PAIN By Numbers
What do you get when a major gaming hardware and software corporation decides to use "extensive teen market research" to drum up the concept and content of a new title? PAIN, that's what you get. Idol Minds' new comedic action game in development for the PS3 is the result of findings that comedy, random chaos, creativity, community and competition are the ingredients that teens would like to see in their gaming soup.
Of course, I'm fairly certain that humor, surprise, community and competition aren't concepts you need a dozen focus groups to drum up, but then, that would be the delightful irony behind so many overfunded research projects and the Frankenstein products that result. Whether or not PAIN will be, you know, painful or not is something we'll have to wait to find out - in the meantime we've got a game concept that declares that it will "control and capture the irreverent style of humor found in television shows such as Jackass or Viva La Bam." Yeah. Dismissive yet? Read this:
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.
It might not come as much of a surprise to learn that PAIN will not be sold in stores, but only for download over the PSN. It also might not come as much of surprise if we later found out that some giant diapered monkey (a recurring theme in my marketing-kills-creativity conspiracy theories) had made these decisions. Until then, all we've got is PAIN.
PAIN
FACT SHEET
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developer: Idol Minds, Inc.
Platform: PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) computer entertainment system
Genre: Action / Comedy
Players: 1-2 players
Rating: “RP” for Rating Pending
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!
tiny dancer
Posted to Video Games on 18 May 2007
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: idol minds, pain, ps3, sony, teenagers
Yeah, it looks like flatout. Or the crash game in burnout where you get one shot to do some ridiculously high dollar amounts worth of damage. Totally not dismissive.
well... the title seems apropiate... my head hurts already