I had my first experience with Paintball this weekend. And I’ve got a few bruises and scrapes to prove it. For the uninitiated, paintball is grownup (not really) men (and a few women) bringing their video-game shoot-em-out fantasies to life. The guns are compressed-air powered and shoot marble sized balls of oil based paint at speeds of upto 280 feet per second, upto a distance of 100-125 feet. Games take on various scenarios, with the most popular being a capture-the-flag kind of games. Fields can be upto a couple of acres in size, with all kinds of natural and man-made obstacles that help (or hinder) in taking out the opponent.

The game is certainly not as easy as I imagined it being. I certainly took a beating, but I think I got a few confirmed kills too. I was rather pleased with one of them, which I think was in my third game. After exiting the first two games early, I made up my mind just to stay in the game, whatever it took. So after a lot of early hiding and crawling through the wet mud (courtesy of Hurricane Charley) I found myself behind two trees that had an ideal gap in-between them, through which I could see two opponents. Level, aim, fire, kill! Get killed!

It takes a while to understand the nuances of the game. And each field is unique in the way it plays. After 10 games and 6 hours of paintballing, I was tired enough to not want to talk. I certainly want to keep at the game, but it’s got a cost that is prohibitive enough to keep me away. Plus it’s going to require me to be a lot more fit than I am now.

http://www.splatusa.com -> The field I played at
http://www.paintball.com -> Tons of good info for newbies

Thanks Josh and Travis for introducing me to the game!