Nothing stolen, nothing gained. While the world was anxiously waiting for the next generation of the Micro Machines series, Ignition came out of nowhere and took pretty much exactly the same line. OK, strictly speaking, they're not toy cars, but you do drive unlikely vehicles across unlikely tracks.
So you're in a school bus (obviously, the coolest choice), plowing right through the jungle, the 'road' leads you right across the top of a pyramid and oops… a boulder dropped down from above and flattened you good. Oh well, no worries – you'll be up and running again in a moment, just that you've lost precious seconds against the competition. So, like Micro Machines, Ignition is good, light-hearted fun racing where you can shove, push or crash as many times as you like – if you think it will be to your advantage.
What makes for an excellent first-person shooter? Good graphics, challenging opponents, diverse weaponry, creative level design, smooth controls, atmospheric sound effects and maybe, to top it off, a thrilling story, are surely amongst the top ten on the list of things most players will immediately think of. But considering this, the fewest will think of Extreme Paintbrawl. Why? The concept sounds rather nice: Paintball offers a fresh setting. Getting your enemies to surrender, instead of blasting them to bloody bits, for a change has something to it. Two teams, each one defending a flag, may be genre standard, but especially fitting in this case. But as soon as you get to see how all this got implemented the disillusionment sets in.