Azrael thought there was no better way to celebrate his birthday than for all his friends and family to gather together and kill each other. It was great; hope to do it again sometime.

In preparation for the paintball, some of the Schmackers ventured into unknown territory to buy camo gear. I was impressed by the economics: I picked up a jacket and pants for only $60, or about one month’s wages. The downside was that the Jacket was a US derivative. I actually wore the jacket while we headed home, which seemed to get a fair bit of attention. One dude rapped “soldja!” as he walked past; interestingly, he was in camo himself (or at least he would have been if we lived in Atlantis.)

You may recall that in my Best Games Ever post a couple of weeks back I offered my thoughts on Battlefield 1942:

Battlefield 1942 [PC] While a lot of the time seemed to be taken up by walking and dying, when there was some sort of plan – and it was working – it was very enjoyable.

This was similar. It began with a fair bit of time spent in the vicinity of our flag and fort. After nothing happened for a while, I advanced to the front, which basically involved standing behind a tree while paintballs impacted it and the surrounding scrub. Occasionally you would lean out and return fire to your foes, also standing behind trees or in their fort, before hastily becoming one with the tree again. Problem was shots to the head or gun did not count, which pretty much left their trigger finger to aim at. As it happens, this turned out to be enough for Bartleby, but the rest of us struggled. I can look back and laugh at how a couple of times I fired off $5 worth of paintballs without even a chance of hitting. But man, that tree really got it.

Sometimes, to resolve the stalemate, I would attempt to move around and flank the enemy. It turns out the enemy, those bastards, generally had the same idea and this was often where the dying came into it (accompanied by shouts of “I’ve shot you so many times! You’re definitely dead! Stop cheating! I hate you so much!”)

Here’s the interesting bit. The war was taking place on one side of a gully; the other side offered an alternative route through much denser bush. Covert Ops from both sides regularly attempted daring maneuvers through this area. They often culminated in standing behind a tree, pinned down by fire from the enemy fort. Sometimes two expeditionary forces met part way making for great jungle warfare. I don’t know if the camo actually helped me here or not – the stats certainly don’t reflect it. I managed to get deep into enemy territory on a couple of occasions towards the end. Unfortunately I ran out of time before getting a chance to really see what I could make of this strategy.

It was a great plan though. Drawing once again on Battlefield 1942, there is one level involving an uphill assault on a base. It was damn near impossible. But then lo4d3d discovered that creeping along the edge, just inside the line of Instant Death by Desertion, allowed one to get to the back door of the base and kick some arse. The downside was that it took a while, and at any time one faced the risk of Instant Tank Death. But when it worked? Carnage. Massacre. And it felt good too, like I killed you with my brain, motherfucker. There’s no comeback to that. (Except possibly “OMG! You guys like, totally cheated!”)

Anyway it was even better in real life, and I revelled particularly in the atmospheric tension a la Predator later in the game, when I often found myself alone in a fragile tranquility (there seemed to be a lot of people hanging out at the safe-zone, drinking water and remarking “man, we should find some people who cheat less and play with them.”) I considered face-planting into the mud to better avoid detection but simply couldn’t bring myself to do it. At one glorious point I was even able to sneak up on two enemies from behind – unfortunately it resulted in mutual destruction due to my shitty tactics (stand up in a clearing and shoot. Taking cover would have been an idea. Even crouching. Anything.)

Yeah, very much like this.

Technically the game was CTF but isn’t it funny how these things always turn into deathmatch? I don’t think we even touched each other’s flags, but my team held the enemy fort for some time which must surely give us the minor victory. In fact, victory was cruelly awarded to the Black Cucumbers who like, totally cheated.