Greg Hastings Tournament Paintball – Review

Paintball is one of those games I’ve always fancied having a go at but never have as yet. Maybe the opportunity hasn’t arisen yet or maybe I’m just a big wuss worried about how much it will sting when one of those pretty little colored balls whacks into my body. Either way, I’ve now got the chance to experience a little of the paintball thrills without even having to haul my butt off the sofa. Class. Greg Hastings Tournament Paintball on the Xbox already has bonus points for being original. WXP and Activision have teamed up to provide lots of colored balls and a bloody fast gun to anyone who picks up their Xbox controller, thank you for that but is it any good?

The premise of GHT Paintball is simple. You are a rookie player (to begin with) and you’re going to try your damnedest to kick some ass with your handy paintball rifle. The title has around 19 tournaments for you and your team to try to work your way through and yes although at the beginning these tournaments are pretty sucky and fairly low ranked, it does give you experience and you’ll also be allowed to use your credits to upgrade your equipment. Yay. Overall, the aim is to take out the enemy team whilst staying alive yourself and you’ll be awarded credits for different aspects such as staying unharmed through rounds, hanging the flag, pulling the flag and so on. For the uninitiated, apparently in paintball tournaments you’re attempting to grab the other teams flag by crossing over the battleground without being harmed. Sounds easy huh… but its actually fairly difficult. The points you earn will come in handy because you can use them to upgrade not your equipment but your stats. The stats system is suitably adapted to the fact you’re playing in a paintball tournament so for example you may want to improve your reload skills, speed of hand changes with your marker and so on.

The idea of using credits isn’t exactly new, a ton of other games do so and it works well here in Paintball. One of the best aspects of it for me is that you can buy a ton of things from the online store and customize your guns and clothing. Now call me shallow if you want to but I love games that allow you to create your own characters style. It works well in this title and you’ll have lots of fun with it I’m sure. Don’t worry too much if you’re a little short on cash because as you progress through the game you’ll start to accumulate more and then you can spend until your little hearts content.

Overall I found this title had plenty to offer gameplay wise, a lot of the maps have different layouts so it isn’t a case of learning the best route and following it every time you play. Also, the gun control can be a little insane… ok…what I actually mean is frustrating. Sometimes I knew I had hit someone and yet they didn’t seem to take the damage. Also, on a few occasions, I started spraying pellets wildly and still never managing to hit a soul even though they were right in front of me. Yes, I know that the guns are meant to be realistic and they’re affected by various external occurrences but come on now, if someone is in front of you then you’re pretty much going to hit them. Had this little point been ironed out slightly more then I think I would have enjoyed the game more because at times it became far too irritating to go through another round where the enemies have perfect shots and mine sucked. Thankfully if you’re hit during play you swap to one of the other characters so you can continue. This is a good idea and is very helpful when trying to duck and dive from oncoming paintballs!

Graphics
Ok, I must admit that they did a fairly good job here. The graphics are pretty sharp overall and they certainly do the job. The main screen features the sides of your mask and the paintball gun. Sometimes it gets in the way though! The characters are pretty good even if they’re not the most detailed or polished characters ever seen on the Xbox. Most of the time you won’t get the chance to even look at them anyway lest you be popped with a paintball. The backgrounds are varied and interesting enough but now and again I found myself struggling to differentiate between the enemy characters and some of the items they were hiding behind.

Sound
Ooooo I love the little pop noise that the guns make when firing out the paintballs. Also it’s too realistic when you get hit with one of those little suckers! The sound on this game is pretty good. There’s really not much else going on with this title sound wise. At the end of the day you don’t need a lot of voice characterization otherwise that would give away your location. Now and again you hear a sound in the distance that indicates someone in your team has been hit however these can be a little annoying after a while. The good thing about this game is that you can use your own soundtrack so no need to listen to the in game music. Reminds me of Abigail Whistler from Blade Trinity when she puts her iPod in to go Vamp hunting… ahhh yes.. that’s exactly how I felt only I didn’t see any blood when I fired just nice little colors. Deaf gamers will be happy to know that they don’t really need the sound on in this title as it’s all pretty self explanatory so count it in as deaf gamer friendly.

Multiplayer
Yay this title has Xbox Live which is always a bonus as far as I’m concerned. It’s great they made GHT Paintball Live enabled but why oh why only give it a few different modes of play. This could have been such a fun Live game but it gets boring too quickly. Basically your main options are Capture the Flag type games or elimination. This is fine aside from the fact that the few times I played most people just kicked your ass straight away and you barely get a look in. I hate ‘God’ players on Xbox Live so if you’re going to play this it’s probably best to try to get some friends together to do so. The offline multiplayer aspect is actually pretty good fun so it’s a shame that Live was a bit of a letdown.

Female Gamer Perspective
You can play girls in this title from the offset and that’s a brilliant addition of course. When you’re treated to the real life paint-balling in the opening titles you’ll notice there are a few girls mentioned so that’s always a hopeful indication of the rest of the game. The girls are pretty funky and cool and can hold their own just as much as the guys so overall well done for remembering that girls like paint-balling too!

Overall
This is an original title that brings something different to the Xbox, but I just feel it could have been finished off a little bit better to make it a game you’ll pick up and play time and time again. It’s obvious strengths are in it’s multiplayer aspects as this is where you’ll have most fun. Your single player games are limited so it’s definitely a game for those who have friends to play with. It would have been nice if this title had a little more depth and perhaps then would it have held its own with some of the other class first person shooters available on Xbox, but it is a budget title and therefore has to be given some leeway here. All in all it’s a fun game and if you persevere with the handling of the gun it’s sure to bring you plenty of enjoyment at a cheap price. Did it make me want to go book a paintball session, well no it didn’t, but then why should it if you can play at home in the warmth?

Review by Tracy

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