EXCLUSIVE REVEAL of PAIN'S Abusement Park level

3. Second chances
For any PAIN player, few things are more of a letdown than a launch that ends with your ragdoll meat puppet flopping around like a fish, their destructive power tapped dry just short of a score goal. Now it doesn't have to end that way, provided you can land near one of the metal grates that ring the level. If you can inch your way close enough, these will open up and suck you up near the park's ceiling, where they'll launch you back into space and give you a second chance to ruin things for the other guests.

Smash into a few obstacles along the way - or, better yet, work your way over to the flume ride - and you can extend your launch almost indefinitely, racking up an insane score along the way. Here's what to look for:

4. Bears
Remember the explosive crates from PAIN's Downtown level? They were sturdy. Functional.Boring.This time around, explosives come in a different, slightly more cuddly form:

Aw, look at the little bear. Look at his little shirt. Look at his... creepy red eyes.

Sometimes he moves.

You can rid yourself of this vile ursine menace the same way you got rid of crates in Downtown: by either flinging yourself directly into them, or by grabbing them and flinging them at something that needs explosives flung at it. And if you've really got it in for the little plush bastards, the Hot N Cold mode will give you a chance to hunt special ones by exploding the others you find - as they blow up, you'll get messages telling you how close you are to finding your eerie little target.

5. Hidden stuff
If you've played PAIN before, then you already know that one of the best parts of the game is the replay feature, which enables you to freely move the camera around during your last launch and see what else was going on in the level before you tore it apart. You can do the same thing in Abusement Park, but now there's even more cool, mostly hidden stuff for you to ferret out and gawk at. Here are a few of the more interesting ones we found:

Above: Behold the alien cop, sneering and brandishing what we hope isn't an anal probe. Note pizza, coffee and rasta lamb-thing

Above: How to win GamesRadar's seal of approval

Above: Get it? Because they're in prison and, uh...moving on...

Above: THIS IS WHAT THEY CAN DO TO YOU

Above: PAIN knows all and sees all

Above: Note the ass-shaped controller on the Spank the Monkey machine. Simple masturbation joke, or subtle dig at Donkey Konga?

Bottom line, Abusement Park has a lot going on, and it's a lot of fun even in its not-quite-finished state. It lacks some of the charm of Downtown - half the fun of that level, after all, is that you're bringing insane levels of explosive carnage to an otherwise quiet setting - but it packs in a lot of opportunities to harm yourself and others in interesting and cartoonish ways, and that counts for a lot. There's no word yet on what Abusement Park will cost, but PAIN junkies can expect it to crash into PSN sometime this fall.

Jul 7, 2008