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Amidst all the high-profile retail games displayed at E3, it may have been easy to miss out on an update that a lot of Gamervision staffers have been eagerly awaiting.  The newest level of the PlayStation Network’s downloadable game, Pain! has arrived, and we were lucky enough to get a chance to sit down with the game’s head developer and executive producer and play the new map, the Abusement Park.  Take a look:



As you can see, this level is far more densely packed than the Downtown board, with lots more moving set pieces and a much broader color palette.  There are also a bunch of elements that re-launch you into the environment, much like the smoke stacks in the Downtown level.  It’s a lot of fun to launch your poor protagonist into the Cyclotron, then have them flung out into the log flume, which then carries you to the top of the board, just so you can fly off of that and into an unsuspecting clown.  Good times.

Perhaps even more exciting than the new level was the announcement of Pain! Labs, a weekly download service that will test out new gameplay concepts for the game.  The examples we were shown were the “Jenga” and the fan level.  The “Jenga” level consists of a launcher and three walls made of cinderblocks.  The walls can be torn down block by block or simply destroyed in one shot.  The fan board has walls and ceilings made entirely of high-powered fans which make it impossible to ever touch down after being launched.  Every week, a new Pain! Lab will be released and the previous one will be deleted.  The Labs don’t have any real objectives.  Instead, they rely on the community to come up with new and interesting game types.  Message board members can then suggest their new game ideas to Sony, who will then implement the best ones.  It’s a very cool concept, and I’m hopeful that they can keep up with the weekly schedule.  I couldn’t be happier to hear that Sony is still supporting this title, as it’s one of the few quality humor titles out there.

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