irst person shooters are a dime a dozen these days on both consoles and PC’s. With so many FPS titles out there all gunning for your playing time, it becomes obviously clear that while some may stand out as successes, many simply fall by the wayside and almost instantly become relegated to the fold of “been there, done that.” So the question remains: what makes an enjoyable FPS? What must a title have that will help elevate it above the ranks of all other titles in its genre? Today I got a chance to sit down with an early build of Dreamcatcher and People Can Fly’s Painkiller, a title that while sticking to the traditional roots of the first person shooter formula, also spices things up with some intriguing gameplay and one of the most realistic physics engine available in gaming today.

While some may argue that death is a sweet release from the horrors of everyday life, try telling that to Daniel Garner. Poor Mr. Garner has just been killed in a car accident and now finds himself lingering in limbo in a purgatory-like world between Heaven and Hell. For some reason, the gates of Heaven have been closed to him, and in order to gain entry, Daniel needs to discover the reasons behind his rejection as well as secure his purification. To add just a bit more of a twist to the story, it seems that Heaven and Hell are embroiled in a violent and bloody war and Daniel, with nothing else to do, is conscripted into the forces of the Holy. From the start, it’s pretty obvious that Painkiller is quite different from other FPS titles in regards to story. With nary an alien or rogue terrorist cell in sight, it was refreshing to see a game focus on such a subject. While the story in our build was loose at best, hopefully the final build of the game will incorporate the intriguing story into the gameplay. If done well, the storyline alone could set this FPS apart from its competitors.

Although technically dead himself, Daniel is one dangerous person to meet in the dark alleys of Purgatory. While our build wasn’t complete, we did have the chance to utilize four different weapons. The first, the Painkiller, is a twisted and bizarre arm attachment that contains a rotary blade on the end of it. The primary attack causes the blade to spin like lawnmower blade, cutting down anything in its path in a bloody mess. The secondary fire for the Painkiller allows you to shoot your blade out from your attachment, either striking an enemy with it or lodging it within any nearby walls or obstacles. If left planted into an object, the blade will transmit a yellow laser-like beam that if touched by an enemy will kill them. You can also move around during this time and when you stop, the beam will re-project itself depending on where you are. The shotgun is perhaps the most vanilla of the weapons and acts pretty much like any other similar FPS weapon you’ve ever seen. The interesting thing about it is its secondary attack, which launches nitrogen filled shells from its barrel. Any enemy struck by one of the shells will instantly freeze for a short amount of time. If you follow up a nitrogen shell with another attack, the frozen enemy will explode into chunky, icy shards of kibble.

Borrowing a bit from modern-day horror influences, you can also pick up a crossbow that shoots wooden stakes. It’s an interesting weapon and really gives you a good idea of what kind of physics are involved in the game, but more on that later. The stakegun's secondary attack lobs grenades. That part really doesn’t make all that much sense, but it does make the weapon a bit more interesting and fun to use. The last weapon we had access to was the rocket launcher/chaingun. That’s right; now all of your sick fantasies of what would happen if a rocket launcher and chaingun mated can finally be realized. Logically, the gun is capable of firing explosive rockets, no surprise there. The secondary fire, however, activates a wicked chaingun that is capable of dishing out bullets at an alarming rate. Some weapons also have the ability to fire off combo shots. By pressing both the primary and secondary attack buttons at once, you can fire off a special round that is usually quite deadly. Weapons like the stakegun can shoot explosive wooden stakes that burst into flames on impact.

Aside from conventional weapons, Daniel is also capable of lapsing into a dark state that I like to call “demon vision.” Every enemy that you kill will drop a glowing green orb, supposedly there soul which has been trapped in the depths of Hell. Picking up 100 of these souls will cause Daniel to enter “demon vision,” and results in the screen going into a trippy black and white effect. While in this mode Daniel is capable of taking more damage and the damage he inflicts is roughly four times greater than it is when he’s in his normal state. Think of it as Quad Damage from Hell, with more attitude. The effects, however, don’t last long so you’ll need to make sure that you take down a lot of enemies to keep your soul stockpile topped off.

The game also features an interesting power-up system called Black Tarot. Through the levels you can collect coins that can be used to purchase various powerup Black Tarot cards. Prior to starting a level you can equip and purchase new cards to use in your next outing. While the Black Tarot system wasn’t currently functional in our build of the game, we’ve seen videos of the Haste powerup in action. Using the cards will Daniel to move at incredible speeds, giving him a clear shot at enemies as they’re stuck in slow motion. The effect is neat and adds a great deal of depth to what could have simply ended up being a combat system that relied on simple gunplay.

The enemies in the game, naturally, are pretty representative of what you would expect to crawl from the depths of Hell. While we were limited in what we faced in the three levels that we had available for play, all the enemies did exhibit their own unique personalities and actions that set them apart from their HellSpawn comrades. Probably the most frequent enemy we came into contact with were armored skeleton knights, each of whom wielded a nasty looking long sword. The skeleton Generals, one step up from their regular counterparts, sport large shields and in a pinch, will slice the heads off of their regular comrades, sending them into a blood-spurting, sword-swinging frenzy. Other enemies included sinister looking witches that when killed exploded into a storm of ravens, and some particularly disgusting zombies that make it a habit of tossing chunks of their own decaying flesh at you as weapons. We did get a chance to take part in one boss fight, and to say that it was on a grand scale would be an understatement. Perched on the top of a tower, we duked it out with a gigantic flying demon that attacks by scraping its claws on the ground during flybys and also pops up to spew fire at you. After damaging the demon enough, he slams through the floor and the fight falls into a lower level of the tower. This continues for a few more rounds until you reach ground level. At this point, the fight gets a bit trickier, as the boss becomes miraculously healed thanks to some mysterious statues lining the arena. All the enemies seemed lively and robust, and the addition of such features like having skeleton generals use drones as weapons was a neat touch. The boss fights really show off the game’s graphical capabilities and even after taking part in just one, I can’t wait to see what else the game may have in store for me.

Graphically Painkiller is looking good so far, with some seriously foreboding and gothic visuals. The first level available in our build was the Cemetery, which was filled to the brim with graves, crypts, and a large ominous church. Lighting in the game is superb and features some truly impressive static and dynamic lighting effects, most notably in the flashlight that Daniel totes around in some of the darker levels in the game. The second level we played, Town, really showed off the game’s ability to create some claustrophobic environments, as you find yourself fighting your way through the back alleys and squares of, well, the town from Hell. Fires cast realistic shadows on nearby buildings and shots ricochet off bricks with a nice visual punch.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the game is the wild physics engine that it uses. Using the Havok 2.0 engine, enemies and environments react incredibly realistically to external forces. Take enemies as an example. Say you shoot an armored knight at point blank range with the shotgun. Doing so sends the knight flying backwards through the air in an impressive “rag doll” fashion, with the enemy finally slamming into any obstacle that may be behind them. And, if you shoot another enemy in the leg with a wooden stake, they’ll react as such and fly off their feet at the point of impact. Objects within the environment also react to a great degree with Daniel’s actions and you can usually damage everything you see - at least a cosmetic point. Walls can become filled with bullet holes, urns and vases can be blown to tiny bits and other objects like wagons and carts and be literally blown around an area to your heart’s content. The physics engine is truly a spectacle to behold and really seems to set the game apart from other FPS titles out there that have come to rely on the “shoot, fall” methodology of dealing with enemy physics. Just the sight of mangled bodies flying through the air was enough to cause the Game Informer Online staff to squeal like schoolgirls.

Not much can be said about the control scheme, considering that the game is on the PC and allows you to basically map out your controls as you see fit. I did find all the controls responsive and it was never a problem getting around the game’s areas nor was it difficult in getting my bearings at any time. I did find it a bit annoying that when you’re pinned in by multiple enemies, there really isn’t much to do other than just shoot wildly and hope that you hit something. Many enemies, when they strike you, will cause the camera to jolt upwards, often times leaving you looking up in the air and making aiming a bit difficult. But, we did sit down with an early build of the game, so hopefully that will be addressed by the time the title goes gold.

As with any other FPS out there for the PC, the crux of what makes the game so enjoyable is the ability to take the action online. Painkiller is aiming to please with a bevy of multiplayer modes. The first one is Deathmatch, your standard frag-fest that has been in all other FPS games since the birth of the genre, so there really isn’t much new to experience in that mode. Team Deathmatch spices up the usually gameplay by assigning players onto specific teams and then releasing them into an arena, with the team with the most kills crowned the winners. Voosh mode is a one on one type mode that has players only armed with rocket launchers. The catch is that you can only damage another player while they’re airborne, meaning that you’ll either need to snipe an opponent while they’re in the air or launch a rocket at their feet, sending them skyward. It’s a nice deviation from the typical “rocket arena” mode and adds quite a bit more skill that’s involved to be successful. Voosh mode adds even more craziness to the mix with all players only able to use one specific weapon. After a certain amount of time, the usable weapon switches for everyone. All weapons, however, feature unlimited ammo so the action ends up being intensely bloody and frantic. The last multiplayer mode available is The Light Bearer. In multiplayer levels you can go into demon vision state by grabbing a special skull-shaped item. While regularly the effects wear off after time, The Light Bearer Mode allows the first player to pick it up to use it until they die or after a time limit runs its course. A player with the item who dies will drop it, allowing other players to pick it up. Also, any successive players who grab the item will have 30 seconds added to the overall time so as to give other players a chance to grab it for themselves.

Overall, Painkiller is shaping up to be perhaps “the” FPS that PC gamers find themselves dumping hours of their life into. With notable titles like Half Life 2 and Doom III far off in the horizon in regards to release dates, Painkiller should prove to be a worthy game to fill that void that those titles finally see the light of day. With 20 single players missions available and perhaps the most realistic and wild physics engine in any game ever, Dreamcatcher and People Can Fly should be confident that their game will prove to be a resounding success.

Expect Painkiller on the PC in March 2004, with a port to the Xbox sometime after that.