What Makes a Good FPS: Good Ol' Fashioned Genocide
It seems that as games have evolved over the years, the focus has been more on showing off the designer's friendly A.I. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, I mean I loved traveling with Alyx through the ruins of City-17 and White Forest in the Half-Life Episodes, but at the same time, newer FPS's haven't been that great at feeding my primal need to just kill everything on the screen. Gone are the days of being totally alone on a level with a bunch of guns and the population of a small European village between you and the exit. Since the mid to late '90's, games have begun to focus more on team based tactics, the installment of a friendly A.I. partner, and multiplayer. There are a few games however, that continue my love of carnage and endless and mindless murder, two of which are Painkiller and Postal II.
Painkiller is a game developed by Polish Developers "People Can Fly" which is pretty amazing as it's their first game they've ever done. The story is a steaming pile of shit and essentially reads like "Guy has sexy wife, he and sexy wife get killed in a car accident caused by Guy, sexy wife goes to heaven and Guy is tasked with killing four of Satan's generals". You're not really given much of a choice in the matter and then you're given the titular "Painkiller", a bladed rotational device thingy that can sever enemies into several bloodied limbs. Next to the Gravity Gun from Half-Life 2, it's probably my second favourite melee weapon. The game also includes a gun that shoots small logs that impale enemies to walls and a gun that shoots shirukens and lighting. Other than that I'm not sure what there is to say, you're given an arsenal of some truly impressive weaponry and a lot of things to kill. The game may be primitive, but sometimes we need to be reminded that we are too. If stripped of our luxuries like electricity, food, and sex, we'll revert to our primal urges, and this game lets me do it with out consequence.
I will do a write up for Postal II tomorrow as I am not feeling particularly well tonight.
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