Painkiller: Resurrection is yet another stand-alone expansion pack for Painkiller, being single-player old-school FPS with competive multiplayer. Or sequel. Hard to tell by now. It adds very few new elements, just few new levels. It started as a fan project, not unlike Overdose, and was released in a whooping 2009, 5 years after original Painkiller. And I am afraid, this game indeed feels like unfinished amateur mod.

Despite running on old engine, it supports wide-screen. HUD will be stretched though.

But from technical side this game is a horrible mess. There are bugs everywhere. Everywhere, I said! It surely has no problems spawning enemies half-sunk into floor. Or spawning them outside of level, where they will try to chase you until you activate next checkpoint. There is even a glitchy physics bridge in level 3, trying to cross which is suicide. Developers even just teleport you across.
It gets ridiculous at the end of level 4. The voice tells you "watch out, there is a huge demon in front" and then boss spawns in. And instantly dies in water, with exit activating the very next second.

Not only that, but due to levels being huge, the loading and performance are beyond tolerable! Overdose already had loading 4 times longer than in original Painkiller. Resurrection's loadings are 4 times longer than Overdose ones! Be ready to spend 5 minutes. Or more. Though, I did notice that loading a save was almost instantious, developers probably changed the way that it works. But they didn't do it properly, as very likely loading a quicksave will lead to even more glitches. At very least some music stopped working. Just fully reload checkpoint.
Oh, yes, and the fact that Painkiller engine doesn't know how to use multi-core processor shows. Get ready for non-stop slow motion, you will have to enjoy it no matter the PC.

Important: Because game tries to save you from this mess, there are chances that level geometry of level 4 will just refuse to load. It just will not. You will just fall and die in void. Because quality gaming. To fix this you will have to just reinstall game and then restore your map-screen autosave. It works for some reason.

As for multiplayer, then well. It still has same multiplayer as from Painkiller, that is Deathmatch-based. No new maps. Or maybe those are from Overdose. I didn't check because no one playes this game. And seeing how Gamespy was shut down, you aren't going to find servers easily. Can still connect directly, true.

The story follows Bill who is speaks of himself as cold-blooded assassin. Who also somehow manages to kill bad people only. And then freaks out and tries to stop the bus full of people exploding. And then thinks that this is the only reason that he is going to Hell. Oh yea, and then he kills many many demons. Ace.
The plot in the game is nothing unexpected. But the way that it's given is pretty darn good. Comic-like cutscenes are really good. You will also hear woman's voice explaining you about the level and telling you what you should do, all during game process.
But then you will also have to listen to Bill's voice as well, throwing one-liners, not unlike to main hero of Overdose. Only instead of "Tastes like chicken!" you will be hearing "This... is... madness...". More tolerable though.

So, what exactly is new? New weapons, new monsters, new levels, new music. So, let's break down.
New weapons, well, there is actually only one. It's given at the last two levels and it's like a stronger hack of stakegun. But hey, at least original weapon balance of Painkiller is back, so it's goody. Better than Overdose's mess.
As for new enemies, there is only one regular enemy plus final bosses. And that regular enemy is just something lazy, being something tough and throwing fireballs. Oh, wait, it's just Skeleton miniboss from first level of Painkiller with changed skin. And his ragdoll is a complete mess, you will be seeing huge body distroction and hands flapping if you dare to stick any of them to the wall with stake. Plus, there are some enemies reused from Overdose.

But levels is the biggest change here. And I mean level design mindset. Instead of just being locked in one arena after another, you are free to move around level even when fighting baddies. It goes for open-wolrd-like feel, as there may be two paths to the next part. Locations are huge, there can be dead-ends and there isn't always a checkpoint to hand-guide you. It just manages to strike that feeling of exploration on your own and to be honest, I found it strangely enjoyable, even if there are amateurish part and challenge-reward isn't always done right. But as said, all the "wrongs" of level design, like dead ends or making player find the next way without much signs, contribute to feeling that you are progressing in this big world yourself, while also somehow not being too mazey either.
Stylistically, it uses the feel and style of the first chapter of Painkiller. Actually, I may be wrong. Remember pre-last level of original game, Monastery? If you do, then you will know what I mean there. And music does an awesome job as well. Ambient is strong and moody. It gives a bit of that lost, despair feel. Something for exploring these foggy lost lands. And fight music has metal or similiar things back to it, being actiony enough, yet still somehow retaining moody feel.

So what this mod does best is atmosphere and exploration feel.

But what this mod does bad are pretty much bad things that you expect from amateur mod. As said, challenge-reward balance is screwed. Bosses suck. It's not afraid to be cheap either, as you will often be ambushed by melee enemies spawning right on top of your head. Like, dogs that have explosive barrels on their back. Swarm of hitscan enemies being spawned from every side sometimes. Some encounters with huge enemies, that will either be too easy due to you having freeze ammo on shotgun or else they will eat tons of ammo.
That and combat itself isn't good. While each enounter isn't as dragged, I feel that they often were placed as "just to have something". No care about flow or anything.
Not to mentioning that levels can be too confusing for those who just want more Painkiller and don't like games like Hexen. Not that it reaches Hexen puzzles, but you get it.

And well... Bugs bugs bugs. Performance. Loading. And progress-halting bugs. Quacksaves crashes and corrupt saves.

As for Tarot cards, at least they changed screen to show that you can get only six of them. And then you can equip only one passive and one "to use" card. No, trying to get Tarot Cards by fulfilling whatever objectives in these huge levels in this buggy buggy game is not fun, I just didn't bother.
As for demon mode, well, to be honest, it was useful, as you are more likely to get 66 souls without paying attention. Levels here can hold up to 500+ monsters after all. If forget that there is possiblity that game will crash on you.
Oh, yes, and game has few endings. Default one is bad. I doubt that you hate fun so much that you will want to beat game on hardest difficulty. Just check on YouTube or something.

Oh, and developers added "cooperative" map at some point. You can launch server and choose it, while keeping game mode as Deathmatch. Technically, I heard that it's unreiable, monsters dissapearing and all, so don't bother. And map itself is just red island in lava sea. Which uses tough enemies non-stop so it'sn ot fun for single player. Not to mentioning that you will just get knocked into air all the time and respawn non-stop. Mess.

Painkiller: Resurrection is a amateur unfinished fan-mod in disguise. Or at least this is the feeling that I get. Sure you can enjoy amateur mods and all. But while there are some nice ideas, technical side flopped completely, making it unenjoyable. Horrible. Messy bugfest.

What was supposed to "resurrect" the Painkiller franchise has stained its reputation forever. This game, like many of the other Painkiller extensions first started as a fan project until JoWood decided to fund it with a commercial release in mind. How is Resurrection you might ask. To get right to the point: It's abysmal.

The game revolves around Bill Sherman, a cold-blooded assassin who apparently gives two ♥♥♥♥♥ about a bus filled with civilians that headed right into his bomb he prepared for the Mafia. Unable to stop the bus, he dies along with the Mafia guys and civilians and ends up in Purgatory, where an angel tells him to defeat Lucifers' henchmen and their armies of demons in order to prevent a war between heaven and hell and to redeem himself. It's a very basic story, which is to be expected. The illustrations for the cutscenes are rather well done, unlike the horrible voiceacting.

The levels are more open than what we're used to with the original game and Overdose. There is a decent amount to explore and I actually like the idea. However, traversing through these levels can be a chore. You often end up getting stuck in the level geometry, you can't climb up stairs because of how steep most of them are and a lot of enemy encounters happen on very tiny pathways (worst case scenario: on a tall cliff).

Speaking of enemy encounters: Pacing is decent though there are waves which can drag on for quite a while. Thankfully these are still shorter than the average waves in Painkiller: Redemption. Gunplay stayed the same, but this game has hit detection issues, most noticeable with the Painkiller. There have been numerous times where projectiles seemingly travel through enemies without harming them. While this didn't lead to frustration (thanks to the abundance of ammunition), it did annoy me greatly.

You know what's funny? When a mod released in 2009, based on a game from 2004 features worse graphics. Resurrection looks horrible. Texture work (not counting reused assets) is really bad, draw distance is pitiful and several GFX are glitched. Unacceptable. I also experienced massive screen tearing which is really unfortunate.
The game has serious performance issues. There have been numerous occasions where my framerate would tank down to 10FPS for a second or two. On a GTX980!?! How? And don't get me started on the loading times. It can take up to 30 seconds and longer to load a save. This is a total pace killer and brought my blood to boil. I have never experienced such long loading times in any game before. The music is OK, but nothing that will stick.

I haven't finished Resurrection. I have no desire to finish it. Guess what, I can't even finish this turd because Level 4 is broken. I spawn outside of the map, falling to my doom. And I have no idea how to fix that. Something which really amused me was the plank bridge in Level 3. You can't use that thing, it will kill you because of the Havoc Engine spazzing out. Instead of fixing it, the developers at Homegrown Games set a teleporter to bypass it. This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen, period.

Painkiller: Resurrection is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ horrible. Don't waste your time with it.

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Painkiller: Resurrection versuchte, das Painkiller-Franchise wiederauferstehen zu lassen, und scheiterte kläglich daran. Dieses Spiel, so wie die meisten Painkiller Add-Ons startete als Fanprojekt, bis JoWood sich entschloss, die Entwicklung zu finanzieren um das Spiel im Nachhinein als Vollpreistitel zu verkaufen. Wie ist Resurrection? Um es auf den Punkt zu brigen: Es ist entsetzlich.

Das Spiel handelt von Bill Sherman, einem kaltblütigen Auftragskiller, der aus unerfindlichen Gründen Mitleid für die Zivilisten empfindet, die in dem Bus sitzen, welcher in die von ihm platzierte Bombe zurast, welche für ein paar Mafiosi bestimmt war. Nicht in der Lage, die Katastrophe abzuwenden, verliert Bill zusammen mit den Zivilisten und Mafiosi sein Leben und landet schließlich im Purgatorium, wo ein Engel ihm mittelt, dass er Luzifers' Handlager und deren Armeen von getreuen Dämonen aufhalten muss um einen Krieg zwischen Himmel und Hölle zu vermeiden, sowie auch um sich selbst zu erlösen. Die Geschichte ist sehr einfach gestrickt, was bei einem Painkiller zu erwarten ist. Die Comiczeichnungen in den Cutscenes sehen sehr nett aus, die Sprachausgabe hingegen lässt einiges zu wünschen übrig.

Die Level sind etwas offener als im Original und Overdose. Es gibt einiges zu entdecken und persönlich gefällt mir diese Idee sehr gut. Allerdings gestaltet sich das Erkunden der Levels als aüßerst nervig. Es kommt öfter vor, dass man sich in der Levelgeometrie verfangt, dass einem das Treppensteigen aufgrund der großen Steigungen sehr schwer fällt und man von Gegnerhorden auf extrem schmalen Wegen überrascht wird (im schlimmsten Fall über einer Klippe).

Apropos Gegner: Der Spielflüß bzgl. Arenakämpfe hält sich meist im Rahmen mit ein paar Ausnahmen, die Gott sei Dank immer noch kürzer sind als standardsgemäß in Painkiller: Redemption. Das Gunplay bleibt dem Original treu, jedoch hat das Spiel Probleme mit der Hitdetection, was sich vorallem mit dem Painkiller erkennbar macht. Es ist sehr oft passiert, dass meine Projektile scheinbar durch die Gegner passiert sind, ohne aber den geringsten Schaden an ihnen zuzufügen. Dank ausreichend verteilter Munition in den Leveln waren diese Vorkommnisse nie frustrierend.

Wisst ihr, was ich lustig finde? Wenn ein im Jahre 2009 veröffentlichter Mod eines Spieles von 2004 diesem von der Grafik her nicht das Wasser reichen kann. Resurrection sieht einfach potthässlich aus. Texturen (mit Ausnahme der wiederbenutzen Assets aus dem Original) sehen nicht gut aus, die Draw Distance ist teilweise erbärmlich und viele Grafikeffekte sind verbuggt. Sowas ist einfach unakzeptabel. Das Spiel leidet zudem an massivem Screentearing.
Resurrection hat große Performanceprobleme. Es ist sehr oft passiert, dass die Framerate für 1-2 Sekunden bis zu 10FPS gesunken ist, trotz meiner GTX980! Ich frage mich, wieso? Und die Ladezeiten, mein Gott die Ladezeiten! Es kann bis zu 30 Sekunden und länger dauern, bis das Spiel einen Speicherpunkt fertig geladen hat. Sowas stört den Spielfluß erheblich und hat bei mir das Blut zum Kochen gebracht. Ich habe im bislang keinen anderen Spiel solch lange Ladezeiten erlebt.
Die Musik geht in Ordnung, erwartet aber keinen Ohrwurm, der sich in euch festsetzt.

Ich habe Resurrection nicht fertiggespielt. Ich habe keine Lust, es fertigzuspielen. Und ich kann diesen Dreck nicht fertigspielen weil das vierte Level nicht funktioniert. Ich spawne außerhalb der Map und stürze ins Verderben. Und ich habe keine Ahnung, wie ich dieses Problem beheben soll. Die Hängebrücke im dritten Level hat michecht amüsiert. Das Ding ist absolut unpassierbar, es tötet den Spieler, weil die Havoc Engine komplett durchdreht. Anstatt die Hangebrücke zu reparieren, setzen die Entwickler von Homegrown Games einen Teleporter um diese zu umgehen. Das ist das lächerlichste was ich je gesehen habe.

Painkiller: Resurrection ist einfach nur scheiße. Verschwendet eure Zeit nicht mit diesem Spiel.

Concise reviews for the Painkiller series in order of what you should play


Painkiller Black Edition: Great oldschool no messing around shoot things from point A to B using a variety of weapons, for such and old game the gunplay (especially the shotgun) is strangely satisfying.


Painkiller Hell & Damnation: A remake of the OG and as a result, it is a solid entry worth playing, albeit similar. A lot of changes were made some for the best some watering down the experience, but ultimately if you like the the first game this is worth a play.


Painkiller Overdose: Most significant entry after the original+remake, not as streamlined but does improve in some areas, mainly level/area design is quite varied and interesting. Decent-ish gunplay and still worth a play if you're somewhat invested into the series at this point, enjoy it cause it's a very fast downhill from here.

Painkiller: Recurring Evil: Like drinking a lukewarm coke it's not like the actual technical gameplay is "bad" but it doesn't have the right conditions to thrive into anything enjoyable, just getting locked into a room and killing everything until you move to the next room. Rinse/repeat until credits roll. Environments are at least passable, and at least some green is present.


Painkiller Redemption: just endless endless endless beige walls locking you into some sort of psyhoclogical torture method having to kill 1000 enemies until you are allowed to see your new mental confinment in the next beige wall with slightly darker textures. It's like recurring evil but i actually fell asleep playing this at one point.

Painkiller: Resurrection: You'll need Painkillers after consuming this absolute pisswater, it's like everything wrong with modern AAA games with massive open worlds/maps with nothing interesting to do except wander to the next objective apart from this game doesn't have any of the triple AAA budget to draw you in with fancy graphics and animations so you end up with what feels like a really bad fever dream with game ruining bugs every so often.

As good the first two (actually three) Painkillers were, this one is as bad. It gives the real What-How-Who-Why? feeling.

Pros:
The level design of the first (weird) and the last level (open-wide overbright depressing). Sorry but that’s all!

Cons:
Only 6 levels, but don’t think it will be a short fun thingy, not at all! I nearly played it as much time as the whole Black Edition! Why? Beacuse five of the levels are sooooooo big that there is enough space for a mediocre RPG’s whole storytaking. But they are not just big but you don’t even have a clue where to go! The compass that always helped in the previous games are mostly not working (as it seems they only function near a checkpoint), or it just shows a near health item (really, it happened to me!).
So the gameplay is: You wander aimlessly in big wide areas or ridiculously hard maze-alikes, sometimes triggering enemy spawns, fight them then toddle further without any clue what to do. The enemy spawns are randomly placed, no chance to find them all. On one of these enormous levels to earn a card you have to kill all mobs, of course i missed a quarter of them. Sometimes you find a checkpoint and you are happy thinking you have found ’The Route’, but soon realize there are more checkpoints when accidentally backtracked because of no directions given and a shortway (again thinking this is ’The Route’) just lead you back there.
Have to mention here that even if it’s a fan made product (like the mighty Overdose), the several clipping and stucking problems, incomplete areas with missing parts and walk-out-the-map-and-die things are still not acceptable!
The new enemies are ugly, some really amorphous, and extremly unbalanced. Most of them are boring easy and some are. . . ehhh: One time i walked into an open area and i’ve been presented with a new chaingun enemy, not one but like twenty. Guess who died . . . 30 times in rapid succession, until i was able to retract somehow with my remaining 4 HP and hide behind a wagon. It took me 20 minutes to clear the area by picking them one by one and of course it costed me again like 30 deaths as the guys use perfect aimbot hitscans.
Older Painkillers were famous of that the enemies were in context with the design of the levels and areas they appeared on. In here absolutely nothing. Everything seems randomly thrown into.
For the record i was able to earn only one card (first level). Yes, I’m a pretty mediocre player but seeing how far i was to reach other cards’ requirements i say that’s a joke.
Here comes the best part: SUICIDAL ENEMIES. Let’s say this is a very unique feature of this product, as i never saw this behavior in other FPSs. It must be connected somehow with the messed up checkpoint system that sometimes (not even rarely) when you approach a new area you see a bunch of puffs meaning the mobs just vaporized themselves. Even better one of the minibosses (or boss? not sure :P) did this to me, really! I was wandered around half-crying in some Gobi Desert size crater when i found a hundred meters high door like wall. I was sure a boss is behind it, but could not open it. Hardened by the hours of playing this game I was a pro at this moment and i knew i have to find some randomly dropped checkpoints to trigger the opening. So i staggered away to hunt for the little red saviours. Periodically checked back and after a while (an hour or so), hurray! it was open. Run through it with readied heavy weaponry but i was only greeted by a big puff and a cutscene began. After it was done i gathered the fair amount of ammunitions around and started shooting at the poor enviroment to lessen my frustration.
The protagonist is an idiot for sure. As someone (J.Johnson) in an another review pointed out he (the ’hero’) „calls himself a 'world class killer' blows himself up because he can't read a bus schedule”.
The plot itself is chaotic, the conversations tells nothing besides the antipathy between the protagonist and the bosses (but there is no why). Normally i would not care but the big pile of other problems just strengthen this as well. BTW I know i did not see the real ending (again i ’only’??!! played at normal) but i have no intention to play this mess again.

2/10 - Total mess. A wandering for hours FPS.

(Sorry for my English!)

What's that? You say you like bugs? Glitches good too? Excellent, have we got a game for you!

We've got save game corruption bugs, falling through the map bugs, enemy AI bugs, checkpoint bugs, scripting bugs! We've even managed to add bugs to the process of selecting a tarot card!

Yessir, if you enjoy being kicked out of a game and back to your steam library every nearly ten to fifteen minutes, have we got a game for you right here. What's that I hear? Overdose was buggy, you say? Well yes, Overdose was a buggy, slightly unfinished seeming product, glad you noticed. We've managed to more than triple the bugs in that as well as reduce overall stability!

Remember back in the good old days of playing through Painkiller: Overdose when you'd randomly morph into demon mode and it'd boot ya to your desktop? ENJOY THAT EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU MORPH THIS GO-ROUND, FRIENDO!

And the level design is unintutive, what with checkpoints that fail to load, enemies spawning on top of each other, on top of you, and on top of a void outside the map! We've got necessary progression points hidden in corners you'd NEVER think to look here, boy howdy!

What's that you say? This isn't enough for you? Try a heaping helping of FIRST PERSON PLATFORMING! Yes, the bane of all gamers' existance, the reason nobody liked Xen, good ol' FPS platforming is back, this time in a painkiller game! Nothing goes together like mustard and chocolate cake quite like having to jump up a large spiral staircase very high up with nothing to meet you when you inevitably fail like a fifteen minute load time.

A 15 minute load time that, mind you, will fail to load almost each and every time, simply freezing you on a load screen.

BUT IF YOU'RE STILL NOT IMPRESSED, REMEMBER: Your save games can and will become corrupted for virtually no reason, oftentimes making the game fail to launch and booting you out to your desktop before you even get a chance to see past the main menu!

All in all, if you don't spend enough time not playing games and not looking at your steam library, highly recommended.

Easily the best rebooting your videogame upwards of twice every 30 minutes simulator on the market today.

I like very much Painkiller series but this part is bad, tons of bugs and bad map desing. I'm spending more time to find the way, where to go than fighting with enemies, also in The Town map after it loads, i'm spawning out of map and my character dies so i can't progress. At the end i can say that this game is badly optimized, fps goes under 60 often on GTX1060 and i5 3570 3.4Ghz processor + 8GB ram, i'm really dissapointed how bad this game is.

Okay, let me gat this straight - this is not a good game to play. Damn, it is barely playable at all - loading goes for 10 minutes (versus 1-2 in the original game), sometimes game freezes and slows down. Some triggers don't want to work and you have to run around for another hour to find some little zombie behind some door. Design goes from quite cool to disgracefully awful and gameplay is just ruined - but hey, there is still a good side. Developers had a great idea of making maps REALLY BIG, so somehow I had a feeling of open-world. This is really cool. But technically this game is hell in all aspects, so I don't think that you want it.

This thing even greets you with the words "fun made product".

Firstly, the engine and core are the same, so you have rhythm jumping, pleasant 150 FOV, climbing, shortcuts for shotgun and stakegun and the game looks good and clean (that is, in the places where devs used textures and not blurry placeholders).
But it runs very poorly and has its share of bugs and crashes. When i reached haunted city it wouldn't load the level and i would just fall down into grey abyss. Fortunately, i forgot about it and when i launched the game next time it actually did load.
Next, the level design. It's an absolutely nonsensical mess, which would be somewhat fine if it wasn't stripping the player from progression agency. The levels are giant and long, but still, there are only 6-7 of them and they all poorly designed and balanced. It's a collection of narrow corridors assembled into giant labyrinths, while original had chain of fun medium sized arenas.
A lot of new enemies are just meat blobs. New weapon is a stakegun, again. I understand that stakegun is a iconic titular weapon of the franchise, but we already have it. And second one in BOOH. And an overdosed crossbow.
The worst part of it (yes, even worse than bugs) is the balance. It's a very short thing made by amateurs, so it's extremely difficult even on easy. Outside of high damage, there are immortal ghost which chase you and steal your HP. You can as well just give up and play on "story mode" difficulty, and even then you will be short on ammo on some levels. And with it you lose the second half of the gameplay — achievement hunting, gold management and tarrot cards.
Story is pretty generic, is told in lazy comics and has three endings, but no clear way towards any of them; and i can't even find any information on them. Barks of the protagonist are better than silence, but done poorly and get old very fast.

Well it's a bad one but it is doable. If you can more easily tolerate bad new experience than good but trivial ones — it exists.

To be honest, Painkiller: Resurrection is more like a "decline" than a "resurrection" of the franchise.

On the surface it looks really similar to its predecessors but after playing the first level you realise how Homegrown Games Studios got it all wrong.

PROS:
+same good old action, gore and physics
+3 endings
+comic book style cutscenes

CONS:
-long loading time
-only 6 levels
-inconsistent art design (low-res and missing textures)
-confusing level design
-unhelpful objective marker
-bad story and predictable plot twist
-horrendous french dubbing
-only 6 weapons
-same old enemies

Overall, Painkiller: Resurrection is nothing but a total let down. Since People Can Fly Studios lost the rights to the franchise, the franchise has sunk deep into hell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8q7KxDxVp8

Rating:
4.0 / 10

This is the worst game from the Painkiller saga.
The loading screens take 3~5 to load a single map, the level design is beyond horrible, the enemy placement is boring and tedious, the "enormous, explorable areas" just don't mix well with the gameplay and will make sure you get lost way too often, the story is too predictable, a lot of performance issues & bugs.
Do yourself a favor and get Painkiller Black Edition instead of this mess.