Painkiller

By PETER ELEY

After dying in a blazing car wreck, Daniel Garner finds himself trapped in purgatory, the space between heaven and hell, and charged with destroying the forces of darkness before he can escape.

The plot is a bit over-dramatic but, thankfully, it doesn't intrude much into the game, which is all about body count and lots of splatter. Think old-style first-person shoot-'em-ups such as Doom and Quake rather than Halo or Far Cry.

The game's gothic nature provides the opportunity to tackle many quite original enemies. Psycho-nuns, leper monks, hell bikers and dark ninjas are among the more colourful.

You also get an interesting array of weapons. The standard one is the painkiller — a blade-firing pistol/mini chainsaw that does quite awful and graphic damage. The game's not rated R18 for nothing.

All five weapons have satisfyingly destructive dual modes. The shotgun also fires blasts of liquid nitrogen which freeze enemies, and the rocket launcher doubles as a chaingun.

There are some interesting powerups, such as the ability to morph into a demon, and the usual array of health/
armour/weapon upgrades.

Gold coins and tarot cards tend to relieve the monotony of full-on carnage. There are 24 single-player levels, all requiring serious death and destruction to get through.

The fast-moving, detailed graphics of such games means they push technical specifications to the edge.

Painkiller runs on a new 3D system, Havok 2, and demands a 1.5Ghz, 384mb ram and a 64mb video card as its minimum. A 2.4Ghz and 512ram with a 128mb video card is recommended, which pushes it close to the edge of home PC technology.

But it looks good, with atmospheric environments, terrifyingly real monsters and some genuinely gruesome guts and gore.

It's the sort of game you could play through again on a higher difficulty setting, and a good multiplayer mode adds real value.

* Email Peter Eley

Herald rating: * * * *

PC, Dreamcatcher, R18