Ultimate Paintball Challenge "Chrono Hopper" 2:55

Splatoon can't stay the only paintball representation around here, so we're going super-duper deep cut... CJthemusicdude brings out the marker for his quick & intense take on a PC game with fond memories back in the day, Activision's Ultimate Paintball Challenge! As CJ clarified for us, playing the title also known in some locales as Ultimate PaintBrawl 3 wasn't without its quirks, but he still fires it up to this day:

"My remix of the "Office" theme from the Ultimate Paintball Challenge video game. This game series gets a lot of flak but I think the music in this game is great.

This was one of the only games that we had on our shared family computer back when I was a teenager, and I played the CRAP out of it. This series of games has had some pretty awful titles, but this game seems to be the better of the bunch. The game is very clunky and the NPC AI is wacky, but it is a game I still enjoy playing, if nothing else than for the intense challenge of trying to finish the campaign on Hard without a single loss. The soundtrack is very solid, and I'm glad I could shine even a tiny, dim light on it with this remix."

The source tune's interesting in that it's basically just a groove, so the textural variation route it is, and CJ's done a great job with it! He's truly got a knack for loud tracks that don't feel like they're overdriven. Nice lil' sweep transition into the distant-sounding guitars at :52, then dropping some "paintball" voice clips while mucking around with the stereo field. Ooh, a skulky-style dropoff at 1:50 which set up a gradual rebuild, culminating in the guppy being emptied into the hopper, then some intense beats at 2:19. The final moments at 2:38 nicely gave some prominence to the odd timing (for me, anyway) of the beats compared to how they lined up with the melody. Man, this is awesome, and fellow judge Emunator's right there with me, also praising both CJ's sound design chops and continued skill & synergy with copious SFX & voice clip integrations:

"There's a lot to love here - the goofy concept is well-supported with a variety of well-utilized vocal clips and strong sound choices. There's a lot of repetitiveness on paper, but I don't *feel* it that strongly because there's enough frequent changeups, one-shots/fills, and new ideas introduced that it scans as more of an inherent quality in this style rather than laziness in production or arranging. [...] Just based on what's in front of me, it passes the vibe check. [...]

The guitar - I actually found it rather charming in a very-obviously-MIDI-programmed sort of way. It'd be one thing if the rest of the track seemed to be striving for realism and these guitars just missed the mark, but I don't think it is. We're very clearly in silly territory here with the sound choices and programming. I do have to give credit that the mixing quality of the guitars and synths feels really satisfying and well-balanced."

If it were even grungier and more militaristic, this would even have amazing Command & Conquer-style vibes. CJ could do this formula all day and I wouldn't get tired of it, because he really knows how to explore a theme and vary up its presentation. (And we'd be remiss if we didn't !)

Careful not to spill as you fill the hopper back up... (bah, we all spilled half of 'em anyway). Just get in the game and give your team some much-needed cover with CJthemusicdude's heavy-hitting PaintBrawl upgrade. "LET'S GO!" :-)