Ultimate Paintball, Reviewed by Zurenriri, 03-29-2014

A quick run through of how I came across this game: I actually found it in the back seat of my grandmother's Dodge Intrepid while on the way to dinner when I was about 12 years old. It probably belonged to one of my cousins. I didn't have a Game Boy at the time, but I stuck it in my pocket and stashed it away until I got home. A couple of years later I bought a Game Boy Advance SP after saving my allowance for weeks and got to play this game.

Graphics:
For a Game Boy Color game, they're actually pretty good, but not stellar. While you're in the field, the environments look dull and drab and there's only one desert environment, that changes to a much more detailed forest environment in shooting mode. The sprites for each of the enemies are in black and white, perhaps disappointing, because it makes them stupidly easy to target and hit. The color of your gun depends on the team color that you picked, but they all look and behave the same regardless of the color.

Sound:
Pretty awful, there is only one song that plays in the entire game, in the intro, menu, field, and shooting mode, it loops on repeat, and it even cuts out for a moment when you're switching between screens. This is not the emulator's fault, it does this to me on my real copy as well.

Addictiveness:
Like the Flappy Bird of a decade and a half ago, it's a pretty solid little time-waster. If you have a Game Boy in your pocket and you're waiting at the bus stop, or in the checkout line, or wherever else you might have 10 minutes to kill, you can pull this game out, point, shoot, and repeat. It gets old pretty quick, but you never have to worry about finding a save point. Each of the levels takes about 10 minutes to complete and you have a password at the end of each one to continue on to the harder levels. If I remember correctly there are 5 levels in total, but I'm not sure.

Story:
There isn't one. You're in a paintball match. Shoot the enemy. Don't get shot. Find and capture his flag. Don't let yours be found or captured.

Depth:
Given that each level takes about 10 minutes, or maybe 20 minutes for the higher levels on the harder difficulties where the maps are a bit bigger and you have to find multiple flags, the depth isn't much, even for an action or sports game. The variety in the game is very little. Occasionally you'll come across a "bonus round" in the shooting mode where you'll have to hit several lobbed "mega-paintballs" that do serious damage if they hit, but if you hit them all out of the air, you get a power up. Any time you run into an enemy icon in the field, there will be about six to ten enemies on the field to shoot. Find their flag, and you'll have about ten to fifteen enemies to contend with before you can capture it.

Difficulty:
Anything short of the hardest difficulty level is trivially easy, because this game is literally point and shoot. The enemies do not move (although they do duck and hide sometimes), and the lobbed mega-paintballs are fired very slowly, giving you plenty of time to aim.

Overall:
Please remember that this is a Majesco game that probably sold for ten to fifteen dollars brand new in the shrink wrap (and a sealed copy probably still does go for that much today, at best). You get what you pay for and this is decently fun entertainment for the price. Hand it to a 13-year-old like my grandmother unintentionally did to me, and you can keep them entertained for hours. But for someone who is serious gamer, it's nothing but a quick little time waster, and I would give it high points for that except that the world already has a few hundred of those out there and there's nothing that makes this one stand out a lot. Give it a try if you find it for a dollar somewhere.