Extreme Paintbrawl

A digital paintball showdown could've been fun. Extreme Paintbrawl thought so too. But what looked good in some developer's head back in the late '90s played out on screen like a soldier without ammo — present, but pointless.

It's a pretty straightforward sports sim where you kit yourself out in paint and go about tagging opponents with your own pellets. The game tries to capture real paintball — maps with cover, team battles, various modes. The individual maps have enough style to stake a claim on atmosphere. The whole thing hinges on the theory that trading shots and cooperating with your squad could be brilliant. Theory. Reality's duller.

The controls aren't bad, movement works, and shooting has its system, but that's exactly where the biggest letdown rears its head. Opponents behave like they're playing on mute — their strategy boils down to wandering the map aimlessly and pretending they don't see you shooting at them. The AI is so dumb it'd be more of a threat if both sides got a courier squad and exchanged letters. The graphics are decent for 1998, reminiscent of those few games that took a shot at sports ambitions without any real talent. The sounds are bland, sometimes downright embarrassing — especially when you hear the lone sharpshooter celebrating victory over themselves.

Extreme Paintbrawl was supposed to answer why nobody plays paintball on PC. The answer's simple: because this isn't why. The game wasn't outright bad, just uninteresting — a mindless shooter without brains, without drive, without the will to be good. Plenty of games in the '90s met that fate. This one joins their ranks without excuse.

If you want to play it today, it'll mostly be out of curiosity. There are worse things on a floppy disk, but you won't find a thrilling sports-action experience here. If you want paintball in pixels, you'll find something that'll at least entertain you a little. This ain't it.