Painkiller on 60 Minutes

I’m not quite sure how many people I’ve shared this with… for some reason I’m a bit embarrassed by it, even though I should probably be somewhat proud I suppose.

About 2 years ago, I had the opportunity to try my hand at writing when I penned the screenplay for a video game called Painkiller - a dark and bloody game about a guy stranded in purgatory who has been tasked by God to destroy the armies of Lucifer. Sounds like pure gold, no? Well if it wasn’t obvious, the embarrassing thing is that the final product was cheesy, cliched, wordy, and unoriginal.

Sure, it was my first attempt at writing something slightly more substantial than an email, but looking back on it, I’m thinking I should have considered a second draft before submitting it for review. Regardless, the game actually sold quite well, and if I’m not mistaken, the only substantial complaints were actually about the writing - booya!

Putting my involvement aside, it came as quite a surprise last Sunday when Jess and I were flipping through the channels and stumbled onto 60 Minutes. Featured in one of their segments was a “Cyber Athlete” named Fatal1ty (“Fatal1ty”? I can’t make this shit up), who is considered the best professional video game player in the world. And the next tournament he was training for was, you guessed it, a Painkiller tournament.

They (thankfully) didn’t mention anything about the stellar cinematic writing, but they definitely made mention of the game. It’s fast, bloody, addictive, and apparently far more popular than I realized! $150,000 prize for winning a video game tournament? I need to dust off my PlayStation2.