Lets get to the game! So I started with the single player mod on highest difficulty. There is only one Level so far which i finished in about 20 minutes with a easy final boss. But I know nobody in here is interested in the single player anyway so lets get down to the multiplayer.

Painkiller HD will offer DM TDM CTF CO-OP and Survival.

In this early beta, there is one survival map and one map for deathmatch and team deathmatch. The survival map is heavily bugged and textures are missing. The responsibles promised it will be fixed asap. But I know you guys wanna hear about deathmatch so let go this way.

THE MAP

As mentioned earlier there is only one map for DM and TDM. This map is playable in 2 versions though. The performance orientated one and the HD one with more details, decoration awesome skybox etc. The map is a 3 story temple (ground floor second floor and roof) there is one mega health (+100hp) in the bottom middle and a red armor (+100) also on the ground floor. Both mega and red spawn in a 30 second cycle. As third big item there is a Power-up in a window integrated to the roof. I have to admit neither Horvi nor sk1p or myself have figured out what the PU does yet. I assume it increases damage. Also you can find some ammo and 2 25 bubbles. There is something rather new for us quake players in the map. They introduced explosive barrels which you can throw of the roof where they spawn in 10 second cycles after you let them explode. Also you can find barrels sandwiching the red armor. Those barrels are really / too powerful which ended in opponents rather shooting at barrels near me than shooting at me. And it pays out quite often. I like the map for FFAing but its quite dull e.g. since the mega and the red are on the first floor and the barrels are at the roof, nobody uses the second floor.

THE WEAPONS

Currently there are 3 weapons, all with secondary fire, makes it 6 weapons in single player, due to no ammo 4 in multiplayer.

First there is a standard shotgun. The shotgun as quite few projectiles. For me it feels like 4 or something around that. The shotgun is really powerful at ultra-close-range and useless after a about 8 meter distance. The mid range is too ineffective and might need some adjustments imo. I like the fact that its not a noob gun and u need aiming to hit.

Second there is the stake gun. It looks cool it feels sexy and its dealing a shitload of damage. In fact in most cases its a one hit kill. It is really hard to hit with it though since it is not a railgun and the stakes don't fly with instant hit speed.In long range battles, you need to aim around 5 meters ahead which makes it kinda lucky. In close range fights its fast enough and you can't dodge after the stake has been shot in your direction.

Third weapon is the soul catcher . Basicly it shoots circular saw blades with high speed. It does a lot of damage but its hard to hit in mid to long range since the blades don't fly straight. They make quite a (too) huge bow. The cool thing is they get knocked back when they hit a wall or skip when they hit the floor. As we want this game as esport this weapon needs major adjustments.

The secondary fire of the soul catcher is ... weird. The closest to compare would be the lightning gun. It is some kind of green energy beam with unlimited ammo. It is not a straight beam and behaves quite random in my opinion. anyway once you hit the enemy it sticks to the opponents head and starts sucking damage. If you don't dodge out of the (around) 60 degree auto aim field of the gun it sucks you dead quite fast. I don't think this weapon will be part of the later multiplayer, its too random. Of course i hope they will redesign the beam to a more LG-like thing but w/e.

THE MOVEMENT

The first time you play it, it feels like the amazing old Painkiller movement. But I was testing the game with PK Legend sk1p and he figured out immediately that you can reach max speed within 2 jumps and that the max speed is slower. This is stealing a lot of fun for me and i hope they give the player more max speed and more challenge to learn the movement and tricks. Also the step height is too low and u even can't jump over some ridiculously low balustrades. Another thing really bugging me are the stairs they end your run instantly. You can't accelerate downstairs and u can't get up stairs fast. So if you want to go up stairs you are down to your walking speed again. Before you judge try it! I personally like the classic Painkiller movement more than quake strafe jumping! its just a shitload of fun.

I already tryed to defrag a bit and find some tricks and tweaks. Since there is no NDA have fun and enjoy Painkiller HD Movement.

THE NETCODE

First of all there are no dedicated servers yet. You can create your own servers and other people can join. I played a lot with Horvi (hungary) and sk1p (germany). Playing with sk1p is no problem at all. Playing vs Horvi feels like having 150 ms even though i surely have under 80 ms. I tested the game with Fazz aswell and fazz lagged like a badass mofo. He said it feels like 250ms and it looked like 250. Fazz has super sexy swedish ultra net so this shouldn't be possible. I am not a Netcode specialist like Weird is :P. So i don't wanna talk about things i don't know .
I'll quote Fazz instead:

"i cant hurt anyone nothing hits its like there is 500ms delay"

"there is no excuse that a game can work this bad using the UDK engine which has netcode sound graphics all bundled up beautifully that game, is never gonna be released
mark my words"


I would not go as far as fazz but this early beta feels like an alpha and i think they went to beta a way too early. If they buckle down and work. And if they get the net code fixed properly I surely would continue playing it. Maybe even quit quake for it but it will be decided by the 10 weapons that still have to be released, the movement fixes and the net code. Thats all i can say about it yet.
Article Page: 1