Now onto the most important part, the gameplay itself. It’s very easy to just pick up and play the game, and even if you don’t play through the tutorials you’ll grasp everything very quickly. The matches are quick-paced and addictive to begin with, but the repetitive nature of them soon catches up with you. Although there are a variety of tournaments to play through and multiple game types essentially most matches are played through the same; with you wiping out the other team one by one and then running through whatever objective you have without the resistance of the opposition to stop you.
The AI of the computer players is iffy at best, and it’s pretty easy to pick them off by hiding behind some cover and waiting for them to make a mistake, occasionally multiple opposing team members will make the same mistake one after the other and you can just pick them off one at a time. However, sometimes they will surprise you and sneak up behind you or even just round the side as there’s no quick way of looking left and right when aiming. Something I did quite like was the fact that when you’re hit you’re not instantly out but instead are allowed to try and wipe off the paint without being caught so that you can keep on playing. It doesn’t work very often and you’re sometimes penalised if caught, but it’s strangely satisfying when you do manage to pull it off.
Aiming is strange at times, although I suppose when you’re used to firing bullets at your opponents the whole mechanism changes completely when you’re firing paint filled pellets instead, much more susceptible to the wind and environment, although it can get frustrating when you’re firing at someone mere feet away from you and your paintballs are going everywhere but at the target you’re firing at. The multiplayer works well, and it makes a nice change from playing against the game’s AI, though it doesn’t add anything particularly exciting to the game’s mechanics and does leave me wondering how long there will be a large enough online community there for you to play against, although hopefully if this does happen by that point the hardcore player will have built up a large enough friend base to arrange their own online games.
The game offers some replay value in its wide choice of variables in your team’s members, equipment and look, and there are a large number of maps available to play on, but it’s unlikely that many players will work their way through every option as, like I have mentioned before, the game does get repetitive quickly. True paintball fans will probably find a lot in this game, with players, teams and equipment that they’re familiar with in real life, but the average gamer won’t be quite as amused and may be wise to go elsewhere when looking for a new game to download.
