There’s been a lot of classic games getting remade for Android lately, and the latest in the long line is sleeper first-person shooter hit Painkiller. The original game came out in 2004 for the PC, but noted Android developer Machineworks is bringing it back for a go-round on your phone or tablet under the name Painkiller: Purgatory HD. You can pick it up in the Google Play Store for the odd price of $1.11, and any device running Eclair or later can join in the fun. That said, you’ll probably want something with at least a 1ghz processor to get the best experience.
The original Painkiller followed Daniel Garner, an admirable everyman who’s killed along with his wife in a traffic accident. While his wife floats on up to Heaven, Danny Boy is sent somewhere altogether hotter. He’s given a shot at release if he can kill four of Satan’s generals and avert a literal holy war, and with the help of some ridiculously over-the-top weapons he plows through armies of demons to claw his way out of Hell. With modern (for the time) graphics and classic “shoot everything that moves and everything else if you’ve got the ammo” gameplay inspired by The Duke himself, it won quite a lot of fans on the PC.
Machineworks Northwest should give you pause, however. While Duke Nukem 3D was highly anticipated in its Android release, its reception was somewhat chilly, after the developer embedded ads in a paid game and required in-app purchases for the complete original. Machineworks quickly removed the ads and Duke Nukem 3D is now a free download, but poor controls and general bugginess have earned it a less than stellar rating on the Google Play Store. It looks like Painkiller: Purgatory HD is a complete game after the initial purchase, so you shouldn’t have to worry about dipping into your wallet even further. Even so, you might want to wait for a couple of update cycles for the devs to iron out the bugs and add features like Xperia Play support.
