves Painkiller) elaborate a little more on this, particularly the “varied, totally awesome level design”?
I picked up Painkiller last week after reading all of the raves despite the fact that I didn’t care much for the demo and don’t spend my time pining for a return of the “pure gameplay of Doom.” Its certainly intense but in playing through the first three episodes there was nothing that hooked me.
In particular this awesome level design I keep hearing about- all I saw in three episodes were big arenas. Certainly good killing grounds but nothing particularly impressive as far as level design.
Maybe episodes was the wrong term- first three levels maybe? (Probably about an hour’s playtime).
The first episode didn’t do much for me… I didn’t really start liking the game until I got to e1m4, The Cathedral, and didn’t start loving it until The Opera house. You owe it to yourself to at least play until e2m1, I’d say.
That was my first impression as well. Right up until the necrogiant. I gritted my teeth and got through that annoying fight and made it to the swamp monster. After umpteen million tries, I pretty much gave up on painkiller. I’d googled up the proper tricks and knew how to beat the swamp monster, I just couldn’t do it.
I’ve pretty much given up on FPS games at this point, as they all seem to be aimed at a higher skill level than I have the patience to gain. I realize that all FPS games nowadays have very similar controls/mechanics/etc and so devs have to assume a lot of players will be coming into the game already possessing well-honed FPS skills. I just wish more FPS games would include an “FPS noob” level of diffuculty that would let people like me play without giving up in frustration.
Ditto. Played it three times and I’m ready to have another go now that I’ve just got a new review rig stood up. Old system had a 9800 Pro 128 MB, which was just fine for the game, and the new one has a PCI-e 6800 Ultra.
Isn’t that what the Daydream difficulty is, though?
That swamp boss and the one after it are some of the worst hitches that Painkiller has. It’s worth it to just godmode through those 2 guys just to get to the rest of the normal maps where PK continually shines through.
I can’t believe you had such problems with the swamp monster. I beat him on my second try… even managing to do it under four minutes for the card. He’s cake.
It was this idiotic thing where you had to shoot the bubbles at his feet, shoot the new bubbles that stay in one spot, shoot the bubbles that float near his head, then shoot him while he tries to replace the stationary bubbles.
He is cake, but the premise behind killing him is so poor that you’re entirely likely to skip over the solution thinking that it couldn’t possibly be something that stupid and convoluted.
Yeah, that was my response after I looked up how to kill the stupid swamp monster. I realize I’m in the bottom 10% of FPS players in ability, slightly behind stroke victims and people with parkinsons, but I just couldn’t nail the flying bubbles. If I kept moving to avoid swamp monster attacks I couldn’t hit the things. If I stood still I could pick them off but standing still is a good way to get dead. I imagine if I’d spent another hour repetitively doing it I could have forced myself to get good enough to do it. But where’s the fun in that?
P.S. I was playing on Insomnia mode. I wanted to play Daydream but that disables the quite interesting tarot system. Punishing poor players by removing features is a really great idea devs. Way to garner good will! Fuckers.
I really don’t think shooting the flying bubbles is necessary to kill the Swamp Monster. The first section of killing him is shooting the swamp gas bubbles as he walks near them to hurt him. The section with the flying swamp gas bubbles is the one where you need to shoot all the stationary ones to make him go translucent, at which point you can start shooting him directly. I don’t think getting the flying ones has anything to do with killing him.
