It's easy to describe Painkiller in one very brief sentence: A frenetic, arena based twitch shooter with comic-book occult overtones.

There, see? Right, I'm off down the pub to meet a few of my buddies and shoot some pool, if you need anything else, I'm on my mobile…

It's tempting to be dismissive of Painkiller, since that really is all there is to it. In a genre that has, in recent times, been obsessed with offering the freedom to explore ever more detailed environments, a non-linear approach to every task, scripted sequences by the shed load, incredibly clever AI routines and a convoluted back story that twists and turns like a twisty turny thing, Painkiller comes across as something of an idiot savant. It is another example of a small bunch of FPS titles that have looked to the past in referencing a game design of a now bygone era. It is Doom circa 1993 then, but in pimped out clothes and high on ephedrine.

   

I'm going to give the story exactly the attention it deserves, then we can move on; man and woman drive car in rain, car involved in head-on crash that kills both, man offered chance to escape purgatory and rescue wife by a representative of God, signs contract to kill Devil's Lieutenants to receive reward. Now off you go.

Painkiller Developers People Can Fly don't really care too much for depth. You can imagine them all sitting round a table during a design meeting, doodling idly on their notepads, trying to think of a way to package their game ideas within a meaningful context. All they had written down so far was 'lone wolf gunman', 'occult' and 'circles of hell' when suddenly somebody stood up and said "You know what? Screw this, we'll worry about it later, let's just give what we've got to the art people and get on with it!"

   

And I think they were right to do so. Five minutes alone with Painkiller and you just don't give a toss. Because, like Serious Sam before it (not Will Rock though - meh!), the simplicity of play is crafted with such exquisite style that you begin to feel you could forgive anything. In fact, Painkiller is much better than Serious Sam, because everything it does that is similar, it does to the power of 10.

Let's start with the Havok™ engine then. Because it really is rather fancy! I've yet to play a title this year, or any other, that moves things around quite like this does, the physics are such fun to play around with that I spent those first five exploratory minutes just gleefully smashing up coffins and crates, waiting for that lovely little tinkle sound of falling gold coins, which provoked something of a Pavlovian response in me; a desire to smash up even more stuff. It's not like Far Cry or even Max Payne 2, which itself used the same engine, but more in a John Woo style. This has no such arty pretensions. It's about smashing things to smithereens, it's about staking demon knights' heads to walls and purposely seeking to do so just because it's so damned indecently satisfying! It's about setting off a huge, chaotic chain reaction of carefully placed explosive barrels, resulting in utter pyrotechnic carnage as everything alive, dead or otherwise caught in the blast radius, is flung about the immediate vicinity in joyous rag doll abandon. It really is complete Havok and I love it.

   

The graphics are simply excellent; take a look at those screenshots. Now, I know it sounds cliché and has become customary to say as much when heaping praise on such a graphically intensive video game, but those screenshots simply do not do Painkiller any justice at all. The detailed architecture of the various and eclectic environments is stunning, everything looks like it has weight, solidity, scale and texture and is lit in an entirely appropriate manner. Some environments, such as that found on the 2nd level, just ooze with spooky gothic atmosphere. The insane asylum is entirely different in feel and look, but still possessed of an unsettling level of ultra-realism, in stark contrast with its ghostly inhabitants. Although one is confined to subsections of a level until it is cleared of nasties, this doesn't seem to hamper the flow anywhere near as much as I feared. Some are small, others are rather large, but in either case, the scale and view distance is creditable, not in a Far Cry sense, but purely in terms of putting the player tangibly in touch with his surroundings - there is nothing flimsy about it, nothing that might cause immersion to fail, even momentarily. The colour palette is awash with greys, ethereal blues and rusty, blood reds - there's very little primary colour in use, yet given the sheer solidity of everything and the pin-sharp quality of textures used, this is utterly in keeping.

   

The eerie sounds of Gregorian chants tinged with demonic intent, blood-curdling screams, incidental bumping and scraping noises, the skin-crawling sighs of the ravenous dead, the hair-raising flap of raven wings overhead- it all proves to be a palpably unsettling experience. I found that each time I entered a new section, I was pumped up and ready for action, yet somehow not always entirely happy at the prospect, which is quite bizarre, given the frenetic pace and sheer unadulterated fun to be had once that door seals behind you with a bump and it all kicks off and goes utterly bananas, to the accompanying sound of unhinged death metal. Go charging through a hoard with your flailing, multi-bladed stick of lawn-mower death and you're greeted with the satisfying whoosh of the cutting blades and the clang of metal on metal, or crunch of splintered bone and squelch of separated flesh - yep, it can be revolting at times. But it's a rush too.

   

And the creatures themselves vary immensely, from heavily armoured knights gone berserk, demented, mumbling mad monks, ugly, hook nosed, cackling witches that break up and become a scattering flock of screeching ravens when you nail 'em, leaping hell spawn ninjas and shambling, lunging zombies that collapse wetly in a heap of their own viscera when suitably ventilated. Have the misfortune of finding yourself up close and personal and you will have a fleeting moment to marvel at the level of detail; of chain mail, riveted armour plate and studded leather, dirty, gore-stained fluttering rags, gaping wounds and flaps of rotten flesh. It provokes a sense of almost being able to reach out and touch them, not that you'd want to if you could.

And these horrors move in a manner that suggests a great deal of care and attention to detail in play balancing too - they all move to their own patterns, with different speeds and behaviours that change as they come into proximity. They will attack either at range or melee, but inevitably, they're none too bright and will take the shortest route they can, without due care or consideration for their own well-being. But hey, these guys are nothing but meat for the grinder. There are bosses too and these boys are big. No, actually they're colossal and they'll do their very best to bury you under the remains of the very platform you're standing on. They crash and smash their way towards you and they lay waste. Again, as is the rule of all bosses, they have weaknesses and while they're more dangerous than the usual rabble, you'll take them down without too much grief.

   

People Can Fly know their audience, they've clearly played a fair few games in their time and they know what makes us tick on a more primal gaming level. So, instead of weapon reloads and animated weapon swapping, which would be nothing but a burden given the style of play, these things are instantaneous. And while the weapons cache is limited to only 5, each of them has a primary and secondary mode and every one has an appropriate use that is immediately obvious for any given situation. No unnecessary complications then and lots of thought put into the combat. There is a nod to console games such as Devil May Cry too, with collectable souls that enable you to build up into a berserker frenzy and gold coins that can be exchanged for occult power ups between levels. I'm tempted to suggest that Painkiller is a console game disguised as a PC game and that, in an alternate reality, it could have been designed by the guys at Sega who brought us House of the Dead. But I mean that as a compliment rather than a slight.

I'm not going to dwell on the multiplayer too much. I think it strives to do as Quake did before it and proves to be maniacal fun in the process. But I wasn't too happy with the way weapons balanced out - some of them are just not up to the job of nailing someone who's running around like a loon and others are overly effective at nailing everybody within a given radius. Fine for most games with a larger arsenal, but perhaps not quite so here. The maps are small enough though, to take older gamers back to the good old days of straight, no holds barred death matching and it makes for a refreshing change from the overly realistic Call of Duty or vehicular, massed war antics of Unreal Tournament.

   

I loved Painkiller and didn't expect to. I adored its honesty and simplicity, it doesn't try to be anything that it isn't and it delivers on every level that it sets out to, effortlessly. I deliberated long and hard over the score - should I mark it down for its simplicity, or mark it up? In the end, I feel it deserves recognition. It's not the technical demo other reviewers might have you believe it is. It's an extraordinarily robust and immediate gaming experience that is as good as anything of its ilk produced in the last 5 years. If you can approach it with an open mind, you will probably love it too.