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I consider the original Painkiller a classic. It’s a simple and fast-paced shooter that’s easy to jump into and enjoy. It was followed up by several expansions, most of which are standalone releases and, unfortunately, aren’t anywhere near as good as the original game. Battle Out of Hell, the first expansion and the only one that requires the base game to play was included with the base game in the Painkiller: Black Edition. After Battle Out of Hell came the standalone expansions and then came Painkiller: Hell & Damnation, a sequel and remake. What does that mean, you ask? Well after playing it, it means the story is a sequel and the gameplay is the remake part of it. That’s how I look at it, anyway.
Developed by The Farm 51 and published by Nordic Games, Painkiller: Hell & Damnation was released for PC in October, 2012 and PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2013. For this review, I played the PC version. As a sequel, Hell & Damnation continues Daniel Garner’s story. As a remake, the gameplay will feel familiar and you get to battle through many of levels that were present in the original game and Battle Out of Hell and everything looks better.
The story follows returning protagonist Daniel Garner (now voiced by Jon St. John) who is seemingly stuck in purgatory rendering him unable to see his wife who made it to Heaven. Death, or the Grim Reaper, appears and offers him a new deal; he can see his wife in exchange for seven thousand souls. Daniel agrees and is sent on a journey through familiar locations to eliminate the forces of evil. As expected, the story isn’t anything spectacular but it does retain some of the campiness and badass style of the original game.
I have a few problems with Hell & Damnation but I’m happy to say the gameplay isn’t one of them. I’ll go over some of the positives aspects first. For one thing, if you love the original Painkiller, this is more of the same. That means you’ll have to run, jump, aim and shoot to eliminate the mobs of foes that are thrown at you and it’s still a lot of fun. The game does come with a multiplayer component but I didn’t find any matches. You can also battle through the levels in the co-op mode and even test your skills on various maps in the Survival mode. Furthermore, the game supports mods through the Steam Workshop.
So with the basic overview of the positive aspects out of the way, let’s get down to the nitty gritty which means highlighting some of the problems. For starters, this is supposed to be a remake but the developers didn’t actually remake everything. The base game is extremely short and doesn’t even feature all of the levels from the original. Instead, it’s a small mix of levels from the original and Battle Out of Hell. Even with the DLC, some levels are still missing.
You really need to buy the DLC to get the most of out of this and, in this case, I feel that is problematic. The DLC adds some of the remaining levels from the original game and Battle Out of Hell. But this is very uncool because the Painkiller: Black Edition, which I’ll remind you includes both the original game and Battle Out of Hell, exists, and, as of this review, can be purchased on Steam for about ten bucks which is ten dollars cheaper than Hell & Damnation without the DLC.
The base game spreads out most of the levels across several chapters just like the original game did and there’s also a section for Bonus Levels, some of which are holiday themed variants of existing levels. The DLC not only adds in some of the missing levels, but also some levels from Painkiller: Recurring Evil. Hell & Damnation does introduce new content like some new levels, new weapons, a new power-up, and new bosses. Several returning levels have seen some changes. Some levels have been reworked, certain areas are laid out differently, all levels from the Heaven’s Above DLC are played from the top-down perspective, some of the ridiculous secrets are gone, many levels have two Black Tarot Cards to unlock, and there are some new requirements to unlock cards.
You’ll get to blast away many familiar enemies with the classic Painkiller arsenal along with some new weapons. One of them is the Soulcatcher and it comes with the base game. It can fire a blade that will rip through foes as well as a beam that can catch Souls and suck the Souls out of enemies. But what really makes it cool is the combo attack. After it absorbs enough souls, you can unleash the combo attack which will force enemies to fight for you and it proves to be quite helpful. The DLC added two more weapons to the arsenal, The Morgenstern and Cannon. The Morgenstern is a melee weapon that can also unleash a timed explosive and the Cannon can fire a flaming cannonball that explodes after a few seconds or ice cannonball that will freeze any enemies in the blast radius.
Hell & Damnation retains the core elements of the original game and that’s why the gameplay is a lot of fun. It can be a very fast-paced experience and the gunplay still feels great. You can blow enemies to pieces, impale them, and splatter their blood all over the environments. As it relates to the presentation and gunplay, the only thing I wish the developers would have corrected is the position of visible projectiles that come from some of your weapons. They still fire from the center of the screen instead of the weapon models which looks odd. When you’re on the move it’s not as noticeable but it’s one of those things that’s hard to “unsee” once you’ve seen it.
The Black Tarot Cards provide bonuses to help you during gameplay and in typical Painkiller fashion, you can spend gold to equip up to two Silver cards which offer passive bonuses and three Gold cards which can only be activated once per level unless you equip a Silver card that dictates otherwise and, unfortunately, many cards are still redundant. If you get the Single Player Tarot Card Pack which I believe comes with the Collector’s Edition, it might appear as if you can equip three Silver cards but you really can’t. This is because a permanent third Silver card called Blade Kicker was added and cannot be removed. It increases the power of the Soulcatcher’s blade attack.
Your objective in each level is to get to the end. You move from area to area, wiping out mobs of foes with the occasional boss thrown in. Veterans of the original will undoubtedly notice the new encounters and different enemies. It does seem as though some of the encounters were toned down either because enemies were replaced or it felt like there was less to deal with and as a result of some of these changes, I feel Hell & Damnation is a little easier than the original, at least when comparing the Insomnia difficulties of both versions which I equate to Normal.
Since the gameplay is still good fun, Hell & Damnation does offer quite a bit of replay value. It’s just so easy to jump into and enjoy. Plus, trying for better scores, finding all the secrets, and unlocking all the Tarot Cards are all good reasons to return and you don’t have to go on the journey alone. Then there’s the Survival mode which I think is a welcome addition. It features plenty of maps with different difficulties and requirements.
Visually, Hell & Damnation does look noticeably better than the original game and even with some of the changes to the levels, I can’t say any part of the tone or style was lost with the facelift. It’s a pretty faithful remake in terms of the visual presentation. The textures, lighting, and character models look better and the only eyesore I noticed was some weird looking shadows here and there. The action is backed up by an incredible soundtrack consisting of a lot of awesome metal riffs. On the technical side, the frame rate would dip and stutter occasionally but I can’t say I encountered any major problems.
I’m a little torn with Hell & Damnation. It’s not a bad game and is certainly not the worst Painkiller entry but the fact that the base game isn’t a full remake of the original, let alone the Black Edition, is odd. The fact that the people behind this are charging players money to own levels that were in the original and Battle Out of Hell, knowing the Black Edition exists, makes me think they’re just greedy. Plus, some levels are still missing. Without the DLC, Hell & Damnation feels like its lacking. The DLC makes it feel more complete and gives you plenty of content to enjoy. I welcome the Survival mode and the top-down levels are a refreshing change of pace and now I want to see some kind of spin-off title in this style.
I would only recommend Painkiller: Hell & Damnation if you can get it on sale. It’s not a bad Painkiller game but I take issue with what comes with the base game and some of the DLC. Ultimately, Hell & Damnation is a somewhat odd remake but it is your typical Painkiller experience which means it’s fun and easy to jump into.