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Greg Hasting's Tournament Paintball Max'd
Possibly the first thing
that we need to get out of the way is that this is not just a first
person shooter. Paintball is a sport and the focus of the title is on
tactics and skill, along with the basic rules of professional
paintball.
Whilst more of a weekend interest in Australia,
paintball in the States is big news with proper teams and associations.
This game follows the intensity of that scene with great player maps,
graphics and gameplay that is a lot of fun as well.
Rounding out with three solid gameplay styles of
Elimination, Single Flag and Capture the Flag. The idea is obviously to
take out the opposition whilst achieving set game objectives. The flurry
of paintballs you send out into the game world is a hell of a lot of fun
and necessary as you might expect as paintballs are not as accurate as a
railgun!
In single player mode, the game takes place around
the world in 29 different tournaments that are sure to keep you playing
for some time. One of the things that I enjoyed was the fact that these
games are fast and frantic, not some of the drawn out affairs
that never seem to end. There are options to give commands to your team
through the communicator and if you don’t have one then just use the
control pad. The response to even voice commands is pretty good and you
won’t be gritting your teeth at your non responsive “team mates” during
a hectic battle.
My personal favourite type of gameplay was Capture
the Flag where you have to steal the enemies flag and take it back to
your base. Remember though, the flag will be vigorously defended, as
should yours be as they are trying to get that as well. It sets you up
to have to really sort out where your team is going to be located simply
in order to have both attack and defence looked after appropriately.
Game progression is solid and as you work your way up
the ranks, you’ll go from a novice through to professional. The games AI
adjusts itself according and the challenge level is well suited to your
own level of gameplay, providing a fun experience that will force you to
really think out your next move. There are no sudden jumps in the AI to
where they become unbeatable all of a sudden which is welcome from some
games of late where the difficulty levels have jumped from easy to
nightmare almost in the blink of an eye.
Online, the game supports up to 14 players and there
are plenty of populated servers to have a ball in. Supporting voice, you
can lay the smack down as you shoot away. The game servers seems to
operate very well even on a slower ADSL connection with minimal lag even
in densely populated maps, making for a fun time.
I can happily say that most players will have fun
with this game. Both the online and single player games are fun and
worth the play. The graphics are a little flat but might also explain
the fact that you can get away with virtually no lag. Give it a shot and
see what you think!
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