Event: GR: AW LAN &amp; Paintball Day.

Our Day Out: Ghost Recon LAN & Paintball

It's been a long time since I woke up with that tight feeling in my tummy that heralds the onset of something exciting. I remember it vaguely from childhood, going to France on a field trip, the weeks leading up to my birthday and of course the entire duration of October, November and December, counting down the minutes until Christmas morning. Good times. As an adult (lol, as if) such occurances are sadly few and far between and the daily grind of working, eating and sacrificing the sleep I need for the gaming I want can be all consuming. So when XBLA webmistress, BLusHInMUshROom, asked me if I fancied a day out paintballing and playing the new Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter with Ubisoft and the Frag Dolls you can imagine what a pain in the backside it was. I had to get up early, I had to go all the way to Buckinghamshire, I had to actually talk to people and do stuff, it was all too much. Eventually however, after much consideration, I relented and agreed to go, for the good of our community I would take one for the team. I just hope you all appreciate it.

Also lucky enough to receive invites were XBLA representatives, KEYRANU 1 and XxJ1NXxX, all were good to go so the day was set. Once the morning arrived I leapt out of bed at the stroke of 6:30, raring to go, I then leapt straight back in again as my limbs informed by brain just how bitterly cold it was. Not to be discouraged though, I did eventually surface about 7am when my girlfriend poked me, saying I was going to be late. I was a little concerned that playing paintball in such freezing conditions could be somewhat less than pleasant but took solice in the fact that we'd also get cosy and warm while playing Ghost Recon, which I assumed would take place in a nearby building.

Co-organized by Ubisoft, BritXbox and Skirmish Paintball Games (SPG) of High-Wycombe, our day was due to kick off at 10am sharp. J1NX got there at something outrageous like 8am and spent a couple of hours freezing off his proverbials in the car park but seemed none the worse for wear when we caught up. Key on the other hand was being driven round in circles by his flatmate, Steve, but made the event just in the nick of time once I'd gotten a Skirmish employee to talk him into the venue on his mobile. Fortunately I arrived at about 9:55 and as it turned out, I was just in time to take part in the first activity of the day, that old British favourite, "drinking tea and milling about". Apparently our set agenda had been tweaked a little bit in order to solve a little problem with the generators and a short delay ensued. Perhaps not a bad thing becau......hold on......generators! "Why do they need generators?", I thought. The heaters ran on gas and paintballing uses compressed air so the only reason they could need generators is if......if......oh buggger!

Yes, as it turned out, the entire day took place outside and I have to admit I felt a little peeved at the prospect considering the ambient conditions. Luckily a few short minutes later the industrial sized heaters fired up and my word, they truly were awesome. Like two little jet engines aimed at the gaming area and churning out more Joules of energy per minute than a pre-pubescent yank with a Red Bull and a copy of Halo 2, they truly saved the day. So with that intitial hurdle overcome the fun began.

All together there were about fifty attendees representing the full spectrum of gaming afficionados from the pro-journos to the civilian addicts. Once the Frag Dolls had arrived things soon got under way and we were all split up into four teams, each being led by one of the designated Dolls of Frag. The organizers were even kind enough to include Steve in the proceedings and saved him from an uncomfortable day sitting in his car reading the paper, although as a result of this minor change I ended up on a seperate team to J1NX, Key and Steve, who were together on Team Voodoo. I was placed with Kitt, a very friendly and charming young lady with a broad Scottish lilt and a penchant for shooting people in the back of the head. My kind of girl.

This is Key!

This is J1NX!

...and this is Steve!

Meet the Frag Dolls

Jam

Sarin

Kitt

Voodoo

The initial plan was for two teams to go off paintballing while the other two played GRAW and then we'd all swap over after lunch. At the end of the day the paintball winners from the morning and afternoon would then duke it out on GRAW, with the victors claiming mysterious prizes and possibly some respect. So teams Sarin and Jam went off to the fields of paintball battle while Team Voodoo and my own Team Kitt got cosy in the gaming shack for some digital death-dealing delight. Happily this meant that I still got to spend the day with the other three XBLA lads and with the added bonus of some adversarial competion between us. The LAN setup was superb with twenty-four networked 360's in total, sixteen for versus play, eight for co-op and each with it's own HD LCD screen to boot. The phrase, "kid in a candy store" doesn't even come close and watching the facial reactions of the paticipants it was easy to spot the furrowed brows of those wondering whether or not one of the Samsung Hi-Def screens would fit under their overcoats without too much of an obvious bulge.

With a 360 and copy of GRAW all we needed was --->

...and we had enough water and rations to start our own civilization if it came to it.

Chris Easton. Ubisoft UK Community Manger and jolly nice chap.

Look left, look right, look left again. Always cross the road with care kids.

Once play got under way our group of geeky gamer types soon became a boistrous rabble of juvenile delinquents and rightly so, with no headsets to play with, communication was a matter of making yourself heard and consequently team-work was less forthcoming than it can be when you get online with the right group of people. In fact many were just wandering off to have a look round the maps and explore the features of the game, myself included and at one point I had three attempts at getting to a particularly nice looking little beach that I spied in the distance and each time I'd get within fifty yards only to be greeted by a loud bang and a lot of smoke. "Respawning in 10....9....8", well I did make it in the end and it was indeed a gorgeous vista........of death, waahahaahaahaaaaaaa. For all the in-depth detail on the game have a read of the "Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. Hands-on preview", also in the reviews section.

What they would've done if it had rained I've no idea?

Don't be fooled by the confusion on their faces. These two know exactly what's going on.

All in all the morning was a very chilled affair with people drifting from area to area, chatting about the game and generally being very enthusiastic about what was going on, it was all rather lovely to behold such an ego-free environment. For lunch we were fed a gristly burger and a chip but, in all fairness, it did fill the gap and it was free. Next thing I knew I was sitting in front of one of the SPG marshalls being told how to avoid shooting myself in the head when I picked up the paintball gun or "marker", the rest of the briefing was pretty straightforward with the basic rules of engagement being: Headshots don't count, below the neck only for a kill and when you get to point-blank range on an opponent you're to shout "Surrender!" rather than capping them in the chops from 24 inches. Presumably the headshot rule was designed to avoid injuries by reducing headshots, but ironically what it really meant was that you could shoot people in the head as much as you wanted to and it didn't matter.

The enemy camouflage made them
practically invisible.

A few minutes later and we were suited up in camo-fatigues, coloured hoods for team recognition and face-masks for disfigurement avoidance. Notably, the Frag Dolls were provided with wussie body armour for added female protection but I'll let that one go. We collected our firearms and headed off to the first game area, a small, wooded enclosure where we would play two games of straight Team-Elimination/Last-Man-Standing. My own Team Kitt seemed quietly confident but what ensued I can only describe as a cross between a Leslie Nielson movie and one of the really good episodes of You've Been Framed. In the first game, having decided to find cover early, take my time to observe what everyone did and act accordingly, I scampered behind a concrete pipe and from there I observed my team take it in turns to run out shouting, get shot, fall over, get shot and retire. Accordingly I ran out shouting, got shot, fell over, got shot and retired, my mission accomplished. Game two was basically a confirmation of what took place in the first, for those that missed it, although this time round the fearless Team Kitt performed with far more gusto and the game lasted at least two or maybe even three minutes. I did manage to tag a couple of Voodoo's evil henchman though and at least by this time I'd realised that all the stories about the excrutiating pain of being shot were unfounded, it stings a bit yes and you feel it the next morning but it's not that bad.

Fighting Spirit!

It was a treat to see that in the following break between matches Team Kitt was as up-for-it as ever, each one doffing their hood to reveal a beaming grin, we were having fun and strangely, getting peppered to oblivion with paintballs seems to be a surprisingly entertaining laugh. We carried on plugging away through subsequent matches but our fate was sealed, the second match involved one team attempting to hang four of their supplied eight plastic discs onto four hooks in the centre of the play-field and the trouncing we got was laughable. By this time I'd got reasonably accurate with my marker and was enjoying the fray, although my proudest moment was sneaking up behind an enemy sniper, jamming the barrel of my gun in his back and yelling, "Surrender!", it felt goooood. He was none to happy about it though and thought it apropriate to hurl verbal abuse at me, shame really as it almost spoilt the mood and unfortunately he wasn't the only one taking the game too seriously. More than one representative from another well know Xbox website could be seen yelling orders at their team mates through gritted teeth and J1NX, KEYRANU and myself even witnessed one particular young webmaster spend the entire afternoon hiding behind a barrell and then tell everyone that he charged around like Rambo getting loads of kills when he did his write up. Shame on you.

If only the camera man was armed.

A special mention must go here to my plucky team leader and Frag Doll, Kitt. During the final match Team Voodoo was charged with protecting a small shack while my own Team Kitt had to gain access to the building, by this point we'd already lost and all we had to gain was one lonely point on the scoreboard. The match was a bit of a marathon and looked for a while like it could result in stalemate with all remaining players just taking pot-shots from well covered positions. However, our fearless leader, despite having run out of ammo and determined to get that point, threw down her marker and ran for that shed like a nutter. I was out of the game by then having run out of ammo and being too tight to buy any more but it was humbling to behold the mighty little warrior princess do her stuff. At the end of the day J1NX seemed to be the most accomplished player on the field and his previous experience with the game showed, watching him it seemed that the real trick to paintball wasn't to be a good shot with the marker but to get to a position where you don't need to be. Surpressing and flanking was the order of the day.

Zuuuuuuuuul!

This is me!...No, I'm just kidding, it's actually the world famous "Origami Kid".

All that remained then was for the victorious team Voodoo to do their thing on GRAW against the morning champions, Team Sarin. Team-Elimination, five minutes a match, best of three. I took up position just behind Key and J1NX so I could keep on eye on their screens and the match started. The first round was a bit of a walkover with Team Voodoo establishing a good lead early on and finishing the match with twenty five kills to Team Sarin's poultry sixteen. The two XBLA boys did us proud too, I watched Key nail at least six or seven enemies in a row from a nice vantage point he found overlooking a bottle-neck pass and J1NX was no slouch in the gaming department either, not by a long shot in fact. The second match was considerably closer but it was Team Voodoo that won the day and some nice Ghost Recon T-shirts and 360 faceplates with it.

Despite my dreadful photographs I did manage to get a couple of nice GRAW vids on my digital camera and you can find a little peek at the venue here (18mb) and a video of J1NX playing in the final here (21mb), click the links to stream them to your media player or right click and choose "Save As" if you want them to download, cherish and keep forever. All in all the entire day was a screaming success and thanks to the organizers for pulling it off with such panache. Myself, I had a wonderful time, even if my feet did get so cold that my toes went black...no, seriously, at one point they went so numb that I really thought I could be in serious trouble but thankfully those uber-deluxe heaters soon did the job. Highlights for me include meeting lots of jolly nice people (shoutout to the Origami Kid from totally360.com) and having lots of interesting chats about games, getting to play GRAW obviously, getting repeatedly shot in the head by paintballs after already retiring from the game and keeping my knackers intact ; of course I also got to meet the super-cool, super-moderator J1NX and I finally met KEYRANU1 who I've been mates with for a good few months on Moto GP3. Congrats to Team Voodoo for being so unbeatable and if you're reading this Voodoo, J1NX would like it to be known that he is young, obedient and available.