Painkiller Overdose
- Thread starter tntcoder
- Start date
Also this is not being made by the original developers, but was going to be released as a free mod, untill someone got greedy & decided to release it as a retail game, so i am going to wait untill its released & see some reviews before i decide to buy it.
The load times on this game are shocking. 30-40 secs everytime you die to RELOAD the entire map from the last checkpoint. Why they didnt choose to just RESTART the map at the last checkpoint I will never know. Highly frustrating... 
PS E6600 @ 3Ghz, 2GB RAM & WD Raptor
PS E6600 @ 3Ghz, 2GB RAM & WD Raptor
Its crap
Bummer...
I liked the first game and its expansion, so I was hoping this would also be the mutt's nutts. I like to play, on occasion, a game that doesn't bother to create an involving story, and just focuses on the killing
Serious sam 2 is the daddy 
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Like me, if you like rest of the PK, you will like this, its same graphics etc.
As a fan of the first two Painkiller games, with their oldschool carnage style, I was quite looking forward to checking out Overdose. I was expecting more of the same, which isn't necessarily a bad thing - frenetic combat against dozens of monsters at once can be just as much fun as an engrossing storyline, depending on my mood.
However, I can't help but feel somewhat disappointed with this game. The reasons for which are as follows:
Weapons: When you have a game which is designed almost exclusively around combat, you absolutely HAVE to have a decent selection of fun and powerful weaponry. Both PK and BOOH had this, making it an enjoyable experience. For some reason they decided to restyle the weapons in OD, and the net result is that they feel somewhat lacklustre and not as visually appealing.
Ammo: Or rather, lack thereof. Don't get me wrong, I am not of the view that games should feed us stupid amounts of ammo, letting us blaze away with 10% accuracy and still not run out. The player should be forced to use multiple weapon types in order to distribute ammo consumption. But it seems really tight in OD, I'm frequently running out on multiple weapons at once and sometimes have to fall back to the razorcube. It just takes the fun out of the action and forces you to spend ages exploring every nook and cranny for ammo.
Level design/flow: Painkiller had some fantastic levels that seemed to progress logically from start to finish. OD, on the other hand, seems to almost be a bunch of rooms thrown together at random, with little thought put into checkpoint location - often you seem to end up doubling back on yourself and going over old ground. I know it's not the sort of game where logic is important, but you would think there would be at least some semblance of purpose or progression.
Wisecracks: Oh dear. PK:OD seems to be trying very hard to be Serious Sam, with the main character throwing out stupid 'jokes' at the start of levels or when collecting demon souls etc. It just doesn't work with this style of game, the atmosphere is supposed to be dark and gloomy, and these throw away comments feel totally out of place.
It's not all bad, though. The engine is solid and gives very good performance; playing in 1680x1050x32 8xAA max settings the game ran at 50-250fps. There is the occasional stutter during explosions or gibbing, I think it doesn't cache everything it needs to on level load, or possibly the physics engine kicks in and whores the cpu. Graphically it can't compete with modern titles due to it's age, but it still looks 'fine'.
Speaking of which, I've heard complaints in some quarters about the quicksave loading times. It seemed OK to me, around 30s and my HD/RAM speeds are nothing special.
Again, physics and sound are solid as one would expect from a mature engine. I had some sound corruption when using EAX4, but I think that is likely more down to Vista/4gig/X-Fi/Alchemy issues.
I've given up midway along the second chapter, because I have come to the conclusion that I am just going through the motions. There are too many design flaws and not enough fun to encourage me to keep playing rather than trying something new - heck, even replaying the original PK would likely be more enjoyable.
I have learnt that this expansion started life as a mod - and, unfortunately, it shows. The bottom line is that it lacks the Polish (no pun intended!) of the first two outings, and I find it hard to recommend this game given all the other next-gen FPS which have come out lately such as Bioshock, Crysis and CoD4. If you just want a simple blast, then you are better off playing Painkiller Gold, Serious Sam Gold, or Serious Sam 2.
However, I can't help but feel somewhat disappointed with this game. The reasons for which are as follows:
Weapons: When you have a game which is designed almost exclusively around combat, you absolutely HAVE to have a decent selection of fun and powerful weaponry. Both PK and BOOH had this, making it an enjoyable experience. For some reason they decided to restyle the weapons in OD, and the net result is that they feel somewhat lacklustre and not as visually appealing.
Ammo: Or rather, lack thereof. Don't get me wrong, I am not of the view that games should feed us stupid amounts of ammo, letting us blaze away with 10% accuracy and still not run out. The player should be forced to use multiple weapon types in order to distribute ammo consumption. But it seems really tight in OD, I'm frequently running out on multiple weapons at once and sometimes have to fall back to the razorcube. It just takes the fun out of the action and forces you to spend ages exploring every nook and cranny for ammo.
Level design/flow: Painkiller had some fantastic levels that seemed to progress logically from start to finish. OD, on the other hand, seems to almost be a bunch of rooms thrown together at random, with little thought put into checkpoint location - often you seem to end up doubling back on yourself and going over old ground. I know it's not the sort of game where logic is important, but you would think there would be at least some semblance of purpose or progression.
Wisecracks: Oh dear. PK:OD seems to be trying very hard to be Serious Sam, with the main character throwing out stupid 'jokes' at the start of levels or when collecting demon souls etc. It just doesn't work with this style of game, the atmosphere is supposed to be dark and gloomy, and these throw away comments feel totally out of place.
It's not all bad, though. The engine is solid and gives very good performance; playing in 1680x1050x32 8xAA max settings the game ran at 50-250fps. There is the occasional stutter during explosions or gibbing, I think it doesn't cache everything it needs to on level load, or possibly the physics engine kicks in and whores the cpu. Graphically it can't compete with modern titles due to it's age, but it still looks 'fine'.
Speaking of which, I've heard complaints in some quarters about the quicksave loading times. It seemed OK to me, around 30s and my HD/RAM speeds are nothing special.
Again, physics and sound are solid as one would expect from a mature engine. I had some sound corruption when using EAX4, but I think that is likely more down to Vista/4gig/X-Fi/Alchemy issues.
I've given up midway along the second chapter, because I have come to the conclusion that I am just going through the motions. There are too many design flaws and not enough fun to encourage me to keep playing rather than trying something new - heck, even replaying the original PK would likely be more enjoyable.
I have learnt that this expansion started life as a mod - and, unfortunately, it shows. The bottom line is that it lacks the Polish (no pun intended!) of the first two outings, and I find it hard to recommend this game given all the other next-gen FPS which have come out lately such as Bioshock, Crysis and CoD4. If you just want a simple blast, then you are better off playing Painkiller Gold, Serious Sam Gold, or Serious Sam 2.
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