Pain (Boxed Version)

Pain is a PSN game where you shoot a character out of a giant slingshot, headlong into set pieces of varying themes in the name of causing as much hilarious physical injury as possible. In this complete Blu-ray collection of the game and all its DLC, you get content worth about £30 for an RRP of £19.99. This wouldn’t be so bad, but most of the game’s downloadable stuff is made up of unnecessary extra characters and slightly overpriced levels anyway, so we’d say it just balances out fairly in value.

The experience isn’t for everyone, however. Mastering the nuances of the game’s odd control scheme, rhythm and point-scoring system means it isn’t quite as user-friendly as it should be, for a game that carries pretty heavy Jackass-style overtones. Succeeding at Pain isn’t an immediate feat, but its good sense of humour, as well as the impressive amount of variables that can occur as a result of the game’s superb, OTT physics and its great level design, means there is a lot to play around with for the dedicated. This, however, kind of points out why Pain worked better as a download game to begin with: the basic pack costs £6.29, rather than £19.99. There is a risk factor involved, here. Sadly absent, too, is The Hoff as a playable character – no explanation is given as to why he’s not on the disc.