Paintball Manager
Extreme
In this article, we look at the history of the Paintball
Manager series, and give some clues as to how you play, and
where you can get it.
What is Paintball Manager?
If you're expecting a Quake or Counterstrike, you're going to
be disappointed. Paintball Manager is a management game through
and through. You play the manager, not one of the players, and
it is the efforts of your control of the way the team is run
that will dictate how well they do in the league. The game is
very big on making sure you have enough money to play in league
events, and that your team members get enough training time.
You are also responsible for making sure that team money is
invested wisely, and that their gear is not only well maintained,
but the best that the team coffers can cover.
Where did it start?
The first version was released on a pre-internet computer system
called Mordor BBS‰ back in 1993. This system allowed people
to dial up and create their teams and challenge other teams
for points in the league. It only had a target audience of about
50 people, but that was a lot for the time. It had no graphics
to speak of, and was purely text based. Eventually Mordor BBS
closed down, but the game was re-released on the net in a new
form as Paintball Manager 1.2. Using most of the same programming
code as the earlier version, a few graphical features were added
and the game was made available for free download from a number
of paintball and shareware websites.
It had some 30,000 downloads, and some of the feedback was quite
positive, but it was still limited in the number of things you
could do, and it had lost its multiplayer ability, something
the series never re-gained. There was a break of a few years
before development began on the next incarnation of Paintball
Manager. This one, released as Paintball Manager 2, was another
free game but this time written for Windows. It contained a
lot of paintball graphics and added a lot of new features. Much
more complex and complete than the original versions of the
game, Paintball Manager 2 has had over a quarter of a million
downloads. It received some good and bad press, but suffered
from a cumbersome interface and a few annoying bugs that meant
you had to re-start periodically, and it had no save features.
Where are we now?
Early in 2003 Paintball Manager re-surfaced as Paintball Manager
Extreme. The game was released as shareware rather than freeware,
but a free version is available for the casual player. The full
version of this game contains animation, music, sound effects,
and a graphic representation of the field of play for the first
time in the series. It is now a polished and professional looking
game that portrays the sport of paintball in a positive light.
How do we play it?
When you start the game, your team is created. You can see the
name, skill, and occupation of each of your seven tournament
players. You can also choose whether you want to play tournament
paintball or woodsball, and whether you want to limit your gear
to pumps only or not. Once you've made your selections, you
can proceed to the main game screen. This is a big graphical
menu. Each of the options on the left takes you to a variety
of pages to help you do what you need to. If you click on the
top one, you can have a look at your team members, and get a
basic outline of how your team is doing or check out your opposition
or standings in the league. The other options in turn let you
add utilities to your team headquarters or buy a team vehicle,
upgrade or repair your paintball gear, train and recruit players,
juggle your bankbook and play the sharemarket or gamble with
your teams money, or check out the season.
The game works in monthly turns, so once you've done what you
want for the first turn, you need to go to the Season page and
End the turn. If there's an event on in the current month you
can choose to play in it by selecting one of the methods of
transport. You can go by car if your team has one, or hire some
transport to take you. Once at the event, you will see your
team lined up ready to go on the Tournament screen. You can
swap players around here to put them into the positions you
want them on-field, and then choose their tactics. Do you want
them to rush for the flag, or hang back and play longball with
the opposition. You can also check out your opponent and see
how they've stacked the field, and counter what they're doing.
You can also see the weather and try to anticipate how it will
impact on your tactics.
Once you're ready, press 'Play' to start the match against the
opposition team. Here you get to watch the action unfold in
the top down view. The players will run to their respective
positions and use their abilities to try to win the game. Unfortunately,
the graphics here aren't so great. While the field itself is
rendered in 3-D, the players are represented by different colored
blobs with numbers on them but it is more than adequate to see
what is going on. Watching your last player grab the flag, slide
to cover, and run to hang it in the last seconds of the game
can put you on the edge of your seat! At the end of the match,
your score is added to the league totals (which ultimately determine
whether you'll beat the other teams or not) and then the next
turn begins and the management cycle starts again.
A few hints to help you play:
1. Train, train, train!
2. Put all your spare money in
the bank to collect interest.
3. Protect your gear with a burglar
alarm.
4. A team vehicle can pay for itself
very quickly.
5. Keep your gear well maintained,
or it will break and become useless.
6. Don't forget to buy paint. It
is easily done, and very embarrassing.
7. Upgrade your gear as often as
you can afford to.
8. Above all, enjoy playing it.
Where do we get it?
You can download
Paintball Manager Extreme and other paintball computer games,
It is a compressed zip file, so you need to use your Windows
unzip (or get WinZip)
to extract the file into its own directory on your computer.
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