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Out of all the titles shown at Gamers Day, the most-talked about game of the show was the upcoming PlayStation Network exclusive PAIN. When I tried to describe it to someone tonight, I broke it down as such: Think Gary's Mod meets Burnout, but you know, with a human and some mimes.
Let's put it another way: PAIN is the kind of game they'd play in the movie Idiocracy. But the thing is, that isn't a bad idea, it's merely a good example of the simple pleasures the game brings about.
The basic principle of PAIN is that you are a certain character (there were a few shown with much more promised in the future) that is placed inside a huge slingshot ready to smash into as many things as possible or be runover by as many objects as possible. Essentially, the game is one of the most unique, hilarious, and damn-well fun titles you'll see this year -- not to mention a potentially enormous time-sink and party game.
Watch the video and check out the fact sheet after the jump to get more familiar with a title that you will 100% download if you own a PlayStation 3.
OVERVIEW
The concept of PAIN was derived from an extensive teen market research report. The findings of the report indicated that comedy, random chaos, creativity, community and competition were the central figures driving entertainment choices for the teen audience.
PAIN is much more than a game, it’s actually a creative, user-driven comedic experience that presents players with the unique opportunity to control and capture the irreverent style of humor found in television shows such as Jackass or Viva La Bam. The game boldly tackles a rarely explored area of video-gaming… comedy. Many games and products have allowed players to experience scripted, comedic scenes, but none have successfully allowed the end-user to actually be the architect of these situations… until now.
One thing is certain; gamers have never seen anything quite like PAIN…
The core, unique mechanic of the game allows the player to load a character into an extreme launching device, such as a human-sized, ultra-powerful slingshot, and fire the character into an active, physics-controlled environment, filled with precarious and humorous situations. The player receives points by stringing together painful collisions and inducing chaos in the environment. The player must achieve a wide variety of goals and / or reach various scoring milestones in each of the different modes of play.
Available exclusively via download on the PLAYSTATION®Network for the PLAYSTATION ®3 (PS3™) computer entertainment system, PAIN will feature a robust online community where players will be able to upload and share their comedic experiences; while other users can rank and comment on the content shared within the community.
KEY FEATURES
Based on a teen research report indicating that chaos, comedy, creativity, and community are central themes to their entertainment choices, PAIN is the first game of its kind that allows the gamer to be the architect of theses comedic episodes.
Multiple playable characters each with a very unique personality and attributes as well as character specific in-flight poses.
Dozens of ways to play – over 9 different ways to play single player alone, including modes like Spank the Monkey and Mime Toss. With multiplayer modes like HORSE and online competition, PAIN provides both the challenges and the replayability gamers are searching for.
Completely Interactive Gameplay Environment – regardless of what the player does within the PAIN thematic, the overall environment remains completely dynamic and fully destructible, waiting for the player to find new ways to create chaos, comedy or simply wait to see what happens next.
Each time a player launches into the PAINful environment, the physics and animation data is stored on PS3’s HDD allowing the player to view a replay instantly. With control over various camera angles and the replay speed – slow motion and fast forward – users can edit and re-record each bruising launch.
Unique physics model created on Havok powered events, allow for amazing ragdoll animations, while insuring that duplicating incidents is almost impossible. Keeping gameplay fresh over and over no matter how many times a player is launched into the same environment.
Available exclusively via the PLAYSTATION®Network, PAIN will have a robust online community feature set that will include: head-to- head and cooperative gameplay, leaderboards, the ability to upload and download user generated replays, and contests.
With PAIN’s modular backbone, the game is made to expand. More characters, more themes, more gameplay modes and most importantly more PAINful fun!
The odd thing is, back in January of 2002, Fargo at GameSpy jokingly make a list of unexplored genres, and at number ten was "'Jackass'-Style Games of Self-Immolation":
These days the market is glutted with extreme-sport titles. But what about extreme pain? I mean, we've already seen how successful it is when MTV does it. Stupid people doing stupid things = big entertainment value.
this looks like it'll be fun for about 10 minutes and then the gimmick wears off. seriously, we've already played this game, its called Stair Dismount and Truck Dismount.
I was thinking the same thing as allisonaxe, this is basically the dismount games with good graphics and stuff to smash into. Looks like a lot of fun for playing when you're trashed.
If it's a reasonable price, this could be fantastic. I'm not one to heap praise on Sony too much, but if they keep shit like that up, the Playstation Network could own the pointless Virtual Console and the not-a-lot-worth-buying Live Arcade.
I don't know. I don't have a Pee Ess Triple anyway, so it's pretty pointless to dig on the game for me, but I don't get what the hook is. I stopped playing the Dismount games long ago.
I didn't see much to indicate that you had much influence over objects when the body hits. Only small garbage-y stuff or people got disturbed. I'd have thought that hitting a car would make a difference, but it didn't seem to in the video.
This could be awesome. It looks pretty much like the bail feature in Dave Mirra BMX on the ps1, where you could jump off your bike and ragdoll around, but holding different buttons made you grab edges or curl into a ball. I'll get the demo.
I'm a 360 owner but come on people. This looks hilarious and/or awesome. I have a hard time understanding why people would have blind loyalties to companies that don't give a crap about them one way or another. To think that everything Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft related automatically sucks is pretty ignorant.
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2:58 AM on 05.17.2007, 
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