While Dreamcatcher recently announced that Painkiller won"t be out until April, the public will get its first taste of the otherworldly first-person shooter next week. A playable demo will premiere on GameSpot DLX on February 16 with three single-player maps.
The game follows a recently deceased hero on his well-armed stand against a rebellion in Purgatory, so realism takes a back seat to fantastic battles. But Painkiller features over-the-top Havok 2.0 physics to make the action even more frantic. Three out of five weapons are in the demo--the stake gun, chain-gun and Painkiller--and all have two very different firing modes, plus a combo attack that combines them. The stake gun highlights the game"s wild ragdoll physics when the large projectiles lodge in undead foes--and it also packs a grenade launcher. The chaingun"s combines with the rocket-launcher and the Painkiller mixes a beam laser and slasher capabilities.
The demo will give players a glimpse of three locations in Purgatory: the never-before-seen Oriental Castle, the witch-infested medieval town level, and the boss fight against the giant hammer-wielding Thor. The castle level, depicted in the screenshots above, is one of the largest in the game and is designed with an atmospheric Arabian Nights-style. The town level is an ideal place to put the stake gun to work, while the Thor battle has been significantly updated since its eye-catching debut at E3 2003 and shows off destructible environments and real-time lighting.