New Varieties of Pain

As a joint project between developer Idol Minds (Cool
Borders 3, 4 and MyStreet) and Sony’s marketing group, Pain hit the Playstation
Store last November. Producer Travis Williams wanted to create a game that
would capture the zeitgeist of Jackass and similar user submitted videos. Most
critics found the sophomoric antics of the game entertaining, but bemoaned the
ten dollar price of admission.

Gameplay consists of launching the player from a giant
slingshot, trying to inflict as much bodily damage as possible. First, players
use the analog stick to control the amount of power and general trajectory of
the launch. When released, players have a limited amount of control to guide
the helpless character into the levels multitude of objects until the character
strikes something. Once an environmental object is hit, players can use the
D-Pad to grab onto items and swing around.


After that, players have “ooch”, the name given to aftertouch to guide their character into further pandemonium. After hitting an object, players can shake the Sixaxis controller to get a single boost of “Super Ooch”, which is marginally stronger than the normal variety. 

Today, Pain received a  50 megabyte update (v 1.67) that adds a few new features:

• The ability to play your own MP3s during
  gameplay.
• Two new layouts for the Downtown map,
  where the player can be launched from the opposite or middle of the playfield.
• Character select allows for two different
  characters in two player games.
• The ability of skip the introductory logos.
  

While we found Pain to be an playful diversion, even with the new enhancements, its hard to justify the initial price tag. With additional characters costing a dollar each, and no price set for the rumored Amusement Park landscape, a starting investment of five dollars would make things, less Painful.