Reviews

There have been some hilarious video games over the years, but Pain easily wins the prize for the funniest. Your sole mission is to cause as much pain to your character and destruction to your surroundings as possible, racking up points by hitting as many objects as possible before your catapulted body loses its momentum.

Pain was available in 2007 purely as a downloadable title from the PS Store. This updated Blu-ray version includes the original game, plus the expansion packs and three new game modes. There are a total of 19 characters but the best one - The Hoff - will cost you £1.19 to download, which seems a bit unfair. The rest of the characters are made up of cheeky chaps like Jarvis McBalsy (the poster boy for Pain), Hung Lo the Ninja and sexy sirens such as Muffy the cheerleader and Ginger the naughty nurse.

Looks like this guy only caught the tail-end of proceedings.

All modes of play are locked until you've completed the entire Crash Course. Here you get your first taste of Jarvis put in a catapult that can be pulled back for more powerful launches and rotated from side to side for aiming. Upon release you must steer Jarvis into highlighted targets in Downtown; windows, pedestrians, moving vehicles and explosive crates/tanks. You earn the highest points for the biggest crashes and longest sequences of carnage. Hear him squeal like a little girl!

To keep your momentum going when you land there's your Ooch meter. This gives you four little body flops - one for each letter - that can take you a few feet extra into, say, traffic or a bomb crate that can set you going again to earn extra points. You can return to the catapult or reset the scene at any time.

Perhaps not a good place to land.

On each fling you get one Super Ooch (a big flop) by shaking your controller. You can also earn 1,000 points just by holding poses in the air for 3 seconds (there are 8 unique poses for each character). Drifting will steer you slightly in whatever direction you want, whilst Grabbing objects with your hands lets you alter the way you fall. Example: If you grab a pole you can swing around it and fling yourself in a completely different direction. Some TNT crates can be grabbed and flung too.

The more things you destroy in a combo (cars crash and explode, billboards tumble into the street, people are sent through plate-glass windows) the bigger the points. There's even an action replay function that lets you pause, rewind and edit your smashes to then upload to Youtube.