Midnight. Meat Night. See what they did there? Because if you speak really slurred with a B-Movie Transylvanian accent, ‘mid’ kinda sounds like ‘meat’… I give up with you people.
The Clock Strikes Meat Night is a bite-sized chunk of new DLC for the recent Painkiller reboot, which we reviewed last year and gave a positively pulsing 4/5. Can’t get enough? Read on.
Any excuse to revisit a heavy metal demon-ridden dystopian wasteland is a welcome one, even one so inherently bipolar as Painkiller, which combines an ultra-moody storyline with hellishly over-the-top levels. This new content focuses on the single-player/co-op side of the game, providing three new levels to run and gun through, a bunch of new enemies, and the occasional big boss encounter. Again, none of these really stand up by themselves but the levels look impressive and they’re huge, offering a significant range of environments to explore. The decrepit asylum and assumedly wartorn European village stood out to me, as did the cable car crawling through a mountain range.
The weapon set remains the same, but there’s a few new power-ups that significantly change the way the game plays. The new Tarot Card, Health Stealer, tops your life up as you kill the undead, and perhaps more significantly, the Dual Wield powerup brings Painkiller into the category of games where wielding two shotguns at once is perfectly commonplace (You should buy every game that lets you dual wield shotguns. Just do it). Whilst the game hardly needed that extra dose of mayhem it’s all in the name of fun. Another cool new touch is the addition of the ‘Meat Mine’, which allows Daniel to supercharge severed Leper heads until they explode. If it’s politically incorrect, it’s too threatening to worry about.
What we have here is more of the same, working with the core game’s formula for success – guns + more guns = fun. It’s a solid equation but it’s not for everyone. For £5.99, you get a decent block of content. With more surely on the way, it’s definitely worth it if you get a kick out of churning through the game’s hellish hordes with a buddy or by yourself. Painkiller is certainly much more fun with a friend to kill and compete with, but it’s perfectly solo-able.
If you blast straight through, the DLC will wither away pretty quickly – it took me just under two hours to clear it – but there are collectibles and secrets to find in each level, so there’s a little more substance than expected. If you despise Painkiller’s simple and imprecise approach to the shoot’em’up caste, this will only serve to further solidify that hatred, but really, this is the beginning of Farm 51’s attempt to refine and improve their game, remaking classic single-player maps along the way. Get it if you’re looking to expand the visceral Painkiller universe – it’s not a particularly substantial addition, but it’s good fun regardless.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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