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Painkiller: Battle out of Hell by FABIO 01/31/2005, 9:15pm PST Pretty much Erik said. The problems of the original Painkiller are back. It still crashes to desktrop from time to time. Tarot cards are still a pain to get, but this time it's a different pain. In the original game getting the cards usually meant you had to find every secret area in a level, which amounted to lots and lots of impossible jumping puzzles that you never would have guessed without a guide. Here in the expansion, the requirements for getting cards are impossible without using bonuses from existing cards. "Complete the level using only the bolt gun". You don't get enough ammo for the bolt gun unless you use cards that give you more. This is made even more difficult by the fact that the gold to place tarot cards is much harder to come by. I remember getting an average of 150-300 per level in the original game. Here it's more like 70-100. The problem of sometimes not knowing where to go next is also still present. The difficulty is pretty jacked up all around, significantly harder than Nightmare difficulty in the original. Sometimes this gets in the way of fun. Some enemies are made tougher by just taking a ton of damage. With them it's no more satisfying blowing back from the shotgun, they just take a few blasts like you were firing a nerf gun then just fall down. Other enemies fire fast heat seeking fireballs at you that are impossible to dodge. One part is literally on rails (roller coaster ride). Ten levels may sound like it's half the length of the original Painkiller, but a number of them are pretty short. The first two can be completed in about 15 minutes. One is just a short boss battle. Erik was dead on about the atmosphere being good in the orphanage, amusement park, dead city , and Lningrad levels (the dead city level makes the game chug though), but the rest are kind of bland (sewer level) and feel unpolished. If you liked the original than this is worth $20, just don't expect greatness.

Painkiller: Battle out of Hell by FABIO 01/31/2005, 9:15pm PST