Overdose of cliches
If you love real good action games than you must think at Painkiller. Only God knows how I destroyed and banished Diablo's minions for dozens of hours . Then the expansion pack , Battle Out of Hell , came and set the series as one of the best games in the genre , like Doom, Wolfenstein and Serious Sam: The First Encounter. Sadness and frustration are left away once you enter the grotesque and funny world of Painkiller – hell, as you never seen it before . Rarely you see a game where moments of terror are followed by funny moments , which determines you to go further , to approach step by step toward Satan's nest . I wont forget the orphan asylum , where little children on fire were following me , trying to set me ablaze and the little burned girls with their scream that would make you freeze . I can still see how they were running toward me , with their arms width open , thinking that in my arms they would find the salvation from Hell . After I escape the orphan asylum i meet new enemies , the clowns with grenades .
An expansion for Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell is still a distant possibility , while a handful of smart and crazy modders (I mean it in a good way) thought that it would be nice to give us a single-player conversion for Painkiller , to make waiting a bit easier . Slowly but surely , Painkiller: Overdose took shape and transformed itself in a game of it's own . They say that trying is without death .
Or is it ?
In Overdose you are Belial , a bastard born from the love between an angel and a demon . Belial is very pissed off because he is trapped in a cage for some thousands of years under the order of Lucifer . As soon as the hero from the previous game kills Lucifer , Belial is given the chance to escape , and he doesn't refuse it . On the way out of Hell he spills all the hate he accumulated over the years , over devils , skeletons , ninjas , mummies , demons and other hell spawns .
The locations as well as the enemies vary , but without a logic , and the weapons work the same like in the previous games , like if they changed only the skin . Even the saving system is the same : reaching a checkpoint and receiving the corresponding health boost while the hordes of evil continue their rampage Then , after you complete a task you are rewarded with a tarot card , one of the few reasons that make you replay the same level again . The whole game brings you over 40 new enemies which in fact are only four –head bashing monsters , hell spawns with bats , ranged demons that spit from afar and huge enemies that are easily killed . The enemies have almost no AI , because they don't hide , they don't use evasive maneuvers and they don't curse or swear . But still , I had the feeling as I played Overdose that this game is a version of Painkiller without stamina , without action , original weapons and without the smart punch-lines . After all , Overdose is nothing that a mindless FPS , with huge loading times . Loading times that are not excused by any high-end graphics or level design . The game is pretty hard to play , because you have the chance to die on any level on almost all the difficulties and very frustrating is the fact that you have to wait one minute each time you die . Don't ask me why ...
Read and burn !
For it wasn't for the huge loading time , Painkiller : Overdose would have been a tolerable game , but the rampage of mindless dead creatures without any personality is a grim site . Overdose is a game that is trying to beat the original Painkiller but it lack the action and the flavor that it's predecessor had . There are better ways to spend those 8 hours that this mod guarantees so how about some beer ?
Rating 6.3
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