By Jason Nimer
Ever since I made the jump to the iPhone 4 (it wasnt that big a jump; I
previously had a 3GS that was just fine aside from a finicky battery), Ive
gotten back into gaming on Apples flagship device. For months now the iPad has
been my first, best option for iOS gaming, but the Retina display on the iPhone
looks so nice that Ive been spending more and more time hoping no one calls me
before I can finish another game of Deathfall or Tiny Wings. In my move back to
iPhone gaming, though, my favorite genre has quickly become the first-person
shooter. Games like N.O.V.A., Modern Combat (and their sequels) and Battlefield
2 have been eating up a lot of my iPhone time, which is why I was so excited to
see Painkiller: Purgatory come up for review. My excitement dropped off about 30
seconds into the game itself, and its been proved that not every developer is
willing to learn from their iMistakes.
MachineWorks Northwest, the people behind the atrocious Duke Nukem iOS port,
have tried this once before. Painkiller: Purgatory was already been released
once on the App Store, and was subsequently pulled for what I can only imagine
was its general level of suckiness. With its re-release under the Chillingo
banner, hopes were high for some graphical and control fixes. Sadly, for all
intents and purposes, this is the same game that was pulled months ago, and it
still sucks.
The worst offender is the control scheme. As with Duke Nukem, the devs
implemented a terrible dual analog stick method, and the off-kilter sensitivity
of the move and aim actions will probably kill players more often than any of
the monsters youll be fighting. Even worse is the placement of the buttons
youll need. When you begin the game, youve got two options for dealing death:
a spinning blade stick and some kind of energy beam weapon. These buttons are
situated right above the right analog stick, and unless you are Kate Moss, your
fingers will end up activating your weapons when all youre trying to do is look
up. Since the blade is the attack du jour, melee combat becomes a necessity. The
problem is the controls make it all but impossible to get close to your enemies,
and even if you do, you may turn off the blade weapon by accident on your way
there. Truly terrible stuff.
Though Im not one to harp on graphics (the just-released Mission Europa is
one of the ugliest games on the App Store; its also one of the best available),
Painkiller Purgatorys visuals are just plain bad. There are lots of sparsely
detailed rooms and corridors to explore (most of which look the same), and the
enemies in them are sub-Nintendo 64 level when it comes to appearance and
design. The visuals are so bad, I dare say whomever let these graphics out of
beta testing should be banned from creating video games forever.
I really dont know what else to say. I never got a chance to play the
original Painkiller on the PC, and Ive always regretted it. After this
trainwreck of a game, Im thinking that maybe Im not missing too much. Simply
put: Painkiller: Purgatory is a terrible game and no one should spend any of
their hard-earned money on it.
Final Rating: 10%
