Techtite Game Reviews ---

Imagine a classic Wile E. Coyote cartoon. He's got himself placed in a giant slingshot, to get that dastardly road runner. The slingshot goes off and he flies into a bowling ball. That bowling ball hits the elevated train track below and the train goes flying. The train hits a police car. The police car hits a taxi. A little old lady moves to avoid the cab and hits an explosive crate nearby, flying into the air while mumbling something like, "Oh...dear!" Meanwhile, the coyote has hit an explosive gas tank, tumbled a construction man's catwalk, and fell right onto a mime. The mime and the coyote then get run over by a truck filled with window panes. Smash! Crash! Kaboom! Subtract the coyote and the road runner, and that's the perfect review of PAIN, in just one paragraph. One...short...yet hilarious...paragraph.

Not that the laughs aren't there. If any of the above description made you laugh ---and I'm sure at least some of it did--- Pain is the perfect downloadable content for any PS3 owner. This goes double for any fan of the series Jackass, because there's just something really funny about stupidity (a truth of life as old as The Three Stooges, if not older). This goes triple for fans of classic cartoons, because unlike Jackass these are unreal people, so they can explode gas canisters, smash through glass, and just about everything else that the real world would never allow. That's what game fun is all about, isn't it: getting to do what you never could. If such things are perfect slapstick fun, so much the better, eh?

The object is simple: shoot your character of choice into the unsuspecting populace of a downtown city, and cause as much mayhem as you can. You get points both for the most daring (i.e.: painful) stunts, as well as the most destruction. Helping you in this darkly comical world of slapstick, are a scattered array of explosive crates, along with an even larger array of fragile items. The catch: you must keep the hilarity coming, or else a 15 second clock will strike, and the "round" is over. You're magically sent back to the slingshot to try again. Did you want to see a particularly funny moment again? No problem; just click the Select button and the city "resets." See how much destruction you can cause in one shot! That's the "object" of this little game, anyway.

It helps that this environment is a Havok-engine masterpiece. Everything you see can be trashed, with very limited exceptions (like, for example, a solid brick wall, of course). So detailed is this world, I suggest gamers click the triangle button after a particularly funny jump, then click the "free camera" button to have a look around. Check out the detail of this world, right down to the tiniest street sign. Even the billboards are "real," with one promoting another game by the same game company, and another promoting an upcoming expansion pack for the game (an amusement park...? That sounds fun!). Yet the point is: this was a game world made for crashing. Just have fun!

If there's a problem with this game, it's obvious in the first 5 minutes. On the one hand, the hilarity of this game is certainly there, just like a classic cartoon. On the other hand, it has the same flaws of a classic cartoon. Sure, a classic cartoon is funny, though how many times can you watch one, in one sitting? You can see Bugs Bunny hit Daffy Duck, burn the Tasmanian Devil and make Elmer Fudd explode, only to watch the same jokes all over again...though for how long? Your answer to that question is exactly how much PAIN will keep you laughing.

There are other little nitpicks, as well. For one: there are only two maps. Sure the game is priced reasonably enough, though come on; two maps? You can play in the city prior to you blowing it up, and in the construction-area clad city soon after. Though downloadable content is coming (like one in-game billboard claims), it can't come soon enough. The good news: such downloadable content seems to be priced rather reasonably so far. Two new holiday-theme characters (a supermarket Santa and his female elf, "Cookie") are reasonably priced at 99 cents each. To anyone who says that isn't reasonably priced: I've seen downloadable content on XBox Live priced five times that much. Then again: I've seen a lot of it...and Pain has, so far, two new characters.

In defense of the game designers: they certainly used their two level maps (one?) to their most potential. In addition to simple mayhem is the ability to play some challenges, like grabbing a mime in mid-air and sending him flying. A similar yet more complicated challenge has a pair of monkeys set in various locations in the city, and you must "fly" to that exact spot to win the level. "Multiplayer" games, though not online, allow side-by-side gamers to play a sort of PAIN style bowling with giant bowling pins, shoot your character at the most explosive objects lying around, or a simple game of "hit the same target." Even more challenges await the person who seeks out the most "trophies," which are sort of like Accomplishments on X-Box Live. Can you make it to 3 million points? Don't be too quick to answer. It took me a whole day.

There's also the "community" factor. Click on this menu option and be sent to the official web site for the game, and...that's it. Though there's clearly signs that the game was meant to have a whole online friendly community, it isn't available yet. One photo in particular shows the supermarket Santa character tossing a ninja. Only there aren't any ninjas in this game...yet. There's also supposed to be the ability to see how you rank with other players online, though I've yet to see it...yet. Suffice to say, no pun intended: there's a lot more to this game...though...not...yet.

Then again; there's no denying the classic humor of a man in a cow costume crashing into a mime. Then there's the one where the guy in a bowling costume crashes into a giant bowling ball. How about the one where a girl dressed as Santa's elf flies to the top of a hotel, crashes into the snooty penthouse owner there, all while yelling, "I've got your ho-ho-hoooooo!" Fun times. How long the fun keeps coming is up to you. For me, my only gripe is the lack of new content. Keep the downloadable content coming and I'm happy. With any luck; I'll have stopped laughing just seconds before a new expansion pack is available...well, maybe.

	Final Rating : Small Crater. Much like a classic Bugs Bunny cartoon, the laughs are hearty, yet after you first see them, it's all a matter of how many times you want to watch the same jokes over and over.
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Techtite's PS3 Reviews!

PAIN

(Downloadable on PSN)

A Techtite Review