Painkiller: Hell and Damnation (Xbox 360) Review

This is the worst game I have ever liked. Painkiller: H&D is a remake of the game Painkiller that came out in April of 2004. I just don’t understand, of all the games out there ripe and ready for a remake, I’m not sure this is the best one.

The game starts out with the main character….Oh bugger, I forgot his name, hold on…Daniel,
stating what is probably the most inconvenient sentence I have ever heard in the intro of a game: “My name is Daniel Garner, (Oh, that’s his name) and I’ve been dead for so long, it’s hard to remember who I really was.” The minute I heard this line I instantly fell in love with this game…and then promptly fell back out when I started actually playing, but I’ll get to that later. So, Daniel was supposedly a “bad guy, who did bad things” in life, apparently a lot. 

He was driving with his girlfriend whom he describes as “The only light in his life.” When out of nowhere, and before the character building process was complete, they get in a car wreck and die. Daniel’s girlfriend goes to Heaven, and he goes “somewhere darker, the place in between Heaven and Hell.” Daniel makes a deal with the Death himself, that if Daniel were to collect 7 legions of souls (which is a hell of a lot of souls, if I might add) then Death would bring Catherine back to Daniel.

This is where you come in. you are placed in a cemetery with dozens of hellish (har har) looking creatures running full speed at you.  You
pull out a shotgun, and start blowing them all to… hell (Okay, I’m done).  

Speaking of guns, there is a plethora of them throughout the game, ranging from the starting shotgun to my personal favorite: the gun that shoots shurikens and lighting. However, as much fun as the guns are to look at, they sometimes are hell (ha, I lied) to use.  The sensitivity of the aiming system moves at a turtle’s pace until you boost it up a bit; after
that, it moves as fast as a jackrabbit on Speed.  Although, when you do manage to hit something, they will, more often than not, explode into beautiful HD chunks of gore and bones. Which reminds me, I haven’t mentioned the graphics yet.

The graphics, despite being HD, are still a bit dated and that character models are muddy. And on top of that, the little bit of voice acting that the game has is not done all too well either. I had a few graphical errors while playing Painkiller, but the one that stuck out the most was when a gigantic demon stepped on me and I got stuck in his foot, which is invisible when looking out.

Other than a few glitches and errors, there wasn’t much to complain about though… but, there wasn’t anything that I would point at and say, “Wow! That’s amazing!” either. Though, to be honest, there isn’t anything too amazing about this game; least of all the music.

The music consists of a lot of heavy metal. And as much as I love heavy metal, it’s very forgettable in the case of this game.  There really isn’t much that I can say about the tunes other than it’s just there to keep you from realizing that, as much fun as you think you are having, you could be spending or time playing a different game… or doing something productive.

Final Thoughts

My final thoughts on Painkiller: H&D are this: Even though it has a stupid story, terrible voice acting, forgettable main character, overly/under sensitive controls, muddy graphics, and music that isn’t worth mentioning, I had a blast playing this game.  

Everything about the game feels like one great throwback to the old fashioned FPS classics like Doom or Duke Nukem.  I had a hard time writing this review because I wasn’t sure how I felt about Painkiller H&D- but you know what?  For all its flaws, it’s a great game and will easily keep you entertained for a good 7 or 8 hours.  

Special note- I never mentioned the online multiplayer section of the game (yes, it has one), because I could never find a match. And I tried many times, so keep that in mind.