Greg Hastings’ Tournament Paintball Impressions.

I decided to take a chance and pick this Xbox game up, as I had heard several things about it that piqued my interest…one-hit kills, supposedly innovative new switching hands and snap-fire features, paintballs affected by gravity and wind, etc. I also play the game recreationally on occasion and was interested to see how well they pulled it off in a videogame.

First impressions were fairly good. Right away it’s evident you’re firing a paint marker rather than a gun. You can see the arc of the paintballs nicely, and the spread of your fire is noticeably true to life even when keeping the crosshairs in the same place. Wind curve is noticeable, especially at range, as is the effect of gravity on the balls. The markers (at least at the start of play) are not auto, so you need to pump the trigger to maintain a stream of paint, which is a good representation of how (being too cheap for the autos) I play in real life. :)

The graphics are serviceable. Nothing special, but nothing egregiously wrong. Bright colors, decent animations. Your gaming screen is actually defined by your goggles, limiting your view. It’s odd to see this in a videogame, in that it almost feels wrong to have so much screen space go unused…but after you get over that you realize that they are trying to represent the real-life field of vision restriction, and it works. You forget about after playing for awhile. Another thing that blocks your vision is the paintball hopper on the marker itself, and this doesn’t go away during play…you’re going to have this pod in front of you for most of the game. Again, realistic. I also liked how skillfully using the ‘switch hands’ button helped out in this situation, allowing you to transfer your marker from one hand to another, thus clearing up your vision on one side of the screen. Mastering that while strafing right and left really comes in handy.

I’m always a fan of shooters where you engage the enemy by positioning yourself behind cover and exchanging snap fire, popping out above or to the side of your cover and loosing a few bursts towards the enemy. For some reason, this style of play goes largely unrealized in most online shooters. Some have lean moves, but most are slow and a bit unrealistic in execution. The snap fire works very well in this game, and the range of your motion is determined by an analog push of the left trigger. You can lean out a little bit or jump out a lot, and you lead with your marker…so whatever you do can be prefaced by a hail of paint. You change the direction of your lean using the ‘switch marker hand’ button (you always snap to the marker side) and by using the ‘a’ button, which toggles your snap fire between vertical and horizontal planes. Tie this with the three standard fps postures (stand, crouch, prone) and the guy you have pinned down behind those logs can be popping fire back out at you from pretty much anywhere behind the cover. This is done really well, and it’s pretty cool to see in action.

Moving around is pretty standard for an FPS, although they do have a ‘turbo’ button…which is really just a strangely named sprint. It is of extremely short duration and allows you to haul tail from one cover object to the next…but you can’t fire at all while turboing. Makes sense, and works well. The ‘B’ button is also the dive button, allowing you to immediately go prone from the sprint or from any other higher posture. That too works well. You can fire while moving in any posture or speed other than the sprint, but your accuracy is affected by your movements. You’re most accurate when prone and still…but you’re also a nice target that way too.

Gameplay plays out as it should. Suppression and flanking are keys to winning, just like in real life. Keep enemies pinned down behind cover while your teammates can slip to the side. One hit and the enemy goes down…with a noticeable exception: The Cheat Meter!

While I can’t stand wipers out on the field when I play recreationally, I like this feature in the videogame. (For those that don’t, it can be turned off.) How it works is that when you get hit by a shot, other than in the face –you can’t cheat the big yellow splat across your goggles- A pendulum ‘golf-style’ meter quickly appears on your screen, representing your chance to cheat by wiping off the paint before the ref notices you are hit. If you stop the meter in the ‘bounce’ or wipe zones, you can continue play…but the next time you try to wipe the meter will be much faster. If you really screw up and stop the meter in the penalty zones, you are caught wiping and are called out with one or more of your teammates as a penalty! It’s not especially hard to wipe the first time, but the facts that head shots are unwipeable and if you are shot multiple times before wiping you are called out keep this from having too much of an impact on the overall flow of the play. Basically wiping is useful when you just get hit once, and maybe dive back behind cover for a quick wipe….instances when damn wipers do so in real life. If you are caught in the open, forget about it…multiple hits will take you about without a chance to cheat.

Okay, that stuff was all pretty good. The bad?

*ALL* of the fields are extremely small for multiplayer FPS’s. Most of field’s are small tournament-style speedball locations, full of plenty of cover, but very limited in overall area. Even the woods-oriented fields are restricted in this manner. While the name of this game *is* tournament paintball, some larger woods-style maps would have been greatly appreciated for some variety. As is, matches move quickly in small environs such as these. And I do mean quickly. Both online and off, rounds can be over in under a minute, as a well coordinated attack or plain bad luck can knock one side out really darn quickly. Tournament matches are thus ‘best of’ x rounds’ affairs. While this works, it gives the game a really odd vibe…almost like a sporting event rather than an FPS…but I guess that’s what it is.

Another knock against it is that it pretty much has two styles or gameplay…elimination and capture the flag. Play these two modes over and over again in the same small fields, and you begin to see a problem. While it has many unique features and it really plays a pretty true game of paintball, there is not too much to the actual gameplay…especially when compared to other recent releases such as Ghost Recon 2 or Halo 2. The modes and maps are extremely limited, repetitive, and over quickly. I get the feeling that the game has a great backbone, but its body is woefully lacking. While it can be argued that the game set out to do exactly what it did: capture the nature of tournament paintball, for $10 more and a pickup pf Halo or Ghost Recon, you get a lot more game for your buck. The single player mode sees you buying new (officially licensed) equipment and increasing your skills while progressing to more difficult fields and tougher opponents (including real ‘famous’ players), but you’re still going to be playing the same games.

My verdict after one day is that I’ll keep it for a while, and see what happens. The limited Live play I saw last night was lag-free and fun, with battles of up to 7 on 7. Those interested in paintball should definitely at least give it a rent, but I’d be hard pressed at this point and in this games market to tell anyone to pick it up at $40. $20, sure…but not $40.

Anyway, I found it to be pretty fun for what it is. Anyone who picks it up or rents it, please let me know, as I’d like to give it a spin with friends on Live.