The accuracy of this review is disputed. Please see discussion below.
Period of Field Use:
Just once
Date There:
July 4th, 2006
Paintball Experience:
Less than a month
Other Fields in the Area:
Painted Forest is better suited to newer players.
Review:
Please keep in mind that I played at the Madison Heights location only. I found all of the players to be very friendly and for the most part very helpful. As for the playing field I can't be so kind in my words. The area was heavily grown up with underbrush especially briars which made for poor playing conditions. The fort was little more than a pile of cut timber. Some of the senarios were interesting. Like protect the "General".
I found safety to be quite lacking since there were no Referee's. I was also peppered by a single player since there was no "three shot rule". Perhaps my opinion is somewhat clouded being a newbie to the sport, however being plastered doesn't encourage me to come out again. I was ready to leave at that point but stayed to play a few more games. It may have been better if there had been more players there (there were a total of 10). As for the prices they were very reasonable on paint and air fills (CO2 and Nitro) but you have to walk a mile from the playing field to the truck to get a refill. The field is better suited to the local folks with lots of experience than to new folks like myself. I wish them luck with their field but do not believe I will be going back.
Dispute: I have ben playing with Big Pearl Paintball since before it was a company and I have found that it is affordable, safe, and fun.
As far as field conditions go, the Madison Heights field is much better in the winter when the brush is dead. (Big Pearl does not own the land nor have permission to bring the equipment needed to cut the brush).
Three shot rule??? um... its called paintball not lasertag.... if someone is guna cry like a freakin girl( wich is bad for a guy to do) cause they get shot more than three times they need to not play paintball anymore. dude get a high end gun and c if u dont shoot someone a few extra times, once a gun starts ramping u dont know what its guna do.
Many new players do come to Big Pearl and enjoy themselves enough to come back again and again .
Over all, Big Pearl is one of the best fields I have ever played , and most definitely maintains the most friendly atmosphere to play in .
Last edited on Wednesday, December 13th, 2006 at 7:14 pm PST
A couple things to keep in Mind, the day you played wasn't a regular event, nor did you have to pay any entry fee, CO fills are $3 and walk on paint is always allowed, so you couldn’t play any cheaper if you walked out in your back yard.. The event was open to the public but was scheduled at the last minute because some of us regular guys wanted to play that day.
When your talking about Big Pearl keep in mind that they have banned people for life to intentionally shooting people additional times. If the person shooting you doesn’t know your out then don’t blame them. In large woodsball games (probably what you were playing) the ref can’t be everywhere at the same time, so even if it had been regular event with ref’s if someone who’s shooting 20+ bps unloads on you, your going to feel it, that’s just paintball my friend. You’ll find that’s true at any field. If you don’t want to get bruises there’s always lazar tag!
As for the distance between the parking lot and the playing field, it is a long walk in Madison Heights (about 150 yards, not a mile).
In regards to the forts, nobody even played on the hill that day because it was so hot everyone wanted to stay in the Woods where there aren’t very many barricades. The Hill is where all the barricades are at. Also that’s not their best field, you should really try the Glasgow field. Painted Forest is a different type of paintball.
As for Painted Forest they make they're money off of selling paint (nothing wrong with that) so they want you to shoot as much as possible. If you want to go to a place where you can sit behind and air bunker and unload a case of paintballs they're your field. Big Pearl is objective based paintball that requires the members of each team to participate. A lot of newbie’s don’t like that; they’d rather hide in a bunker and wait for someone to walk by then brag about what an awesome paintball player they are. Most of the people that play Big Pearl have been playing there for years and are very experienced, unlike Painted Forest were a larger percentage of the players have very little experience.
Big Pearl is run by some guys in there spare time as a hobby, so it’s cheaper, but they’re not going to have elaborate towers and forts like Painted Forest. What they do have is a lot of bunkers built out of cut up logs, I’m not sure how many bunkers they have, but its well over 100 at each field and Glasgow has several small towers you can get up into.
As for safety they have never had a single injury that required medical attention as far as I am aware and I personally don’t want them to get insane with the safety rules. People like myself that have played paintball for a long time don’t want to be treated like a toddler when then attend a paintball event. You can be safe without going on some ridiculous power trip about paintball safety.
Also keep in mind that they have a much better internet site, with video’s and pictures from event’s. I don’t know of to many fields that do video’s from events.
