Info
It’s the funniest game in town! Load characters into a super-sized, ultra-powerful slingshot and launch them into an active, physics-controlled environment filled with precarious and humorous situations. Score points by stringing together PAINful collisions and unleashing chaos on the downtown environment. Join the PAIN online community to keep up with PAIN’s ever evolving gameplay.
Players 1-4
First Released: 2007
Additional game modes and characters are availiable for PAIN and are priced separately.
Review
If you’ve had the desire to be flung through the air from a giant catapult then chances are you’ve been watching too much Jackass. Thankfully PAIN allows you to do this without the broken bones and hours of surgery that would otherwise be required.
Loading your character in to the catapult you get to alter the distance and power supplied before throwing them through the air – hopefully causing enough destruction as they go to rack up a huge score before they come to a badly mangled halt. Cyclists, plate glass windows, advertising signs, passers by, explosive crates and more besides are littered around the play area to enable the player to cause maximum destruction. The player can also grab and toss explosive boxes or objects (including people) to cause extra damage and use the after touch system (called Ooch) to nudge them in to things and cause more damage.
It’s all done with a great sense of childish, irreverent humour that will be guaranteed to make you laugh out loud at least once. If you like lowbrow stuff where people get smacked in the family jewels a lot then you’ll get more than your fair share.
But essentially that’s all there is to PAIN. There are variations on the game mode with the aim of getting the best time such as Spank the Monkey where the player must manage to hit the monkeys scattered somewhere in the level, and Mime Toss where the player must grab one of those annoying street Mimes and throw them through plate glass sheets. The game also features some offline multiplayer modes like bowling for up to four players.
There are already a number of add on characters which can be bought from the PlayStation Store and while these might add some variety they all play the same way. It’s also a problem that you have to pay extra for them and while they aren’t exactly expensive (around $0.99 / £0.69 / €88) they should have been included as standard or for free.
It isn’t necessarily a bad game but PAIN’s longevity will be decided by how quickly the joke and novelty wears off. This certainly isn’t helped by there only being one stage included at present although the games creators have already announced that new levels are coming soon.