Imagine, if you will, that you are the head honcho of a gaming entity. You have had a good game released to good reviews, and a pro-gaming league has picked up the title to use in competition, surely giving more coverage of the game and therefore increasing the original’s value. Would you embark on a sequel, in the hope that the hype from the first game can change into fanaticism and therefore ensure high sales? Alternatively, would you rather take the quicker route of making an add-on with more levels, modes, weapons, and various features that can benefit the original game, which can also fund the development of other future titles by the company?

Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell is the add-on to the Serious Sam-a-like Painkiller, so you need the original to play this. If you do, then you will know roughly to expect and can skip forward at least a paragraph or two. Everyone else or those who own Painkiller but cannot remember a thing about it, keep reading.

Painkiller had you (Daniel Garner) taking on a bunch of Hell themed creatures, in a manner that can only be described as “kill anything that moves before it kills you”. You had to do a small errand for the forces of “Good” by destroying as much of the forces of Evil as you had ammo to use, i.e. lots. It played like Serious Sam in many ways, except that it was darker, and the weapons were fewer but more intelligent in their combinations. The storyline was just an excuse to theme the artwork in a way that could be called Gothic, but it was a good game none the less.

Despite having a title that sounds like a failed Meatloaf single, Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell plays pretty much like the original. The numerous enemies still come after you, many of them new to the game. You’ll find a wide variety of minions ranging from circus freaks, pirates, nurses, army men and special bosses, all willing to line up and get shot.
These enemies are themed to the levels, which themselves are varied. A theme park, a pirate ship, an orphanage and for reasons unknown, Leningrad. It’s almost as if someone got bored with the attempt of a storyline and picked random places out of a dictionary to work with for themes. This would be a bad thing, but the levels are done to such a level that it doesn’t really matter. Sometimes the setting is just right, and even creepy, but it is still enjoyable to punch through.

The additions to the basic weaponry of the original are two new guns, although they do have alternative fire modes. First there’s the flamethrower combined with a sub-machinegun, which isn’t as bad as you might think. The other is a bolt gun which can fire packs of bolts at a time in a way similar to a sniper rifle, and also has a bouncing grenade mode in case your target gets too close.

Aside from these changes and extras, there’s nothing much more of note to say. Basically, it’s a simple case of “More of the same” and if you liked the original, you might like this too.

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