World Championship Paintball

Rating Everyone 10+ Genre first-person-shooter Publisher THQ External Links Official THQ Website

I feel it is hard to justify the glory and extreme nature of the sport of paintball without drinking two or three energy drinks and constantly referring to the title of this game in all capital letters. It is with this in mind that I restart my review by properly addressing this game as “WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP PAINTBALL!!!” Okay, with that taken care of it is now my more unfortunate duty to actually have to delve beyond all the color-splattered running, diving, and shooting action promised to us on the cover and explore the real beast within.

At first glance, I was kind of looking forward to giving this a whirl; run and gun paintball, fast and furious field tactics, and team command. What’s not to like? I soon found out that none of that was likable, or accurate. I fired up the old PS2 that had been sitting in the abandoned corner away from its next generation cousin and equally up-to-date competitors. One of the first things to pop up was the big thumbs-up approval of mega corp THQ. I think to myself, “THQ, all right, we may just have a winner here. The makers of right, decent titles like Supreme Commander, and Titan Quest, at least this can only be so bad.” ran through my head. Foreshadowing, I was wrong.

Upon actiony, rap filled intro, I explored the menus. Quickplay, Create Team, Trophies, Online play, etc, but my first pick was tutorial. After about one minute of an unchanging loading screen, and another minute of how to duck and run, I found myself back at the menu having completed the impressively short how-to.

The team creation allows for any named team, consisting of several players, to pick a clan logo and be on their merry. Once made, each player can be customized with different combative stats, as well as terribly expensive gear such as new guns and ball hoppers to improve range and rate of fire. Possibly the worst aspect of creation is selecting your team colors. Now these can be pulled from dozens of colors and color combinations. Red, black, red-black, black-red, greens, yellows, all available for mix-and-matchy goodness. The down side to picking a decent color combination is that another team probably has your exact colors and pattern, making them complete indistinguishable from your team in combat. This happened in round 2.

The different game types range from your typical Duel, to eliminate all opponents, to different types of Capture the Flag, and the most interesting, Castle Siege. My all newb team “Team Go” marched off to their first match. The stage was set with a lush dirt field, and large inflatable object that form the barriers for each team to use as cover. After a few minutes of getting shot repeatedly from who knows where, the game suddenly ended and we lost. What, if anything, did I take away from my first game? A sense of, or rather a lack of sense of control, and the need for less ridiculous AI on both sides. Each shot from your underpowered paintball gun is a lobbing shot, drifting downwards as it travels. The contrast between say, running and jumping in real life, especially during a combative game like paintball, and the speed which you move during the game, is frightening. When in the center of a field where everyone is shooting at you, you do not simply watch as two or more opponents sprint past you, but in game you slowly turn, hoping to catch up with their seemingly blinding speeds. The simple fact is that the FPS part of this first person shooter, is terrible. It’s slow, not very accurate, and is constantly bogged down by annoying AI teammates and opponents alike. Another setback to this title is the cheap and exploitive AI opponents, but thankfully the teammates awarded to you for your team matches are just as broken.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of this game is its terrain builder, where you get to place the large, awkward inflatable barriers anywhere along a large empty field. Sadly, this is by far the most intriguing part of the game. Setting up new and interesting maps to play on. Unfortunately, no matter how well designed the map, the basic run and gun of the game still fails. For attempting to stab the extreme sport of PAINTBALL with a virtual spigot, my kudos. For some well designed levels, and detailed barriers and equipment, good job. But for failing at the one thing that could have made this game successful, shame, shame on you, THQ. More Quality Assurance, less Green Lighting.