For those gamers out there that missed out on the PC release of Painkiller a couple years ago, DreamCatcher Interactive and People Can Fly have finally brought the gruesome gore –filled bloodfest to the Xbox to cure any deep seeded demon slaughtering needs that may be lingering in the back of your mind. Painkiller: Hell Wars follows the story of Daniel Garner, a seemingly normal man who, with his wife, was killed one night in a horrific car accident. As his wife was taken to Heaven, Daniel wasn’t quite so lucky. Ending up somewhere between Heaven and Hell, he was given the task of fighting the hordes of Hell to gain entry to the pearly gates and to be reunited with his wife once again. As the minions of Lucifer amass in ungodly numbers in all sorts of locales, it is up to you and your array of unique weapons to take them down as “Heaven’s hitman”.

The gameplay of Painkiller is pretty much as simple as you can get; kill, kill, kill and while you’re at it, kill some more. Making a comparison of Painkiller to games such as the original DOOM and Serious Sam isn’t too far off the mark as the games are played quite similar. As you enter each locale, you will be greeted by swarms and swarms of enemies that rush at you ready to tear you limb from limb. As you are playing, you need to stay on your toes, watch your back and keep your aim steady and true at all times. The game keeps up a very hectic pace as the enemies flood out stalking you relentlessly and you’ll find like most FPS games, running backwards and strafing are two of your best friends. Unfortunately with the numerous enemies on screen at times, the game does suffer from frame rate loss once in a while when there is too much action going on. Luckily Daniel also has an arsenal of some interesting and lethal weapons to deal out the damage to the creepy foes that will be all over you. There are not a huge number of weapons that you can find in the game, but each weapon is deadly in its own right and does have a secondary attack that is practically like having two guns in one.

The Painkiller is your default weapon that is a staff with a spinning tip that tears enemies apart in seconds but only at very close range. The shotgun and rocket launcher are your standard fare and the loveable stake gun lets you fire seemingly huge wooden stakes at your enemies. The stake gun alone is a riot to use and pegging an enemy out of the air and watching it flop to the ground with a giant pole embedded in it is a sight to see. The secondary weapons include a chaingun, lightning gun, grenades and the like. Ammo is thankfully plentiful in the game, considering how many enemies you need to take out, although a lot of the time you will need to do a little searching to find where it is stashed among other goodies that are hidden through out each level.

Each level will have objectives to complete and if done successfully, will reward you with tarot cards. Tarot cards can be used during the gameplay for additional help in your war. Some of these are such things like increasing health, dishing out more damage and allowing souls to linger around longer. When ever an enemy is killed, a green cloud will be released from his body - its soul - for you to collect. Each will give you additional health as well when you gather a certain amount of them; you will turn into a demon and have incredible speed and strength. When this happens, the screen turns gray; enemies turn red and it all is very reminiscent of the DOOM berserker mode, where you can one-shot kill every enemy.

Throughout the game, the enemies that you will come across range from the extremely mundane to the extremely disturbing. All the enemies have been beaten with the ugly stick and look like they are what they were meant to be, straight out of hell. Enemies ranging from ho-hum skeletons, to flying witches and zombie militants and the further you get into the game, the creepier they get. The Asylum in particular where handless patients crawl along the ceiling and pop up out of beds is enough to give you the heebie jeebies but if you think that’s twisted, it gets worse later on. All enemies when taken out explode into gooey piles of guts and blood which is pretty cool the first few times, but after a hundred times, the same dismemberment and body chunks gets less impressive very quickly.

When you enter an area, which are all dreary, run down places, you will find your self doing nothing more than clearing it out of enemies until a red marker appears and allows you to enter a new area. Once you enter it, you find yourself repeating the same thing, clearing out enemies until the next marker appears and so on. More often then not, it felt as though the missions in each chapter were just repetitive filler to get your adrenaline pumped for when you reach the end level boss. The bosses are a hard fought battle to get to, but they are definitely worth it and easily the coolest part of Painkiller. Not many games have a boss that takes up more than the entire screen and painkiller has quite a few of them and they are all absolutely awesome.

Painkiller isn’t the longest of shooter games out there; with just over 20 levels and clocking in at about five to six hours playing time, you definitely won’t find a lack of action. With a pretty robust multiplayer aspect that features plenty of modes to keep any Live gamer busy for a long while, the hellish action continues when you finish off the single player campaign. The chaotic pace of Painkiller keeps your fingers moving constantly and the kicking metal rock soundtrack that accompanies each level will have your head banging along with the kills. For those looking for a mindless, fun romp through some of the creepiest environments you’ll come across, killing everything in sight with some great tunes and distinctive weapons, Painkiller could be just what you’re looking for.