If you’ve been following the first-person shooter genre on the PC, you’ve no doubt already heard of or played Painkiller by new developer People Can Fly, published by DreamCatcher Interactive. The game is a remarkably fun and frightening fast-paced shooter that has players taking on the persona of one David Garner as he dies in a car wreck with his wife, and ends up on a mission to stop hordes of demons from taking over Heaven. With 24 levels, over 50 enemy types (including probably the largest moving bosses in a game to date), destructible environments, and 5 great multi-player games, it’s only natural that the game would gravitate to the Xbox at some point. If PCF can keep the quality of the console port as high as the PC version of the game, expect to be blown away by it months before games like Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 ship.

What makes Painkiller so special is not only its amazing visuals, excellent use of the Havok 2.0 physics engine and the general scope of the varied environments, it’s also the weapons selection, which is limited to five guns each with a regular and alternate fire mode. There are a few common FPS weapons, like a rocket launcher and double-barreled shotgun, but things get decidedly exotic with a slow reloading but effective stake thrower, the electrokiller, and the very deadly Painkiller (and no, it doesn’t fire ibuprofen at wounded enemies). The alternate fire modes for each of the weapons makes for some hysterically funny moments, like blasting a huge stake with a grenade attached to it through two enemies and pinning them to a wall as another group is coming after you for an explosive surprise. Speaking of explosive surprises, you can also destroy parts of the environment and have the rubble damage enemies or run like hell from a 300+ foot tall boss as he lays waste to much of the stage you face him in while he’s also spawning smaller enemies to come after you. Killing demons releases their souls, and collecting enough turns David into a demon himself, with super powered skills for a brief period of time.

From a visual standpoint, expect the Xbox version to be on par with pretty much any of the recent and upcoming games on the console. Environments range from dark and grim to partly sunny with a chance of hideous demons out to flay you silly. Lighting and other effects are stunning, and there’s a sense of immersion that’ll have some gamers diving under the couch when they come across the first few demons in the game. As each area is based on a different time period, the enemies range from medieval skeletons in armor to reanimated WWI corpses, to what look like Road Warrior extras, all set on your destruction. You’ll run across these guys and gals in groups and yes, the AI here is pretty sharp for the most part, with your foes operating like a well-oiled machine at times. While you’ll often find yourself rushing into a room guns blazing, you’ll also find that this is what will also get you killed faster on some occasions as well. Sounds and music are also mighty and quite impressive, although if you’re not a fan of crunchy metal dirge sounds, you’ll probably be turning the music volume down a little bit. I actually think it fits like a velvet glove, and if you poke around on the Internet, you may be lucky enough to score a soundtrack.

As for the multi-player modes, there’s no word yet on whether or not the game will support System Link or any sort of co-op gameplay, but even if it doesn’t, it’s an incredible single player experience, and well worth reserving at your favorite game shop. While no definite release date has been set (Q4 2004 is still targeted), we’ll be back with a full review as soon as a final version arrives. JS