Recent reviews by Uncle Oval

A typical RPGmaker game serves as the framework for interesting art, music, and writing.

Endlessly creative and funny.

Super fun Hotline Miami-like FPS oozing with style and personality.

I deeply appreciate that the new Doom games starting from 2016 have made the case for their existence by designing novel FPS combat systems for each entry.

Toby Fox hasn't missed yet.

Despite being a clear step-up in quality from Redemption (whose maps I'm fairly certain were just multiplayer maps re-purposed to be single-player by filling them with way too many enemies), Recurring Evil is just 5 mediocre fan-made maps each consisting of a linear sequence of encounters with low level melee enemies. The levels are more visually impressive than the last two expansions; the final level is a recreation of Angkor Wat, but the gameplay is no less tedious for it.

Looking back at Painkiller and its expansions, I thoroughly enjoyed the base game and Battle Out of Hell, and Overdose was a delightfully irreverent and janky good time, sadly hampered by numerous hard crashes. The three expansions after Overdose (Resurrection, Redemption, and Recurring Evil) on the other hand, are shovelware quality: they are collections of poor quality fan-made maps senselessly re-packaged for sale.

Redemption is clearly a slapdash collection of fan-made levels packaged together. The maps are incredibly amateurish; each one is constructed from samey sparsely decorated rooms which are flooded by low-level enemies without any regard for their strategic use. They try to make the Painkiller equivalent of slaughter maps by over-stuffing each level with enemies, but the effect is less overwhelming and more tedious when they just flow in over the coarse of 5 to 10 minutes per combat encounter. Nearly every fight can be addressed by circle strafing to gather enemies in a group, then firing the rocket launcher at them. It is absolutely essential to use the tarot card that doubles the ammo you pick up from boxes; the first few levels have such little ammo that you have to be proficient at using the painkiller to make any progress otherwise.

Playing Resurrection had me longing for the good old days of Overdose again. Overdose may have been unforgivably buggy; inexplicably long loading times together with frequent crashes artificially extended its play time by a factor of 2 at least, but it was admirably creative. Every level had a different theme, with distinct textures, props, and even enemy designs.

Resurrection is more stable, on my PC at least, but the levels are depressingly uninspired: gigantic, sprawling expanses of gray and brown, littered haphazardly with generic props from the base game. Enemies either trickle in from random seeming spawn points in the distance, or they spawn right in from of you: popping into existence and draining your health instantly without even the courtesy of a visual or aural cue that they're spawning in.

The Max Payne style graphic novel cut-scenes are cute at least. The VA for the protagonist "Bill" is doing his best Caleb impression, but instead of quoting Evil Dead movies, he's making a half-hearted "300" reference: "This is madness..." multiple times per level. 2009 was a different time I guess.

I appreciate Painkiller and it's expansion Overdose for their endless creativity; every single level has unique enemy and world designs. It's such a fun and goofy experience... when it works. While I recommend Painkiller and its expansion Battle out of Hell, Overdose crashes so often I'm having a great deal of difficulty making it to the end. I hope the other expansions aren't this unforgivably janky, but I'm not counting on it,

I'm surprised that this game isn't talked about more. Playing Painkiller for the first time in 2025, I noticed how much of its DNA is in the new wave of fast-paced shooters: the level structure and challenge system for power-ups came back in Doom 2016, the simplified bunny-hopping for speed came back in Dusk, the system for collecting enemy souls to activate a special mode where you're overpowered came back in Amid Evil...

This is a super fun game that has aged remarkably well. Coming out in 2004 it may have been overshadowed at the time by Half-Life 2, when people started becoming more interested in "mature" fps with integrated story-telling, but Painkiller represents an equally valid alternate path toward optimizing fast-paced 3D fps action the PVE games didn't pick up on until over 10 years later.

Awesome find; I'm excited to play all of the DLC. Hopefully the new installment coming later this year can maintain the irreverant and arcadey spirit of the original.