Greg Hastings Paintball 2

Greg Hastings Paintball 2 may have been released at a budget price, but it does not lack features or content found in most full price games. The meat of the single player experience is career mode. You recruit real life players to join your paintball team and compete in a ladder of unlock able tournaments and one off events. After each successful victory, you earn money which is used to either upgrade individual teammates skills, or to purchase a multitude of new equipment and gear that is applied to the whole team. Did i mention that you can also try to cheat after you get hit by a paint ball? Yep there is a button specifically set up to try and wipe paint off, you have to be carefull not to get caught though. 
  

The more you win, the better your teams reputation gets which allows you to recruit better players from different leagues and it allows you to access even more events, which increase in difficulty as you progress. You can also go online and compete in 20 vs 20 matches on Xbox live which further enhances the re playability of the game.  

Before playing Greg Hastings Paintball 2, i had only ever played paintball once with a bunch of friends. I learned that day that getting hit with a paintball without padding hurts, and that even though the people running the event tell you that your eating a hamburger, they are most likely lying. I still have not determined the origins of the mystery meat, but it wasn’t cow. Fortunately every loading screen, or in between round transition peppers you with every conceivable fact known to man about the sport of paintball, and the people involved with it. I learned more in several hours with this game than i did the day i ate my possum burger. 
 
The game itself is not bad, it accurately portrays what it is like to play competitive paintball and the physics used to determine the arc and trajectory of a moving paintball under wind conditions etc is spot on. It may surprise people who are fans of shooters but not necessarily paintball that if you aim directly at another player, your probably not going to hit him. While minimalistic, the gr    aphics are crisp are adequate and the only occasional problem i had was going prone too close to objects sometimes caused clipping and getting stuck on the object. 

The audio is pretty good, with your teammates contributing constant chatter on the playing field. The different sounds the paint balls make when they hit varying types of materials and bunkers is a nice touch, however the menu music, or shall i say one song can become grating over time. 
 

While this is a niche title on the Xbox 360, fans of the sport will find hours of enjoyment with this game. In addition to the previously mentioned single and multi player offerings, there are also paintball videos about the history of the sport, matches between top tier teams, an extremely easy to use editor to make your own paintball fields and tons of customization options.  

As i was weighing the different factors that would determine my score, i started seeing this game from a different perspective. It is rated E10+ and found myself thinking about gamers who are parents with children who may be starting to get interested in shooters, but do not want their kids exposed to blood, gore and violence just yet. This game would make a perfect transition to shooters for younger gamers, and a very appropriate and fun game for parents and kids to play together. If your a fan of the genre, this game is definitely worth picking up.    
 
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