[Gamers' Day 2007] Here Comes the PAIN
Hey kids! Like watching people get hit in the nuts? Then you'll love PAIN! Or so Sony hopes.
Published: May 17, 2007
As we sat and listened to the presentation for PAIN, two things came to mind. First, Travis Williams at Sony Computer Entertainment America could snap each and every one of us in half while laughing if he wanted to. And B) PAIN is not a game aimed at our demographic. In fact, that's intentional. The idea here is to snare the young teen, or perhaps the person who spends most of the day watching people eat it in random ways on YouTube. PAIN is, in the most simple terms, a game tailor-made for soccer moms to get into a tizzy about over nothing.
The idea is that you can launch a character from a giant slingshot out into a would rife with interaction. It could be as simple as an oncoming train, or as complex as a giant bowl of cereal with a spoon handle just hanging out there, begging to be grabbed, which would in turn cause a chain reaction of falling debris that could have the slingshotee ragdolling down some scaffolding and ending with the spoon landing on his head.
There aren't many rules across the various modes we sampled, including the straight-up sandbox of Paindemonium Mode, the more physics-heavy Mime Toss and Monkey Spanker (our name, not theirs) Modes and of course the classic multi-player game of H-O-R-S-E. You can give your character (there are four total in the game) a little push while they're in the air, and once when they finally land, plus grab once onto anything in the level (like, say, the spoon). The idea is to basically do as much harm to your character in a single shot as humanly possible. The longer they're stuck bouncing around the level and interacting with things, the more points you'll earn.
To help encourage users to really hurt their characters, developer Idol Minds will apparently include some kind of recording functionality, so you'll be able to share your sickest "runs" with other people. The community aspect as a whole is something they wanted to build up, and what better way than to show your guy grabbing a mime by the head and tossing him through six plate glass windows? Due to the sheer insanity of the physics and randomness of most of the interaction with the environment, we're better H-O-R-S-E will be plenty interesting. That is, if you can pull yourself away from watching that video of the dude riding his bike into a wall and breaking his nose/jaw/hand/whatever.
The idea is that you can launch a character from a giant slingshot out into a would rife with interaction. It could be as simple as an oncoming train, or as complex as a giant bowl of cereal with a spoon handle just hanging out there, begging to be grabbed, which would in turn cause a chain reaction of falling debris that could have the slingshotee ragdolling down some scaffolding and ending with the spoon landing on his head.
There aren't many rules across the various modes we sampled, including the straight-up sandbox of Paindemonium Mode, the more physics-heavy Mime Toss and Monkey Spanker (our name, not theirs) Modes and of course the classic multi-player game of H-O-R-S-E. You can give your character (there are four total in the game) a little push while they're in the air, and once when they finally land, plus grab once onto anything in the level (like, say, the spoon). The idea is to basically do as much harm to your character in a single shot as humanly possible. The longer they're stuck bouncing around the level and interacting with things, the more points you'll earn.
To help encourage users to really hurt their characters, developer Idol Minds will apparently include some kind of recording functionality, so you'll be able to share your sickest "runs" with other people. The community aspect as a whole is something they wanted to build up, and what better way than to show your guy grabbing a mime by the head and tossing him through six plate glass windows? Due to the sheer insanity of the physics and randomness of most of the interaction with the environment, we're better H-O-R-S-E will be plenty interesting. That is, if you can pull yourself away from watching that video of the dude riding his bike into a wall and breaking his nose/jaw/hand/whatever.