Change is all well and good, that constant striving to improve upon what has already come to pass is what keeps our species evolving, but sometimes you just need to take a breather from all the hubbub of everything that's new and revolutionary to remember what it was that got you there in the first place. Take Painkiller for instance; it isn't a first person shooter that shares much in common with many of this year's hyped releases. It's certainly not going to change the face of FPS games, nor will it be remembered as the next evolutionary benchmark in gaming; instead it's gone back to something a little simpler, back to where the genre started all those years ago at a time when games still used to come on floppy discs and the most top of the range PCs couldn't outdo many of today's top of the range calculators.

Back in the days of Doom and Quake, at an age where Gordon Freeman still sounded like a high street clothes shop and Duke Nukem was the newest bad boy around, games were on a whole a lot less complex and no more was that true than in FPS. Forget all the vehicular based missions, the massive wide open environments and realistic graphics, back then it was all about killing monsters and completing the easiest of puzzles, usually involving collecting certain coloured keys for certain coloured doors. Painkiller plays very much the same and like the more recent Serious Sam, its emphasis has been put solely on mindless, chaotic fun.

The setting for Painkiller seems fitting. In a strange world between Heaven and Hell you play Daniel Garner, a man who can't understand why he's stuck in purgatory and has no idea what past sins have condemned him to such a place. But God gives Garner the chance to right his wrongs and be with his beloved wife, all it involves is the hunting down and destruction of Lucifer's massive armies, poised ready to invade Heaven. Some fairly lengthy FMV sequences move the story along but they are perhaps a little too much, as a story seems better suited to the background and you certainly never feel for poor old Daniel and his constant struggle to get back to his loved ones.

The style of gameplay is very much familiar to the previously mentioned Serious Sam, the game that ignited this new interest in old style shoot 'em ups. Levels play out much the same as one another, as you progress through a series of linear corridors that have a habit of sealing you into small boxed off areas where various amounts of monsters pour into the screen, all intent on doing you a great deal of harm. Dispatching all of these creatures unlocks the doors and allows you to progress to do exactly the same in the next area until you reach the end of the level. It sounds horrendously repetitive and in all honesty it is, but Painkiller has a way of making what should seem a frighteningly repetitive game into a stupendously addictive shooter.

This could be attributed in part to the modern technology the game uses. Everything here does look exceedingly beautiful, using its own graphics engine to cope with the amount of creatures that fill the screen. It's also one of the growing number of games to jump on the Havok physics bandwagon. Detail certainly hasn't been sacrificed, with no fogging effects or any other cheap tricks to keep a decent frame rate, though such shortcuts aren't needed as the graphics are more than capable of handling hundreds of monsters on screen at once and still manage to look smooth and highly detailed throughout. The level design is incredibly varied and superbly designed, the early levels set in creepy graveyards and catacombs are suitably atmospheric with some creepy ambient sound effects to chill the mood. Later levels such as the Asylum, a medieval town and giant cathedral continue this trend throughout the game. The Train Station and Military Base do feel a little out of place and don't really fit the gothic style of the rest of the game all that well, but this is a small sacrifice for the extra variety.

The sheer scale of some of the levels can be quite overwhelming and while they don't give you the kind of freedom represented by game like Far Cry, it's hard not to be taken aback by these massive structures; a loading bay that stretches up for what seems like miles, the absolutely enormous cathedral that happens to be home to an equally enormous monster, climbing onto a crane at the docks to see the huge level you've fought around. What's amazing is that despite the amount of carnage and chaotic action, there's no sacrifice to any of the details, no loading times and, most importantly, no slowdown. It's a testament to the development talent behind the graphics engine that's used in the game.

Monsters also come varied in appearance and their behaviour, in fact many of the 24 levels on offer come with a different amount of creatures to battle. The early levels pit you against skeleton type warriors who litter the graveyards in droves, while later you get to battle zombies through a burning plague infested village who have a strange habit of hurling severed body parts at you. Zombies make an appearance again later in the game, as World War I soldiers who use guns and bayonet charges, while medieval knights straight out of the Crusades and shotgun wielding biker demons also make up part of this weird and varied army. Attacks can differ; some enemies use long range weapon, many go right in for the kill and some even defend themselves with shields or, being the evil doers that they are, pick up the closest lower level minion and using them as a makeshift bullet-proof vest. But their variety is limited; they all have one basic function and one very basic task, kill you. So forget adaptive AI, in fact forget AI altogether, this game is about pitting you against an insane amount of creatures and trying to destroy them as quickly and as possible whilst taking minimal damage yourself.

Playing Painkiller requires you to be constantly on you feet and nowhere was the strafe key more important than it is here. You really do have to fight armies and being fast and constantly on your toes is the only clear way to surviving the constant onslaught of Satan's cronies. But help is at hand. For starters, each enemy who is sent back to hell leaves behind a soul and typically these can be collected for a reward. The reward here is that once 66 souls are collected, Daniel will temporarily gain special demon-like powers himself, rendering him invulnerable and giving him the ability to launch devastating attacks that can kill with one single strike. These can come in very useful in crowded and chaotic situations, though it's not uncommon to collect that 66th soul when all enemies in the area have been killed, wasting this most useful ability. Tarot cards can also be collected after each level, though they have to be unlocked through a series of small quests such as collecting all souls, destroying all objects or killing a certain amount of monsters within a certain time limit. Though while Tarot cards do have special powers that can help in some circumstances, it's quite possible to play the game without using them but it at least gives you an incentive to go back and play through again once the game has been completed.

Painkiller only has five weapons, though you'll probably only come to use one. The double barrel shotgun and chain gun seem to have been ripped out of Doom and while their appearance and use is slightly different, it's obvious where the influence for these two weapons in particular came from. The secondary fire options double each weapon's usefulness, the freeze shot on the shotgun is an incredibly powerful feature to use against bigger enemy types while the rocket launcher on the chain gun makes it one of the most powerful weapons in the game and great for large scale conflicts. But it's the stake gun that's the main attraction to Painkiller's arsenal. Quite simple it's the weapon that rag doll physics was made for. While many games have adopted rag doll and incorporated it into their game, Painkiller does it with a lot more style and is actually one of the reasons the action here remains interesting throughout despite the repetition.

Manipulating the game physics engine is the one thing that keeps everything flowing throughout. You don't know just how much fun it is to see the different ways you can dispatch an enemy until you get a hold of the stake gun. It fires off one huge wooden stake and whoever it hits is flung a few feet through the air unless hit directly in the chest, causing them to literally explode on impact. Getting head shots with this gun is incredibly satisfying, while well-placed shots can often bolt enemies to nearby walls. Add the havok physics engine to this, where a multitude of objects interact with their surroundings (exploding barrels being the most common) and the destruction available is as impressive as the level design and graphics. It's surprisingly enough fun to detract from the repetition of it all, kind of like therapeutic gaming. It's certainly good medication to take after the annoyance of more serious games and a few hours here and there will be enough to douse any sour feelings you may have towards a particular game.

Repetition however is still the main problem. While some may not be overly averse to getting stuck into the mindlessness of Painkiller, those looking for variety past the different levels and enemy types may be a little less impressed. The huge scale boss battles can also be slightly annoying, while staggering in size (one boss in particular towers over the level like a 20 storey building) their powerful attacks and age old weak spots that need to be exploited can drag the game on unnecessarily and detract from the mindless fun of the rest of the game. Saying that however, the final level is disappointingly easy considering it's the conclusion to the game and you'd think that fighting against Lucifer himself would be harder than fighting his generals. It's actually quite the opposite.

Painkiller is an incredibly addictive and surprisingly fun FPS that concentrates more on mindless button bashing than in tactics, exploration or anything else than many modern shooters now live by. It's a gentleman of the old school, a door to the past where games relied solely on fast-paced action and left complicated puzzles to adventure games. Some may not be as taken with this as others and by today's standards this kind of repetitive action is fairly shallow but at least Painkiller has a successful stab at making the repetition of the game entertaining enough to sustain interest until the end and enough, I hope, to warrant a sequel.

Reviewed by Kieron Giacopazzi for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).