Another problem results from the horribly pixelated graphics, which make it difficult to see your opponents, no less shoot them. The best tactic is to simply run up to your opponents and open fire, hoping you hit them before they hit you. For one thing, you have to be very close to an opponent to score a hit. Plus, it doesn't mean that you'll actually hit anything even if you do manage to get the aiming down.
There is no option to change the controls either, so you're stuck with them the way they are. Sometimes even a slight press of the D pad will turn you 90 degrees, which is disorienting. You fire your marker by pressing the R button, but it's awkward because you can't aim while strafing, and the D pad sensitivity makes it difficult to aim with any precision even if you're just standing still. You can press the L button to snap, and the B button changes which side you hold your marker on, which allows you to lean in a different direction. The A button is used once again when you want to change your snap (paintball speak for lean) position between horizontal and vertical. You can also hold A and press down to crouch. You can strafe by holding A and then moving left or right. You move around using the D pad, move forward and back on the Y axis, and turn left or right on the X axis. The repetitive and shallow gameplay might be acceptable if it were even slightly fun, but it isn't, thanks in large part to some horribly awkward and imprecise controls. Not that the shallow gameplay permits or warrants any sort of tactical approach to taking out opponents anyway. The AI certainly isn't sophisticated enough to do anything but repeat the same exact tactic over and over, match after match. That seems to be the main way this game scales the difficulty, by simply throwing more opponents at you. You're always stuck playing solo, but sometimes you'll have to take on as many as three artificial intelligence-controlled characters at once. Occasionally you'll notice that the bunkers are arranged slightly differently or are smeared with a different-colored logo, but for the most part, all of the arenas are the same.Īll of the matches in Max'd are simple elimination matches-there's no capture the flag here. According to the back of the box, there are 48 different field variations, but you would never know it by playing the game. Each arena is filled with symmetrically arranged bunkers, which are just inflatable barriers used for cover.
The matches move quickly because they all take place in small, indoor arenas. That comes out to 12 matches, which isn't a lot when you consider that each round usually lasts less than 30 seconds. In tournament mode, you start off as a rookie and you have to play through four best-of-five matches to move up to amateur, and eventually pro. The two characters play exactly the same, and you never see them anyway, so it really doesn't matter who you pick. Freeplay lets you choose one of two paintballers, Greg Hastings or Keely Watson, and then you play a quick match on one of four difficulty settings. There are two modes to choose from when playing the game: freeplay and tournament mode. Max'd is a first-person shooter based on the fast-paced cover-and-shoot sport of indoor paintball.
It's a first-person paintball game on the GBA, which sounds like an alright idea.
GREG HASTINGS TOURNAMENT PAINTBALL 2 MQX D SERIES
But regardless of what strange series of events brought it about, the game is here and it's terrible.
GREG HASTINGS TOURNAMENT PAINTBALL 2 MQX D PRO
Greg Hastings' Tournament Paintball Max'd for the Game Boy Advance could be an attempt to take advantage of the current lull in new releases for the system, an answer to the cries of GBA-owning paintball fans everywhere, or merely one more way to capitalize on the endorsement of pro paintballer Greg Hastings.