I actually never noticed this before but in order to get tarot cards you need to do some stuff.
Since this is before the whole achievements hype i noticed that its quie simular.
Finish level with only painkiller (only use pistols L4D)
Destroy all containers
Find all ammo
Kill in that amount of time
Find all holy items
Find all hidden places.
.....
At least these have a use instead of fall down (insert distance here) without dying.

You mean Portal? That was a good one! :D

You can fall as far as you want in Portal but you'll never die from the the fall itself. You can only die in Portal if you get shot too much, hit by an energy ball, land in the toxic liquid or fail to beat the boss in time. Falling never even harms you, it's something to do with those spring loaded artificial legs attached at the back of the characters lower legs.
But yes, I think it was meant to be Portal regardless of this error. And yes, Portal is a great game.

Crackdown.

no i meant call of duty modern warfare

World of Warcraft has it too. In fact there are two fall-x-without dying achievements, one has to be done while drunk.

hey your right , i seems to have a slight racall of somethiong simular :)

Fun fact: it's the other way around. In the editor's commentary for that game, they actually mentioned they added the spring things because people were asking questions about why you could fall so far without taking damage. :-P
Anyway, I doubt Painkiller is the first game to do things like this. I know of at least one game that also had achievement-like things; Nethack had this thing called "conduct", which was basically what rules you adhered to while playing.

They are not really achievements, more hidden goals. I'd almost compare them to hidden staff times found in the Mario Kart series.

yeah i fondly recall those as well :)

I think these cards a brilliant idea

they definitely add more replay to the game and make you try to complete the levels with certain goals in mind :)