Extreme Paintbrawl 2 Review

How to describe a sequel of the game that makes you laugh more than say, a soap opera cat-fight, bearing in mind that it is an action game? How to put aside everything you disliked in Extreme Paintbrawl, to be honest it doesn't leave you with much to like anyway, and judge Extreme Paintbrawl 2 objectively, not reminding yourself of the disastrous predecessor. Well, I just had to do it hopping it will be over soon.

I knew the task wouldn't be easy as soon as I tried to install the game, it took me some 20 minutes to finish the installation. A quick glance at Readme file gave me some clues... The fact that the game has no intro was somewhat odd, and I just wanted to see how much of the CD was occupied; they could have put the game on few diskettes all the same, but than they could not ask 20$ for it, could they? In the introduction menu you can choose between "Season play", "Instant action", "High scores", "Configure controls", "Options" and "Exit", which appeared to be the one you would use the most often. I clicked Options and Configure controls first, to take a look of what's in store, and was surprised to find Rendering Options giving you possibilities to choose from: Software, 3D Card and Glide (knowing what the graphics in the first sequel looked like - I know I shouldn't refer to the past, but just couldn't help it).

After selection's been done, one click on the Instant Action plus few clicks more, and I entered the game. Ufgh, after a few steps here and there, shooting and jumping around I recalled my good old Commodore days. Unfortunately, not for the atmosphere, but for the reason of graphics. I thought for the moment the engine must have been taken from Aztec Challenge, or Supermacy. You are surrounded by a huge number of buildings with apparently glued-on low-res textures, and the "sky" is not the sky as we know it, some 20 - 30 feet hanging above your head like a ceiling painted as the sky?!? It took me some time to realize that few blemished creatures on the screen were in fact my teammates. But what is the most interesting is the complete lack of AI, or to quote as I've read elsewhere "..instead of AI, the program utilizes AS - Artificial Stupidity..", which is obvious as soon as you start to play. Issue an attack command, and everybody starts running around like a bunch of idiots trying to walk through walls literally... The reason for that lies in employing the afore mentioned "AS" ... One look on the map revealed a catch, the creatures went to the right spot, but having no AI they tried to reach the point in the straight line (the nearest possible way), so they're easily stuck in the environment. You'd be better off with Follow command. Keep walking about and eventually you'll encounter adversaries. Of course, they are no smarter than your teammates, a lack of any AI is evident, so they'll be either kneeling and shooting at you, or standing doing the same thing. What turned out to be a hell of a task is to shoot down one of your adversaries, because trajectories of the balls you shoot out are extremely unpredictable, and it almost seems that you could get a better result by not aiming at all, just randomly shoot . Also, there are paint - grenades, whose role here apparently is to give you a good laugh (which happened to some of my friends when shown the game), rather than to serve their real purpose, whatever it is.

Just for the record, I tested myself in "Season Play". It looks a bit better than the rest of the game, and puts you in the position of a leader. You hire troops, buy weapons and ammo, sell things you don't need - in the similar way to Jagged Alliance, but whole lot worse. It was extremely difficult to spot the difference among the weapons on your disposal, apart from the shooting speed (only two) all looked the same to me.

Every mission you'll have comes down to "paint'em-all & don't let'em paint you"; so much for the variety employed. I claim, you'll get bored with the game soon after start, and you'll finish off watching some soap opera on your telly instead, which should be more interesting?!? So, my advice is: as after 10 minutes in the game you're getting nausea (checked & verified!), let your adversaries paint all of your teammates including you, and select EXIT on the screen which appears aftermath. By doing so, you will deprive yourself from a good laugh for sure, but remain sane at the same time, which should be more important. At least it is for me.