Worst to Best Painkiller Games (Video)

[SixerEagle]

Here is my ranking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOauLL7GXiI&list=UUbceJgOEJDEGaQV5SeJseMQ
Agree? Disagree? Discuss..I'm always curious as to what what others think of the series..

[Swifty Magee]

From best to worst:

1. Painkiller: Black Edition
2. Painkiller: Hell & Damnation
3. Overdose
4. Redemption
5. Resurrection
6. Recurring Evil

I will say that I've never played Recurring Evil as the bad reviews turned me off. Honestly, the first game is the only one I'd recommend anyone play. Hell & Damnation is OK but it's basically a remake of the first game without all the levels. I found Overdose too annoying to play for longer than a few hours, and I never really gave Redemption or Resurrection much of a chance...the bad level design and flow of combat in those two games made me regret buying those.

I've always been a huge fan of Painkiller, to the point where I bought the horrible "Dreamkiller" simply because it looked a lot like Painkiller. I love old-school, action packed, run-and-gun shooters; I still play Doom I & II and the Quake games occassionally. I think what happened with the Painkiller series is that People Can Fly only designed the first game and expansion pack. After that, everything that came later was made by fan groups or outsourced to inferior dev teams.

If People Can Fly ever come back to the series (which I don't know if they will now that they're apart of Epic), I think a true successor to the first Painkiller can be made. Otherwise, the series will continue to lower in quality.

[Whimper]

Thank you for making the video review and ranking. With these games on serious Halloween discount (most are under a dollar), it's helpful to know which ones are worth playing first.

[BanOphobia My Struggle]

Oh man Resurrection was my fave like with those massive expansive levels. Like no crappy locking you in small rooms all the time like the others Painkillers.

1. Resurrection.
2. Black Edition.
3. Overdose.
4. Recurring Evil.
5. Redemption.
6. Painkiller: Hell & Damnation (no points for originality and less content than Black which it totally ripped off).

[DamarusRex]

To me Recurring Evil is the work of someone who understood Painkiller's potential and gave it an extra push. Hundreds of enemies forcing you to bunnyhop like mad, no much obstacle in areas, pretty challenging environnemental moments and no HPsponge mobs, mostly cheap stuff to kill and make fly around. It's pretty much all I want in such games. It should be as nobrain as this, and make your fragboard increase insanely quick. Emphasis on fast reactions and crowd control is the most exciting thing about Painkiller (besides it's original arsenal). So I encourage fans to give Recurring Evil a go even tho reviewers didn't quite get its purpose imo.
My only regret is that the fight areas could be a wee bigger. Sometimes it felt so tight I had to hop onto enemies (which was kinda cool at some point).

On the other hand, I advise to not get Resurrection. I think any professional leveldesigner in vidya industry could make highschool lessons out of it. Buggy, no hint on where to go, wrong use of wide open space, awful map construction (props, assets etc... they're just thrown randomly), AI pathfinding was pathetic, frames droppin etc. We could go on.
It just looks like made by a mad fan just discovering a game engine but who obviously never got a gamedesign doc in his hands, nor does he have any insight into maps developpement. No reflexion on Painkiller formula. You get stuck often, enemies spawn in the ground, AI is dumb af instead of agressive, the maps size is a waste and makes no fun (you can just bunny miles aways and snipe mobs), you're always wondering where to go, indoor fight areas always have bunch of momma's furniture in yo legs, making the game rythm collapse every 10 seconds. Just no.

[SixerEagle]

Originally posted by DamarusRex:

To me Recurring Evil is the work of someone who understood Painkiller's potential and gave it an extra push. Hundreds of enemies forcing you to bunnyhop like mad, no much obstacle in areas, pretty challenging environnemental moments and no HPsponge mobs, mostly cheap stuff to kill and make fly around. It's pretty much all I want in such games. It should be as nobrain as this, and make your fragboard increase insanely quick. Emphasis on fast reactions and crowd control is the most exciting thing about Painkiller (besides it's original arsenal). So I encourage fans to give Recurring Evil a go even tho reviewers didn't quite get its purpose imo.
My only regret is that the fight areas could be a wee bigger. Sometimes it felt so tight I had to hop onto enemies (which was kinda cool at some point).

On the other hand, I advise to not get Resurrection. I think any professional leveldesigner in vidya industry could make highschool lessons out of it. Buggy, no hint on where to go, wrong use of wide open space, awful map construction (props, assets etc... they're just thrown randomly), AI pathfinding was pathetic, frames droppin etc. We could go on.
It just looks like made by a mad fan just discovering a game engine but who obviously never got a gamedesign doc in his hands, nor does he have any insight into maps developpement. No reflexion on Painkiller formula. You get stuck often, enemies spawn in the ground, AI is dumb af instead of agressive, the maps size is a waste and makes no fun (you can just bunny miles aways and snipe mobs), you're always wondering where to go, indoor fight areas always have bunch of momma's furniture in yo legs, making the game rythm collapse every 10 seconds. Just no.

Resurrection at least had interesting environments, but it didn't lend well to the gameplay at all so I agree.

[terry309]

Originally posted by Swifty Magee:

From best to worst:

1. Painkiller: Black Edition
2. Painkiller: Hell & Damnation
3. Overdose
4. Redemption
5. Resurrection
6. Recurring Evil

I will say that I've never played Recurring Evil as the bad reviews turned me off. Honestly, the first game is the only one I'd recommend anyone play. Hell & Damnation is OK but it's basically a remake of the first game without all the levels. I found Overdose too annoying to play for longer than a few hours, and I never really gave Redemption or Resurrection much of a chance...the bad level design and flow of combat in those two games made me regret buying those.

I've always been a huge fan of Painkiller, to the point where I bought the horrible "Dreamkiller" simply because it looked a lot like Painkiller. I love old-school, action packed, run-and-gun shooters; I still play Doom I & II and the Quake games occassionally. I think what happened with the Painkiller series is that People Can Fly only designed the first game and expansion pack. After that, everything that came later was made by fan groups or outsourced to inferior dev teams.

If People Can Fly ever come back to the series (which I don't know if they will now that they're apart of Epic), I think a true successor to the first Painkiller can be made. Otherwise, the series will continue to lower in quality.

Reccuring Evil atleast has better level design than Ressurection and at least had original levels unlike Redemption. It's main flaw was the fact that it threw too many enemies in small corridoors.

[terry309]

Originally posted by Whoopsy:

Oh man Resurrection was my fave like with those massive expansive levels. Like no crappy locking you in small rooms all the time like the others Painkillers.

1. Resurrection.
2. Black Edition.
3. Overdose.
4. Recurring Evil.
5. Redemption.
6. Painkiller: Hell & Damnation (no points for originality and less content than Black which it totally ripped off).

Interesting opinion right there.

[terry309]

Originally posted by DamarusRex:

To me Recurring Evil is the work of someone who understood Painkiller's potential and gave it an extra push. Hundreds of enemies forcing you to bunnyhop like mad, no much obstacle in areas, pretty challenging environnemental moments and no HPsponge mobs, mostly cheap stuff to kill and make fly around. It's pretty much all I want in such games. It should be as nobrain as this, and make your fragboard increase insanely quick. Emphasis on fast reactions and crowd control is the most exciting thing about Painkiller (besides it's original arsenal). So I encourage fans to give Recurring Evil a go even tho reviewers didn't quite get its purpose imo.
My only regret is that the fight areas could be a wee bigger. Sometimes it felt so tight I had to hop onto enemies (which was kinda cool at some point).

On the other hand, I advise to not get Resurrection. I think any professional leveldesigner in vidya industry could make highschool lessons out of it. Buggy, no hint on where to go, wrong use of wide open space, awful map construction (props, assets etc... they're just thrown randomly), AI pathfinding was pathetic, frames droppin etc. We could go on.
It just looks like made by a mad fan just discovering a game engine but who obviously never got a gamedesign doc in his hands, nor does he have any insight into maps developpement. No reflexion on Painkiller formula. You get stuck often, enemies spawn in the ground, AI is dumb af instead of agressive, the maps size is a waste and makes no fun (you can just bunny miles aways and snipe mobs), you're always wondering where to go, indoor fight areas always have bunch of momma's furniture in yo legs, making the game rythm collapse every 10 seconds. Just no.

Reccuring Evil is designed specifically for die hard Painkiller fans who want more Painkiller, that is all.

[terry309]

My top 7:
1. Painkiller Battle Out Of Hell - Has some of my fav levels (Loony Park, Leningrad, Dead City, Orphanage)
2. Painkiller - You can't go wrong with this, love the levels too, a classic to remember, badass game, just like Battle Out Of Hell
3. Painkiller Overdose - Bugs aside, this is an awesome Painkiller game, feels like Serious Sam 2 in the sense that everything is so bright, colourful and goofy even though it may deviate from the dark feel that the original Painkiller and Battle Out Of Hell had but that isn't necesarrily a bad thing, it's a very refreshing change and Belial was funny.
4. Painkiller Reccuring Evil - It is decent, Graveyard was a fun level, the rest were pretty meh though, not bad per say but meh
5. Painkiller Hell And Damnation - This would have been higher had it used the Pain engine but the Unreal Engine made the game feel very laggy at times. Plus the new skeleton enemies have an annoying melee attack. Visually though this game is really great and I love the redesign of the levels.
6. Painkiller Ressurection - Levels were hit and miss. Haunted City was ok but the rest were abysmal. So many graphical bugs in this game. It's still better than #7 simply because they were actually trying and it did have a more open map to explore.
7. Painkiller Redemption - Terrible... just terrible, sure you can play as belial again but they removed his two best weapons (egg bombs and sword of shiba). All the levels are recycled from multiplayer.

[Alex]

Last version of Resurrection makes it playable, and levels are very good looking. Recurring evel is worse than resurrection, which is already buggy. The final enemy in recurring evil is retarded

1. PK Black edition
2. Overdose
3. Resurrection (unplayable until version 44)
4. Redemption
5. Recurring Evil (as bad as redemption, I put it under it for the awful final boss battle)
6. Hell and damnation (looks better, adds nothing, kicks and rewrites the already mauled main story)

[Nexusshark]

1. Black Edition
2. Hell & Damnation
3. Overdose
4. Recurring Evil
5. Resurrection
6. Redemption

[SKKUKKY]

1. Black Edition
2. Hell & Damnation
3. Overdose
4. Recurring Evil
5. Redemption
6. Resurrection (i can't even pass level 2 because of fxxking glitch! )

[Tulip]

Originally posted by DamarusRex:

To me Recurring Evil is the work of someone who understood Painkiller's potential and gave it an extra push.

I'm gonna give it a go on that basis.

Originally posted by DamarusRex:

On the other hand, I advise to not get Resurrection. I think any professional leveldesigner in vidya industry could make highschool lessons out of it.
...
You get stuck often, enemies spawn in the ground,
the maps size is a waste and makes no fun (you can just bunny miles aways and snipe mobs),
you're always wondering where to go,
indoor fight areas always have bunch of momma's furniture in yo legs, making the game rythm collapse every 10 seconds. Just no.

I found there were some Overdose maps I could hop out of but definitely agree with Resurrection: there are places in Forbidden Valley that aren't forbidden, and the lack of detail implies the author couldn't be bothered - or didn't intend players getting there but didn't enforce sufficient boundaries.

Also, those amputees being buried in the graveyard mound's path plus falling into the bridge was annoying - I was getting hit but couldn't see where it was coming from until I spotted a slight movement in the ground and had to use splash damage from a rocket to kill them (PK would just bounce off the stones).

Originally posted by SixerEagle:

Resurrection at least had interesting environments, but it didn't lend well to the gameplay at all so I agree.

That's kinda why I'm playing it: for the new maps. But so far, I'm not getting the impression I'll be returning to it once completed.

[[{******---Dead4Life---******}]]

I know Resurrection is hot garbage and the worst for sure.
The level design is go awful and almost unbearable. Just disgusting.

[Anub1ss]

1.Painkiller: Hell & Damnation
2.Painkiller 2004
3.Painkiller Resurrection
4.Painkiller Battle out of Hell (DLC PK2004 - Black Edition)
5.Painkiller Recurring Evil
6.Painkiller Overdose
7.Painkiller Redemption (Trash Game)