Splat Magazine's Renegade Paintball offers a fair number of game modes, with 8 different ways to play. All of your standard first-person shooter modes are present, but this time you’re not killing your opponent, only knocking them out of the game by spattering them full of red and blue paint. Who says you have to have a violent video game to be generally fun?
The physics of Renegade Paintball are actually pretty good. You’ll have to lob the little balls of paint toward your targets as you shoot from further and further away. I also love how you can go into a full sprint by lowering your weapon, then transition into a crawl by sliding across the ground. Using your environment as a shield is the key to your success, and this nifty little move helps you utilize all of your assets. You’ll also be able to crouch and quickly pop up from behind obstacles to try and take out the other team.
In single-player mode, you’ll take your team through multiple challenges. These challenges consist of many game modes, and your computer-controlled players are typically pretty even with the opponent’s teammates’ abilities, making these challenges fun instead of annoying. It’s not to say that I sometimes didn’t feel like I was cheated though, or that the enemy AI wasn’t very good. At first, it is quite refreshing to play a shooter that doesn’t have blood and guts all over the place. The problem is that you can only get so excited about playing a paintball game. While it’s a great concept, the gameplay ended up being a bit on the boring side after a while, depending on the type of game you are playing. In some game types, when you get shot and knocked out of the competition, you will actually transport your inner being into a new character on your team, and continue the competition until all teammates get shot. Other game times have you re-spawn as expected.
On the positive side, Renegade Paintball offers system link and Xbox Live support. In fact, you can even create your own paintball arenas for use both online and offline. Just be careful, as you have to first be signed in to Xbox Live if you want to use your edited area with your buddies over the Internet. This multiplayer support is what saves Renegade Paintball from a relatively boring single player experience.
