[h1][i]“It is a basic rule of life that if you reward bad behavior,
you get more of it.”
~Mark Steyn[/i][/h1]
You know what I think? I think that we kinda suck. As a society, I mean. Every time there’s some bullsh*t we should face and say “no” to, we swallow it and say “that’s fine”. Remember that horse armor for TES IV: Oblivion? “It's just the cosmetics”, right? “It won’t change anything”. How’s that going? What’s with the grim intro you may ask? Well, the thing is, that’s exactly the story of the Painkiller series. Players eating crap.
People Can Fly’s game wasn’t bad. Wasn't original? Sure. Was pretty much a dark take on Serious Sam. Did it age well? Again, yeah. Right after the initial glitter faded, it became obvious that the design wasn't good enough. Still, it was a thing. It had that muscular engine, it had lots of enemies and, well, people love Sam-like gameplay. Lots of people didn’t want to hear NPCs' talks when they launched a shooter. And Painkiller gave 'em exactly what they wanted – mindless violence. The game even got ported to the Xbox, where, while being simplified a bit, it felt pretty natural. Unfortunately, due to the conflict with DreamCatcher (the publisher), People Can Fly quit and… Painkiller: Overdose happened.
Long story short, Painkiller: Overdose was just a mod. That’s right. DreamCatcher (who weren't doing well already and were actually just acquired by JoWooD) found some random people who worked on some random mod and, well, they published it. And it’s not like it was one of those good mods (like, say, Gunman Chronicles for Half-Life), no! Everything there screamed “ModDB”. Like, we had birdhouses that shoot roosters at you, while simply touching the water (puddles included) meant instant death. Now, what did we do? We paid for it. The bloody thing sold well enough. Thanks to which… yeah. You guessed it. [i]We've got another f*cking mod![/i]
This time, though, it’s from a different dev. Overdose was from Mindware (the people behind the poor, yet playable stealth game Cold War). Now, Resurrection? It’s from Homegrown Games. Creators of the all-time “masterpiece” Robert D. Anderson & the Legacy of Cthulhu. You played that game; you know exactly what I’m talking about. It was an FPS Creator game (for those of us who don’t know, FPS Creator is a free tool to make your own basic games) with painfully cheesy FMV scenes, which, despite of being made with only basic assets, was still sold for money. Why? Because JoWooD. JoWooD was like the honey badger. They didn't care. And since they didn't do well financially and saw some income selling the previous Painkiller mod? They just signed Homegrown.
But you know what? On paper, Painkiller: Resurrection isn’t really that bad. We’ve got a proper new story with Max Payne-like cutscenes, Homegrown brought back multiple endings (I never liked those, but those did make Painkiller to stand out), and, the most interesting of all, they’ve decided to go beyond Serious Sam and turn Painkiller into a proper FPS. OK, that came out wrong, like Sam wasn’t a proper FPS, but you know what I mean. They decided to get rid of the “kill everybody to win” formula and add proper level design. Sounds nice, huh? Sure does to me. [i]But[/i].
Don’t forget, Homegrown are unapologetic trash makers. I mean, they did have high hopes for Resurrection, but only because such people... have a very specific way of thinking. Remember our pal Uwe Boll? A “genius” who brought games like Alone in the Dark , BloodRayne and even Dungeon Siege to the big screen? Ivan Ertlov (AKA Johann Ertl) is, like, his young brother. So-o-o… 'bout our game.
To be completely honest, the cutscenes aren’t really [i]that[/i] bad. I mean, they do feel like a B-movie version of what we had in Max Payne; they have Ivan as the main character (which isn't a good thing, believe me), while the way they treat biblical motifs is so cheesy that they risk killing the entire population of Israel with one massive facepalm (no, seriously, “Elyahim”? [i]Really?[/i]), but as a person who played that Cthulhu game, I totally expected worse. The gameplay, on the other hand, was exactly that. Worse. Much, much worse...
Since Homegrown dealt mostly with the old assets, it’s not an “OMG WTF?!” situation since the very first second here, but you won’t need to wait long in order to see the game's true face. Right after clearing the very first room, you’ll end up with a “Where the f*ck am I supposed to go?” situation. And not because the said room is complicated or something; it’s just that the level design there is so ridiculously bad that it makes you [i]believe[/i] that the funny thing in front of you is a dead end, while you’re actually supposed to slip through that ti-i-iny little gap in it. Which doesn’t even look like the real deal. Heck, it’s actually too small for you to pass properly. Yet that’s where you’re supposed to go. What about the compass? The thing that used to help with directions before? Well, it can go f*ck itself. Like, literally, it can. And it does. More often than not. And the more you’ll play? The worse things'll become.
The level design in Painkiller: Resurrection is a game of russian roulette. You’re supposed to [i]guess[/i] where to go. You may guess right. But you may also guess wrong. And if you guess wrong? At the very best, you’ll end up in yet another dead end (nothing here makes sense and pretty much all logical paths do end as dead ends). Most likely, though, you’ll die. Simple as that. Again, nothing here makes sense. You’ll try to walk through water here – you’ll die. You’ll try to walk through water over there – you’ll make it to the exit. Why? Because Ivan said so, that’s why. Who are we to ask questions?
Painkiller: Resurrection is [i]the[/i] definition of the very bottom. And suffering through it even on the lowest difficulty can be bad for your mental health. Like I said, though, Homegrown brought the unlockable ending back. Did anyone even like that sh*t in the original Painkiller? Long story short, there was that “true” ending locked behind the highest difficulty in the original game. The highest difficulty (called Trauma) didn’t let you save anywhere, it didn’t allow cheats, and, most importantly, there were no soul spheres, which granted you the so-called Demon Morph (sounds big, but it was pretty much just the Serious Damage power-up from Serious Sam in a new package). In the mint version of the original Painkiller, the said difficulty was locked and you needed to beat the game on some other difficulty first, but since it was too much work, they’ve unlocked Trauma difficulty by default in the Black Edition re-release.
In Resurrection, Trauma difficulty is unlocked by default too. Which... is the only good thing about the “true” ending here. First of all, Resurrection is much, [i]much[/i] more buggy than the original. It’s, like, on a whole new level. Things are so bad here that even the unofficial patch can’t save it. Game’ll crash, critical scripts won’t trigger, savegames will load incorrectly, you’ll constantly fall through surfaces, and get stuck in the background… it’s a mess. And you’re supposed to survive it on the highest difficulty. Just to get a cute little message that, to unlock an even better ending… you’re supposed to unlock all Tarot cards. [i]FFFUUUUU!!!~[/i]
Tarot cards are some sort of challenges that you’re supposed to finish on every level. And now you just [i]must[/i] finish all of those. That’s the only way to see Ivan in his moment of true glory. Would you want that? [i]F*CK, NO![/i] Painkiller: Resurrection feels a lot like a bloody sequel to the bloody Legacy of Cthulhu! Means that unlocking all the cards can give you a [i]real[/i] mental trauma! But you know what? We actually did good for a change. Painkiller: Resurrection sold poorly and soon after, JoWooD filed for insolvency. Moral of the story: don't support trash. Those Uwe Boll flicks don't pay for themselves. Dixi.
