I haven't bought PK yet but I plan to. It's less expensive then most new releases. I plan to buy it because I love the look of the environments and enemies.

I agree very much with Shambler's view on bosses. I can enjoy a game immensely only to hate it at the very end or at chapter ends because the obligatory boss climax is more frustrating then fun.

One boss battle feature that I liked was on the AvP2 mission pack. The HUD showed the boss's health meter. That really helped to motivate me to push on because I knew that my attacks were actually working. Diablo II also has such a feature (but for all enemies.) I hate not knowing whether the boss has 1,000,000,000 hit points or if I'm supposed to figure out it's weakness during the 4-5 second spells between reloading my game and dying again.

Boss battles that are not hugely difficult are exempt from my whining.

Go tell 'em Shambler. 

Haven't finished the game yet, but I'd just like to say that so far I've found the bosses to be the most interesting aspect of the game. Once you figure out how to destroy them, they are fun, and satisfying to take down. I particularly liked the swamp beast, which frustrated the hell out of me at first, but once I discovered how to kill him, it was just so much fun.

It's a pity the other aspects of the game can't be anywhere near as creative/interesting. 

I got up to the boss with the hammer, and my computer basically ground to a complete halt. That stage is completely unplayable on my system, so I don't think I'll progress any further without cheats. I'll look forward to revisiting the game when I get a new computer.

Depite that, I felt the game had really perfected the art of simply "shootin' stuff". Every method of dispatching the various baddies was deliciously satifying; my favourite being the freeze gun/shotgun combo, which made close range horde combat an absolute pleasure. Gibbings were supremely succulent; the way the bodies just came apart perfectly was really well done.

I liked the way health was handled; a little bit for each monster killed, plus the checkpoint system was a very good idea.

For me, the weakest aspect of the game were the levels; they looked lovely, yes, but they didn't really feel like anything more than just pretty backdrops to the action; there wasn't really anything else to them aside from 'enter room, door shuts behind you, room fills with insane amount of monsters, you kill monsters, door opens, enter another room...' ad infinitum. They were nothing more than a series of arenas strung together. Don't get me wrong, I do love arena combat, but it's nice to break it up a bit sometimes. Also, pretty much every level played exactly the same, with only the boss stages to provide a bit of variation.

Most of the combat was fair, but a couple of areas were stupidly difficult and annoying, particularly in the military base.

The physics engine. Well, this was the reason my computer ground to a halt, so I personally could have happily done without it. That said, if I had a faster computer I would have no doubt thought it "rocked", but I still don't think it was amazingly necessary from a gameplay point of view.

If I had a fast computer, and if there was a level editor for the game, I would definately think about mapping for it. I think with more "Quakey" level design, this game would have been awesome. 

Cheats: http://www.dreamcatchergames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=22515df7b9cc72b01a6347f881e65c93&threadid=19660

BTW, I very much agree with your assessment of the game although I tended the find the lack of theme and continuity between levels as much of an issue as the levels themselves. 

Actually, I have already godded my way past the hammer boss, and have resumed playing normally.

Hmmm...there is a definite improvement in these later levels, the castle in particular felt much more like a proper level than previous efforts; although progression still seems kind of arbitrary.

I'm coming up against some real beefy bongers now - I really love the design of these monsters.

I don't really mind the lack of continuity between levels; in any case I think there is a vague theme that connects each of the levels in a chapter. I think overall it's consistent with the generally oldschool arcadey feel of the game, where successive levels don't necessarily have to match stylistically. 

Where the skelaton warriors guard a UFO, could you send me an in-game pic? That just sounds so cool. 

Nice level, I found all the secrets in that which got me pretty chuffed =). 

Castle *was* nice. I think my favorites were Monastery, Snowy Bridge, and the Venice-y level (City on the Water?). A couple of the secrets on the latter were incredibly difficult to find . . .

I love the monster that grabs lesser monsters and holds them as shields while they kick helplessly. That's good stuff. 

Ok, i'll admit, I had to cheat a bit in places where the slowdown made it unplayable on my system. Also I was disappointed to learn that they still hadn't fixed that awful checkpoint bug in the Monastery even with the 1.2 patch >:|

In case anyone else encounters it; i'll describe both the bug and a nifty way of avoiding it: after smashing the huge cross into the floor, you go down into a small cave network, kill the baddies and then come back out of the cave the way you came and proceed to the next checkpoint; after that you descend a small spiral staircase and enter a room with those witch thingies that emerge from coffins. Now there is a nasty bug here - sometimes you can kill all the monsters, but the door blocking access to the next checkpoint (under the small spiral staircase) doesn't open, preventing you from finishing the level.

Here's the workaround: guarding the checkpoint before the spiral staircase is a skull faced dude - do not kill him. Run straight past him into the room with the coffins - kill all the monsters there, and only then can you go back and kill the skull guy - voila, the next checkpoint appears, and you may proceed.

Apart from that, the Monastery is probably my favourite level of the bunch; it just looks so awesome, and it really does feel like a place you can explore.

Hell was wierd, it looked impressive and for some reason I had absolutely no performance problems with this level whatsoever; I was getting 60-80 fps even with huge crowds of monsters. No idea what was going on there. I couldn't figure out how to kill Satan until I'd read a guide though. 

When I played the hell map I just kept shooting satan when he appeared and he eventually died :) What are you "supposed" to do here then? 

can only be killed by shooting the lava balls and deflecting them back at him; perhaps you were actually doing this inadvertedly and didn't realise ;) Amidst all the chaos it might appear as if you were just shooting him normally. Other than that, I dunno. What skill level were you on? 

I kinda figured that was how I killed him, but I played it the same way DaZ did and just shot at him forever till he went down. I do remember at one point deflecting the lava balls around just to keep them from hitting me...I must bounced a few in his direction too.

Personally, I think this game is great for what it set out to be: A mindless slaughterfest in the same way as oldschool shooters like Quake and Doom. They didn't go over-the-top with the amount of enemies on screen (ala Serious Sam), but there was never a shortage of cannon fodder. Even near the end of the game, after killing thousands of baddies, I was never disappointed with using the same means to kill them all. In short, the game kept the same slaughter-groove going through the whole trip.

I really didn't mind the disparate themes throughout the levels either..it just flowed from one somewhat weird, demon-infested location to another, although they did tend to stay very generally within a theme per chapter. The multiple types of enemies reminds me alot of quake though: There are semi-realistic enemies with guns of all sorts, for a real-world twist. Then there's plenty of hell-knight-ish creeps to blast, and plenty of ninjas and demons. I just can't wait for a map-editor. With all the monster types and textures already used ingame, there looks like plenty of room for creativity right out of the box.

The gameplay was always fun, fast, and with lots of flying bodies and ammunition. Two thumbs up :) 

The bugginess being the only thing that marred the experience for me. I can understand them wanting to get the game out of the door before Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 showed up though. 

I just can't wait for a map-editor

No, you can't. There won't be one, from what I understand. 

will be released with the expansion pack:

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/32410

All I need now is a top bollocks computer, a copy of Maya, and ideally a lottery win, so I can sit at home and do all this instead of working. 

amplified arsenal of un-deadly weapons

I don't know if I like that statement. One of the things I liked about PK was that I didn't have a whole bunch of redundant weapons to juggle, and the alt-fire complimented the main-fire instead of being a derivative. It was the antithesis of the UT weapon system. 

Perhaps they will throw in Learning Addition Maya compatabilaty into the mix; personally, I prefer Blender as a mesh rendering machine but Maya is pretty nice. One thing, I switched my Laptop to Windows 2000 (I am paranoid about XP) to make it compatable with the learning edition, as Maya has no Windows 98 or Me support. 

I will try to keep this brief as I could ramble on for ages now I've finished the game.

First things first...

Some advice:

If you are just starting playing this game, pay close attention to all the tricks and features involved as they can make things a lot more fun and easier. I.e. Souls, checkpoints, collecting Tarot cards, collecting gold, finding secrets, being aware of the game physics (e.g. bunny hopping, steep slope climbing, etc), playing the appropriate style and not worrying about ammo etc. These features aren't "extras" but have a genuine role to play.

(As I learnt only about half-way through =)).

Anyway, the game, yes, fun, entertaining, cool maps and styles. Horde gameplay wasn't too bad at all, the level of violence was good, weapons were good and useful aside from the gay lightning thing. I tended to prefer the shotgun/icegun and RL/CG. PRetty well balanced. I liked the souls & Demon Morph, a good gameplay reward mechanism. Boss fights weren't as crap as I originally thought, Swamp was the worst. Good graphics although a bit oldskool in places, the blowing fog/clouds were excellent.

Favourite levels...

Asylum - deranged and atmospheric, love the electric head dood, serious fucked up.
Snowy Bridge - enormous bridges rock full stop.
Castle - nothing radical but just a nice castle level.
Docks - bloody hell, what a massive area, epic.
Monastry - very nice, stylish, well themed and atmospheric.
Hell - totally not what I expected. The most original level since....a very long time. Very clever and cool indeed, although too small and could have had traditional "hellish" aspects blended in.

The main flaw:

Lack of coherency to the whole thing. I mean it's less of a game and more a collection of levels.

<pope> it has ambience down very well
<pope> one of its (if not THE) strongest point imho
<Shambler> errre
<Shambler> except for the ludicrous horde combat, the lack of any coherency and continuity between the levels, the lack of reason why those levels exist in purgatory, the discrepancy between the serious background and comical gameplay, the progression that solely relies on killing monsters....
<Shambler> but yeah ASIDE from that the ambience is....profoundly convincing

Pretty obvious really. The whole thing could have been put together as an coherent package, explained better, made more sense, and had a convincing atmosphere, and still had the deranged PK style. But it didn't.

Two other notable flaws:

It's a game by speedrunners/trick specialists, for speedrunners/trick specialists.

And the monsters are generally pretty piss-poor. Not really monsterous enough. I liked about a 1/4 of them.


Errrr I think I'll stop now =). 

I actually found myself bunnyhopping 90% of the time just to move around the huge areas; they should have just made the running speed faster. 

i found, though they have lots of variety, they didn't really have enough of them.

for the most part, the monsters are all bipedal humanoids... i would have liked to see more wierd monsters like the crazy dog monster, the 'loki' with the horn/spikes instead of arms/legs or the armless sketeton things.

pope is right about one thing, this game has some of the best ambient sounds i have ever heard. from obvious ones like wind and water noises right down to little dust trickling down stone walls. and i've not even mentioned all the demented screaming and moaning too. maps like 'babel', 'monastery' and 'city on water' had some truly haunting ambient sounds.

also, i loved almost all the ambient music tracks. they are all very professional sounding and fit with the maps they are for extremly well. i wasn't that big a fan of the "action" songs, as they were (in the words of Scampie) "Heavy Metal Rock Guitars" for the most part, although some were pretty fun to listen to, and all of them are fun when lost in the background of guns and gibs and such.

gameplay:
although i love horde, i think it would have been nice to have a few or even a couple of maps with more 'traditional' gameplay.
asylum came close, with it's confined areas and so did Castle, but the change of music was always a dead give away that the 'action' was about to start.
i seriously think that a scary/suspenseful map is completly possible in pk: monsters can spawn out of coffins and such, some of the crawling amputees can hang from the cieling...
a map with the stake gun and chaingun(only) would be cool.

also, i hated how the stake gun was next to useless in some maps. it's slow rate of fire made it impossible to use in some cases. especially since it was the coolest gun there. 

Docks - bloody hell, what a massive area, epic.

I had forgotten about that level somehow. Holy shit, that *was* big, wasn't it? Good stuff. 

I agree with all of that =).

Music in Babel and Monastry was great. 

I thought the man shouting in the military base was one of the creepiest sounds in the game. 

Turn 'battle music' completely off, and turn 'ambient music' up to max (or whatever suits you). Totally different - and better imo. 

i am at the bridge in front of the castle. there is no drawbridge. How do i get across?