Pain Review

Pain and suffering causes a bi-polar reaction in people. It's sad and yet so funny. Who can resist the humor in someone falling down a pair of stairs? There are entire TV shows based around the concept of people hurting themselves. Pain, the downloadable video game, appeals to our inner-teenager and the need for destruction and human suffering. The part of us says “That was painful and so funny”.

The concept of the game is to get hurt and wreck a lot of damage. You have a choice of 3 different characters (for some reason I could only choose 1) and use a sling-shot type device to hurl yourself around a city and smash into things. There’s an in-depth tutorial (that’s mandatory) that teaches you all the the gameplay mechanics and lets you play around a bit. It’s nothing too complicated and before long you’ll be destroying the city with a big smile on your face.

There are different gameplay modes available. PAINdemonium has you destroying everything and anything you want, trying to see how many points you can rack up in a single throw. Mime-Toss allows us to fulfill our dreams of beating up a mime by grabbing his French [butt] and hurling it through glass windows conveniently located in the level. Spank the Monkey has you aiming to hit monkeys spread around in different areas of the map.

Pain is cheap enough and, most importantly, fun enough to justify what little you have to pay to get it. With its wacky sense of humor, this game is perfect for those 5 minute gaming sessions while you’re waiting for all your friends to get online so you can play Warhawk together. But if you're looking for a game with some depth and long playtime, you'd be better off looking elsewhere.