Painkiller: Hell Wars

The simplistic guilty pleasures of the PC version get faithfully ported to the Xbox.

Fighting brain-eating zombies isn't a problem when you're in a mindlessly entertaining shooter like Painkiller. Something like a director's cut from the PC version, Hell Wars brings the same simpleton FPS mechanics over to the Xbox, this time featuring a new weapon and additional multiplayer modes.

It's a straight-forward game, which isn't a bad thing. Sprinting through the rundown streets and blasting mangled undead freaks, you realize it's actually refreshing not having to reload. Death is a fleeting fantasy when you have a fat three-digit health bar that reassures you of your mini-gun-defying invulnerability, and weapons destroy fleshly abominations with swift finality. Painkiller embraces its lack of sophistication; there's no contrived stealth sequence, the plot is negligible at best, and the single-player levels don't force you to find color-coded keys.

PC ports typically see a graphical tone-down, and this title is no different. Lower resolution textures and chunky polygon models show that Painkiller is no graphical powerhouse. Still, the usual visual foibles are forgivable when you have flailing ragdolls that dance to your shotgun blasts. Horror themes wouldn't be complete without distortion-saturated rock soundtracks--and sure enough, the generic and cheesy tunes pack a forgettable punch.

Painkiller won't rewrite FPS history, nor does it care to. But it beats dropping 60 bucks on a potentially sorry next-gen FPS title.

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