While nothing can take the place of its keyboard and mouse predecessor, Hell Wars is an admirable port of a great game.
Despite that the original Painkiller and Painkiller: Battle out of Hell expansion was released for the PC in 2004, this X-Box port manages to keep the game fresh for Painkiller veterans by mixing the best parts from both original games into one to create a solid gaming experience.
While most games focus on characters that spend the majority of the game attempting to avoid death, Daniel Garner of Hell Wars doesn’t really need to fret about that little setback, as he’s dead from the beginning. Killed along with his wife in a tragic car accident, Daniel has been sent to purgatory for purification while his wife now resides in Heaven. Only by helping the angels fight in their war against Lucifer’s demons and generals can Daniel reunite with his lost love in paradise. However, it’s getting there that can be tricky part.
Following along the lines of the more action-oriented first-person shooters such as Serious Sam and Doom, success in Hell Wars really relies on being aggressively visceral instead of strategic. There are no buttons to press, no keys to collect, and certainly no puzzles to solve as this game is pure run and gun excitement. Only by killing all the demons in each sealed area will gamers be allowed to advance to the next checkpoint and new section of the level. It may sound tedious, and it especially can be when searching for the last demon to slay in an area, but the level design, evil creatures, and smart weapons really keep the game flowing.
Hell Wars is broken into five chapters, with each chapter further broken down into distinct levels. For the most part, the levels are very well done artistically and help depict the creepiness of everyday places like asylums, graveyards, and churches, except with a lot less humans and a lot more demons running around. However, once in a while the more lackluster levels with enormous empty spaces and bland textures will pop up and bore gamers to tears.
In these generally brilliant levels, demons and creatures of the night run amok in search of Daniel. Flesh-chunking zombies, witches on broomsticks, and grim reapers wielding massive scythes all inhabit the purgatory between Heaven and Hell, and want nothing more to send him to a exceptionally warm place that his wife is most certainly not in. Chances are if gamers have ever had nightmares about it, it’s going to come running after them in this game. But the important thing to remember is that Daniel isn’t without some monster annihilating equalizers.
With six distinct weapons at his disposal, the demons really don’t stand much of a chance. Each weapon has a primary and secondary fire, but skilled players will learn how to combine the two into an even deadlier combination attack. Weapons like a rocket launcher that doubles as a chaingun for explosive crowd control and a stake gun that can impale a single enemy onto any surface with a hunk of sharpened wood makes slaying the onslaught of baddies entertaining.
While there are a lot of positive things to be said about Hell Wars, it is absolutely not without some rough spots. For starters, the heavy action and numerous enemies on screen at once can create some unmerciful lag at times. This is typical of PC games that become ported to home consoles, but it doesn’t occur as often as one might think. Another problem with the PC to home console transfer is the lack of pinpoint accuracy with the PC mouse. This can become exceptionally frustrating when trying to use a weapon like the stakegun that requires a direct hit. The game tries to rectify this by adding a scope to the gun, but it really doesn’t help matters much in the middle of battle.
Other complaints could be seen as somewhat brain-dead enemies, a good bit of load screens to wait through, and for players who aren’t familiar with this type of mindless shooter, the possibility of becoming battle fatigued with pure action instead of sporadic puzzle elements to separate the firefights.
All in all, Hell Wars corrects every wrong thing it does by doing two things right in return. The single-player campaign is long enough to keep gamers occupied for a bit, and the inclusion of offline and online multiplayer really strengthens the game, yet good luck trying to find someone on X-Box Live actually playing it.
So while the next-gen console war rages on, just remember that there are tons of current-gen games out there like Painkiller: Hell Wars just waiting at local game and rental stores, all desperate to steer clear of their inevitable home in the bargain bin. Go ahead, make a difference.