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Paintball now in interactive form. Greg Hastings Tournament Paintball MAX'D isn’t the flashiest game ever but it manages to emulate the game of paintball rather well.
MAX’D includes three main gameplay modes. You’ll find quick play, career mode and online. Career mode is probably where you’ll spend most of your offline time. You begin by creating a male or female character, begin with solo matches before moving on to full team-versus-team matches, and make a name for yourself on the leaderboards. Along the way, you’ll earn experience points and store credits. You can use these credits to buy helmets, CO2 tanks, jerseys, and gloves. Although it would take a hardcore paintball fan to notice, a lot of this stuff is branded, which helps with the game’s authenticity. The quick play mode, as expected, lets you play a game at a time and it’s a good place to sharpen your skills.
Although the gameplay is simple by design, MAX’D does try to spice things up. One of the ways it does that is with breakout manager, which lets you tell your AI players where to begin the matches and where to go, as well as the ordering system which lets you use your recruits for cover and the like. As expected in the game, cover is of paramount importance, and the game gives you a lot of freedom with cover tactics and the ability to sprint to different locations.
The game’s online mode is made better by the inclusion of a simple map editor. The game ships with a fair number of maps, and the map editor lets gamers create their own by moving dozens of objects around the field. There is a fair amount of competition online and technically, the game is solid with minimal lag.
It’s safe to say that MAX’D isn’t going to win any awards for graphics. The courses are very simple with bland textures, simple architecture and geometry, and equally plain character models. Thankfully, the game runs at a smooth framerate. The audio is slightly better. The sound effects are solid, accurately conveying the sounds of paintball very well. The voice acting, however, is sub par and limited. The same can be said of the D-list hip-hop and metal tracks that are found in the game’s soundtrack.
If you heard of Greg Hastings Tournament Paintball MAX'D on the Xbox last year and couldn’t wait to play it on the PS2, this is your chance. For everyone else, there are better ways to spend $40. -- Michael Taylor, PGNx Media
---- Oct 23, 2006
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