E3 2009 Preview
Kill them all and let God sort
‘em out … if He can find the pieces!
That basically describes the
fast-paced action that underscores the carnage of Painkiller Resurrection, a PC
game from Dreamcatcher Games and JoWood Productions. While this Painkiller title
carries on in the same vein as previous titles (which first launched in 2004),
this is a brand new stand-alone game that features four difficulty levels, a
host of monsters (otherwise known as targets) and three new chapters to the
Painkiller legacy.
The game is being developed by
Homegrown Games, an independent Austrian developer is comprised of many fans of
the original Painkiller game.
The story behind the game, according
to a Dreamcatcher/JoWood press release, is as follows:
–William
‘Wild Bill’ Sherman, an ex CIA Agent and specialist for dangerous missions in
the Black Ops Special Unit, made a slight error in a mission – one that trapped
him in a hostile place between heaven and hell. His soul flickers on the edge of
oblivion with good and evil forces intent on using this death machine for their
own ends. Well, Wild Bill is not about to take any of this laying down and armed
with a variety of nasty death-dealing weapons (which have secondary firing
characteristics, and some have tertiary firing mechanics), Wild Bill begins his
march through this visceral world to try to free himself from the nightmare.–
But anyone who has played a
Painkiller game knows that the true nightmare is Wild Bill. The weapons that he
can collect can do much more that simply putting a bullet into something and
having it die quietly. Weapons can fire stakes that can pin monsters to walls,
and there are weapons that can trigger explosives to dismember the targets is a
wild rag-doll physics dance of death.
The game does have a few puzzles and
Homegrown has worked on the game engine with the result being improved shaders
in the environments. The game also runs at 60 frames per second, and was
demonstrated running off a laptop built two years ago.
Painkiller Resurrection will also
feature multiplayer with the modes fans of the franchise have come to know –
including capture the flag, deathmatch and last man standing. Online multiplayer
can have up to 32 gamers, but will fill in with bots if not enough human players
are available. As players join the game, the bots will be replaced. After the
game is released, new multiplayer maps will be added and the tools will be
available for the community to mod its own maps, as well.
The game is bloody and fast paced,
so the faint of heart might be well served to steer clear if they are sensitive
to blood and excessive violence.
Look for this title to release in
September.
