Why Resurrection is dire

[F2dk]

This is a copy of my post on the JoWooD forums.

I have been a Painkiller fan since the original game was released. Although BooH and Overdose weren't on par with the original game, they still were great entertainment.

I will try to explain why I loved Painkiller (singleplayer), and what made it so special:
- Each level had a theme, giving it a unique look and experience. Who doesn't remember City On Water, Swamp, Opera House, Castle or Hell!
- The game was very polished. If you played the game with normal curiosity you wouldn't experience any bugs.
- You walk from area to area, getting locked in, kill a lot of enemies, and then you get a small pause where you can explore the area, find ammo and health, or search for secret places.
- The level design was very structured. The maps were divided into several small "arenas" with an appropriate amount of ammo, health and enemies.
- Within the level each arena was different, yielding an exciting, varied game play.
- The secret places were actually hidden areas in the level. Often you could see the secret (if you were attentive) and the challenge was to find out how to navigate to the secret.

Now that I have bought and played Painkiller: Resurrection, I just have to say I am extremely disappointed. I had hoped to see more of the features described above, with some new weapons, monsters, maps and a coop multiplayer. But I didn't get that at all, and that's why I'm saying "this is not a painkiller game".

Instead I got the following (compare each point to the points mentioned above):
- All levels more or less use the same textures (except level 1) and are dark and dull. They don't have a theme that makes each level look outstanding (except level 1 perhaps).
- There are so many bugs in this game that a lot of people have speculated that an alpha version of the game was released by mistake. We are talking about visual artifacts, missing textures, crashes, missing features, etc.
- In most levels you are placed in a huuuge level with a lot of monsters. To me it looks like the mappers have just made a big map (not caring much about detail) and scattered a humongous amount of monsters all over the level. There is no structure at all. Just one big surface with monsters all over the place. This is FAR FROM what how the original Painkiller was.
- This also means that you can never take a deep breath and begin to look for secrets because while you do, monsters may spawn in random places just around you.

All in all, this game is nothing like Painkiller and should not be called Painkiller just because it uses the same graphics engine, weapons and models.

I would like to be a little more concrete. Because it is my impression from the developers' responses on this forum that they actually think their game is good and it doesn't have any significant bugs or lacking any expected features. And since it is not very difficult to prove them wrong I have decided to do it. I guess people that are considering buying the game can also take a look at this before making their final decision.

As I already mentioned, this game doesn't work at all like the good old Painkiller games we loved did. You can run through Level 2 in 4 minutes and Level 3 in 5 minutes virtually without killing anyone.

Video: 4min Run-through of Level 2
Video: 5min Run-through of Level 3

To me this is unacceptable in a Painkiller game.

There are also a lot of visual bugs and map bugs.

[Bug1] Here is a door that disappears at certains distances
[Bug2] Here my weapon and the whole world disappears
[Bug3] A continuation of Bug2
[Bug4] You can get behind walls ("outside" the level)
[Bug5] In Level3 there is a particle bug (reported by many people)
[Bug6] In some places you can actually get inside walls
[Bug7] Even though I have Clip Distance at maximum, the levels are designed in such a way that it causes some annoying artifacts.
[Bug8] You can actually jump outside the world

Last but not least, the navigational AI is terrible.
IvanErtlov wrote:

As long as there are flaws, we`ll fix them. But that the AI won`t win a nobel prize was stated long ago and that`s the way it is also in previous isntallements of the series.

This is not true. The navigational AI wasn't great in the former games but it was much much better than the one in Resurrection (this is actually quite interesting, I would love to know the reason behind this).

Video: Resurrection AI compared to Painkiller AI

Now I have tried to explain more precisely why I am disappointed of Resurrection. I would like to hear the developers' response to the points made above and to the bugs.

Just to make the picture complete, other bugs include:
- Missing textures (example)
- Missing battle sound (sometimes it just goes silent)
- Monsters dying by themselves (as seen in the run-throughs above)
- Multiplayer crashes
- No real Coop mode

Thanks for reading.

[Spirit5]

Another thing I've noticed is that the graphics engine looks identical to the last two (well for some reason, PK: Overdose looked a little better than the original..modified) but this looks just like the first game, weapons and all. I would have thought they would have created a whole new graphics engine, HUD and weapons, instead of simply recycling the old ones. Or even keeping some of the old ones but redesigning how they look, which would come with using a new graphic engine. So I guess this is more or less another "stand alone expansion" to the original game and not a true sequel IMO. There's still not "Painkiller 2".

[Hi2u! Tw1TcH]

Very informative post, thanks.

[xabbott]

Awesome post. I hope something can still be done with this game as most people won't be able to get a refund.

[Kneitinger]

Excellent post F2dk!

[L2k]

Well I pretty much just bought the game for the MP, unfortunately that cant be played at all. I am very disappointed as well and would not recommend this game to anyone in this condition.

[PurSpyk!!]

Thamks, I was going to buy this game, love Painkiller and was hoping for more, but not after reading this.

[Sp00nFaCe]

I'm just waiting for the patch.

[i100k100]

Wow...after reading through these forums, I'm extremely surprised. I thought people would love PKRE and I'm the only one who hated it.

Let's see why...

AI is total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Painkiller 1 had much, much, much better pathfinding, where in PKRE NPCs keep on losing their way, can't get it to me, get stuck behind objects ...

Map design makes me sick. A lot of "can you jump?" polygons and narrow corridors, too dark scenery in which you can't see ♥♥♥♥ and all in all senseless objects positions, NPCs that shouldn't belong there (drunken sailors/men/bums from shipyard in P1 are in underground caverns...wtf?), the list is endless.

Don't get me wrong, I would buy this game...but only if it would cost 5€. It's really not worth more than 5€. It's a tad bit better than Overdose (which is virtually unplayable due to the sheer stupidness of levels, weaponry etc...).

Seriously, 30€ for a game that loads up a level up to 3-4 minutes (running on a seriously high end machine with an Intels SSD here...), says FAN MADE PRODUCT, is clearly just a mod to a game that was once beautiful and has dialogue inserts of ... THIS ... IS ... MADNESS! (a clear reference to the movie "300" and popular internet meme).

Seriously, it can hardly get any worse. And remember, I'm not hating the game because of the gameplay mechanics - I'm an absolute fan and lover of the Painkiller series.

THIS ISN'T WORTH MORE THAN 5€!

[gmoder :D]

Painkiller: Ressurection was made by No one known Guys.
So, as you can see, this is Noobs' work.

[Coopz]

Good write up, I loved the original, played the 2nd games demo for 5-10 minutes and found nothing of interest, feels like a half baked addon than a proper squeal. Gave me no interest in buying it.

Look forward to Yahtzees review. He drummed the original one up so much.

[Bramstein]

Resurrection's demo was an indicator that this game would be bad, if only because it showed how slip-shod and lazy the devs were for (supposedly) accidentally pushing an old beta.

I'm glad this post was made, it really detailed a lot of what I needed to know.

[Oneironaut]

This is disappointing. I loved the first Painkiller and was really hoping that Resurrection would be at least good enough to spend money on.

[ChJees]

Painkiller: Ressurection wasn't what i thought it would be. It would had been better if it just was a comic :|.

Dreamkiller is way better than this.

Seriously, the "boss" on the second level didn't even have it's AI changed from it's base enemy. I could just keep nuking it with the minigun and not get a scratch.

I can confirm most of what op said. You are better off buying Dreamkiller or Red Alert 3.

[game_over]

I feel like I just wasted my money.