Mission: Paintball (2004) – Plug & Play Lightgun Game by Tiger/Hasbro
Right at the start of the 21st century, in the early twenty-nothings, before smartphones dominated casual gaming and before emulators became household tools, there was a simpler gaming frontier: the plug-and-play console. A self-contained controller, processor, and game library in one. Plug it into your TV and play instantly. I distinctly remember this time as being a period where lots of simple plug-and-play TV games saturated store shelves. And Amongst these quirky relics lies a remarkable and somewhat overlooked title: This is Mission: Paintball, released in 2004 by Tiger Electronics (or Tiger TV Games as declared on the game's title card), a Hasbro subsidiary.
Unlike many of the plug-and-play units which offered arcade ports or retro rehashes, Mission: Paintball was an original first-person shooter designed exclusively for television play. It was a full-fledged lightgun experience, simulating the thrill of competitive paintball with surprising ambition.
But its reliance on CRT technology and analogue video signal meant the experience is almost unreplicable on modern TVs. And it's debut was really at the end of the CRT era, so maybe it was a little late to market. but even so, it still proved worthy for Tiger and Hasbro to greenlight two follow-up systems soon after.
The core of Mission: Paintball is its plastic paintball "Marker Gun" controller, styled to resemble a real paintball marker, complete with a mock hopper and CO₂ tank that you assemble yourself. It connected to your standard-definition CRT TV via two RCA AV cables, one for composite video and the other for mono audio. Given the nature of traditional lightgun technology it's important to note that an old-fashioned tube TV is essential as this won't work with modern LCDs and the like. This was a basic but effective classic lightgun system, using the same sort of technology as something like the Nintendo Zapper, or Saturn Virtua Gun.
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The gun featured some pretty standard controls that you might expect on such a device, but also some really interesting and creative elements.
Obviously, you have your On/Off switch, and a trigger (styled for two-finger use, much like a real paintball gun), and a Pause button which is described as a "Safety" in the manual.
But the features that make this stand out are:
- a "Hide" button on the front grip which, while depressed, ducks the player into cover for safety - reminiscent of Time Crisis;
- a Bolt action reload and unjamming system - yes, to reload, the player must pull the bolt back;
- and an active mechanical recoil.
Quite impressive, I think, for a simple plug-and-play toy.
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| The recoil in action |
When preparing to play, if you really want to replicate the paintball experience, you should attach the plastic hopper and CO₂ canister to the gun. these are optional however, and I personally prefer to leave them off.
The device can a take a six volt DC mains power supply, but I found that this introduces some audio noise into my unit at least, so batteries are ideal. The four AAs also add a little welcome weight to the gun and there isn't an extra trailing wire to get in your way.
When you turn on the device, you are greeted with a menu screen from where you can start a new game, continue an old game, look at high scores and adjust options, such as audio volume levels and auto-reloading.
When you choose to start a new game you are asked to create a new profile. Yes, this game has memory. The game tracks your progress and remembers stats such as your best scores, your accuracy rating and levels reached. If you choose to continue a game then you select your saved profile and continue at the level that you reached before.
Gameplay starts out simple but becomes surprisingly varied across 8 stages. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking you know everything about this game after a few minutes of play, especially when you consider that the first two stages are essentially the same basic "shoot-all-the-enemies-on-the-screen-until-they-run-out" gameplay. But in fact, these first two levels are simply training for what comes after.
You see, levels one and two are simple single-screen affairs, where you stand your ground against waves of enemy combatants, ducking to take cover and smashing crates to find ammo and propellant refills. With the second stage offering tougher enemies than the first. But it all kicks off with stage three, which is titled in the manual "Guarding the Fort". In this stage, you must defend your base alone against an army of opponents that attack you from all sides. You have a threat indicator in the top left corner of the screen which shows you which sides are under threat, and you can turn to face the enemy by shooting at the directional arrows on screen. This change of format to the gameplay took my by surprise and I was very pleased to find that there was much more to this game than meets the eye.
The later levels are more varied still. unfortunately, the game is also very difficult so I haven't managed to reach level 4 to experience them or record any footage, but the manual describes them well:
Level 4, called "Attacking the Enemy Fort" places you on an offensive mission against the base defended by the enemy team.
Levels 5 & 7 are called "Professional Paintball Parks", and are team-based matches with flanking mechanics.
Level 6 is "Capture the Flag", and level 8 "Team Elimination" is a high-pressure teammate rescue and strategy game.
Movement is accomplished by shooting the on-screen navigation arrows (forward/back or left/right) where available, while radar and teammate counters display strategic information. The power-up system hides paintballs and CO₂ refills behind destructible scenery like barrels and crates which require five shots to smash and reveal their contents.
Whenever you complete a stage, you unlock a weapon upgrade, which could be a larger capacity paintball hopper or CO₂ canister, for more longevity on the battlefield, or a different type of weapon with semi or fully automatic fire. These upgrades can be equipped or swapped out just before starting a level.
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All in all, i find this game to be a lot of fun, and the variety of gameplay keeps it fresh and gives me a reason to come back, to unlock and experience those extra modes... one day!
The only thing I really think is lacking, is the ability to disable the recoil. As it stands, you have no choice, the recoil will always be active during gameplay which rules out late night sessions.
If you want to play it, it's not hard to find. A quick cursory glance at eBay brings up several units available right now, and not all of them are unreasonably priced. Bare in mind that a CRT screen is necessary.
As I said earlier, Mission Paintball spawned two sequels. Mission: Paintball Trainer, and Mission: Paintball Powered-Up. I also have Trainer in my collection, and I'll make a video about that at a later date. But I don't have Powered-Up... yet!
Despite its robust design and creative flair, Mission: Paintball is unpreserved in digital form, as far as i know. A lot of these plug-and-play games have been dumped and have found there way into MAME, but this game has not. However, its 2006 sequel Mission: Paintball: Powered-Up is in the MAME romset and is playable in MAME/MESS.
Powered-Up is, as far as I can tell, functionally identical to this game. The gun controller, while slightly different in appearance, has all the same features and functionality of Mission: Paintball. Having played a little of it in MAME/MESS it seems to play in much the same way, although it is graphically different. However, I can't tell you if the level structure and game modes are the same, because, the profile saving feature doesn't work in MAME, which means that you must persist at the game in one sitting in order to reach the later levels.
I would very much like to see this dumped and preserved, and playable in MAME. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do that, so if you are a person with experience dumping roms from these kind of systems, and especially if you are in the UK, ideally East Anglia, please get in touch and we'll see what we can do.
Mission: Paintball is part of a strange, wonderful moment in gaming history, where toys crossed over into immersive media without needing consoles, subscriptions, or downloads. With a simple AV hookup and some imagination, players were thrown into a surprisingly strategic world of fort defense and team tactics.
If you own one, keep it safe. If you’ve never heard of it, you’re not alone, but if you love lightgun games of all kinds, then it’s really worth discovering. I hope you get a chance to play it
I have also published a video on YouTube showing my own recorded gameplay from Mission: Paintball, you should watch it! Keep in mind that the game causes the screen to flash whenever you pull the trigger (that's the way these lightgun games usually work), but I removed the flashes for the YouTube video.
If you enjoy this blog and/or video, consider giving it a like and sharing it with other vintage gamers. Leave a comment whether you've played this game or not, even if you just have fond memories of plug-and-play titles of days gone by. Consider subscribing to my YouTube channel for more from me in the future, and if you're so-inclined, you can support me on ko-fi.
And if you’re someone who knows how to dump the ROM from a unit like this, I’d love to hear from you.
Thanks for reading.