Yes, that's right. This is the first Painkiller game where I was constantly running out of ammo, and resorting to the good old Razor Cube for killing. I also felt that it was considerably more difficult than the previous parts, sometimes the sheer number of enemies simply overwhelming me. That wouldn't have been a major problem, had it not been for the loading times. The original Painkiller had long load times, but those are not a problem for now-a-days computers. However Overdose has additional eye candy that increases the load time significantly. That's probably a good thing, though, since it will make you try harder not to die, just to avoid the dreaded load screen.

The game features new weapons, and while this is a good thing, most of them being quite interesting; I kind of miss the stake gun. There was nothing like admiring a skeleton pinned to the ceiling, with a 2 feet pole coming out of his mouth. Instead of the stake gun we now have the crossbow, which does the same thing (staple baddies to walls), but it doesn't have the same feeling. Hey, I liked the big poles, not three tiny little arrows.

Instead of the Painkiller trademark weapon (or the spinning thingy of death, as I liked to call it), we now have the Razor Cube, which Belial holds in his demon hand. It's basically the same thing, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was using spinning peas of death instead of a weapon. Belial has also acquired a demon head during his travels, which he uses as a weapon (and sometimes pets it). With its screaming (secondary fire), it has some measure of crowd control, and even though the damage isn't all that high, it's nice to see monsters fall to the ground electrocuted.

The shotgun is back as usual, and instead of freezing with its secondary fire, it now petrifies your enemies, or something similar. I didn't use it that much during the levels, but I found myself constantly using it in boss battles. The demon eggs that you throw and detonate could have just as well been called remote mines, the plasma goo shooting-thing is interesting but doesn't really do... damage, and the final one, the spinning sword that you guide with your mouse: something new, and it's a real pleasure to use against horde of monsters. I'm not kidding when I say horde of monsters, so be warned, this isn't a game for novice FPS players. With an average of about 300 monsters per level, scarce ammo and life, you will find yourself on the verge of death very often.

Boss battles, which were the most fun part of the original game, are the icing on the cake in this part as well. We have the main bosses, Sammael and Cerberus, as well as some mini-bosses, such as a Tank (in the civil war?), a giant mechanical arachnid and others. I was a bit disappointed by both of the main bosses, as I found them pretty easy to defeat. Cerberus was especially easy, the shotgun reducing him to rubble in about a minute, and Sammael was trickier, just because he kept running away and coming back, and I had to hide while his shield was up. I also want to mention the bug that I've encountered in the final mission, where all the statues that came to life to attack me just dropped dead after 2 seconds.

So, we have new weapons, new monsters and new levels. Anything else different, you might ask? Not really... everything is the same. You enter a room, it goes dark, the music changes, monsters appear with a "poof", you kill them and move on to the next room, while being fully healed in the process. Rinse and repeat. The only thing that will make you play the game again, possibly on a different level, is the tarot cards.

On each level, you have a special objective, such as finishing the game under 20 minutes, using only the Razor Cube the whole level, collecting all the gold, etc., and your reward is a special tarot card that you can buy (using the gold that you collect) and use during every level only once. The cards give you interesting powers, but are pretty bugged and some combinations kept crashing my game, and others, when used in the game, messed up my sound. The game also has a tendency to crash, so save often and don't say I didn't warn you.

The music is a combination of modern, classical, and techno, and while it does sound good, and quickly changes when the monsters appear, I missed the dark gothic music from the original. The sound effects, if you have a sound card that supports EAX and a decent set of 5.1 speakers will be the main source of "scare factor" in the game. The monsters will hardly scare you once you see them, but not knowing where they are and just hearing moaning definitely will.

The game looks good, while using the same old engine with some new effects, especially visible during the first levels where everything is in flames. I have to admit I was quite surprised with how good some of the levels look and found myself staring at the sky or into some dark deep pit. The physics engine has a few bugs, so some monsters that I shot in the chest ended up flying upward to be attached to the ceiling by a crossbow bolt, but those are rare occurrences.