Greg Hastings' Tournament Paintball Max'd

"This game is a bunch of lumps."

Well, your are called a lump if you lose in this game. Seriously, this game looks like a bunch of blocks thrown together into a paint ball arena. Wait, this is a paint ball arena? It is a rectangle field with 3 kinds of shapes to hind behind! AWESOME! Your opponents are shooting at you like a little NES Master Chief running around. At-least the AI has the common sense to duck if you are shooting at them. This first person shooter maybe in 3-D, but a very horrible looking 3-D, like the Driver 1 and 2, but worse. Now onto the to rating categories.

Game Play: 5/10

This game is not very smooth. It is like running around with some lag. The choppiness feels like you have too many sprites in the game, but there is only a maximum of 4 sprites in the game. You tap the control and it moves way to far in the direction you are moving. The good part of the game play is this game allows you to crouch. Every first person shooter game should let you crouch and hide behind stuff. The R button shoots, the L button lets you, what the game calls, "Snap" (Slightly move in the general direction you want to view) the A button lets you change your "Snap" view and down and A let's you crouch. As well as the directional pad let's you move around. The B button changes your gun from left aim to right aim, which actually works very well. The unique feature in this game is the "Cheat Meter" if your opponent shot you, the cheat meter would pop up and if you manage to strike the meter in the green area you "dodged" the paintball. Every time you use the cheat meter, the toggle line gets faster and faster. This game has a free mode and tournament mode. The freemode let's you play in 4 difficulty modes from easy to very hard, depending on difficulty, it could be a 1 on 3 match, which are actually fun. The other mode, tournament, let's you play in three difficulties, rookie, amateur and pro. You are placed in 4 best out of 5 matches in each tournament. Both free mode and tournaments are one shot kills and it is game over. Oh, you can also choose two different players to play as, they both have the same controls, they are just male or female characters.

Music and Sound 3/10

The music in this game is horrendous and quite annoying. There are 3 different tunes that are basically on a 15 second cut loop. They could have used someone better on the music department. I can't believe they contracted out for it. The sound in the game is slightly better. There are TWO kinds of ball splatter sounds and the announcer will make a stupid remark on how you lost ("You're a bunch of lumps"). Not to mention the opponents do make a comment
when they get shot.

Graphics: 2/10

Well the box art looks nice and the menu screen looks nice, and the inside of your mask looks nice. The rest however is all ugly 3-d boxes and a mini Master Cheif made out of lego blocks shooting at you. Painting obstacles with your paint balls is quite fun though. Both you and your opponents shoot yellow "bawls" at each other. Even the sky looks like someone finger painted it.

Replay Value: 7/10

The only good part of the game, the replay value is actually good. You can enter free mode and shoot up to three people in very hard mode. The AI is not totally stupid and will counter what you are doing. You can not just run up to them and pop a paintball in their head, they will shoot you first or take cover somewhere else. Besides the mediocre controls, this game is actually fun.

Cha-Ching value: 7/10

This game was thrown into the bargain bin for 10 dollars. Frankly, it was worth getting for the replay value and the ability to shoot people with paint balls.

Well there you have it. Probably one of the worst first person shooters I have ever played, but it was worth it for the ten dollars I spent for it. Did I mention it was ten dollars Canadian?

Score:
29/50= 5.8/10
Rounding 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/30/06