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pbReview.com / Paintball Fields / USA / California / Bear Creek Pursuit Paintball (Outdoor) Paintball Field
Bear Creek Pursuit Paintball (Outdoor) Paintball Field
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Reviews: |
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Website: |
Click here to visit the field's website. |
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Email: |
N/A |
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Phone: |
(408) 946-7676 |
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Location: |
Boulder Creek, California 95006
USA |
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Distance: |
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Period of
Field Use: |
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| Last There: |
January 19th, 2008 |
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Paintball
Experience: |
1 year |
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Other Fields
in the Area: |
Santa Clara-not nearly as good |
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Directions
to the Field: |
see website
http://www.bearcreekpaintball.com |
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| Review: |
This place is the best!
Safety: During orientation, the refs cover this thoroughly and make sure everybody understands. I have never seen an accident before(or even heard of one)
Field: It's one large-ish field. Think of it as a huge speedball field, that's also a hill. It's a straight platform(roughly size of speedball field), then a hill sloping up and down to each side to two other platforms
So there's basically three platforms: Lower, middle, and top. I call it a large speedball field 'cuz everyone brings speedball guns. But I bring an A-5, and I take them all out! xD
Hours of Operation: Arrive between 7:30 and 10:00 am. By 10 am, if there's not around 15+ people, they won't open. (HINT:come saturdays there's usually ppl)
Prices: $25 for admission, $10 for rental(or $15 for upgraded), $10 for all day air. C02 fills vary, depending on the size of your bottle. Usually $3-$5.
Rules: Fair rules, plenty of safety, point blank rule, they almost never have problems with people disregarding rules(I've never seen it) NO FULL AUTO/RAMPING
Proshop: Not much, but most of the refs can fix your gun if it breaks
Staff/refs: Great, fair, nice. My bro and I came twice, and they didn't have enough people to open. On the third time, they said "what the hey, I don't wanna keep you guys waiting forever" and opened the field, even though there weren't enough ppl by normal standards.
One of the refs, JR is the best dude ever. He likes to play, and has a trunk full(literally) of guns, barrels, air tanks, etc. Sometimes he plays, and instead of being in a bunker, he stands in the open and just dodges it.
When we ask him why, he says "That twig there at my feet counts as a bunker"
Facilities:Port-o-potty
Food-Bring your own, or they have lunch there. BBQ chicken, hot dogs, chips, water, gatorade.
Overall, I think this field is the best there is in the bay area. Come here and you won't regret it. 10 out of 10
| Last edited on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 4:10 pm PST |
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Period of
Field Use: |
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| Last There: |
March 16th, 2007 |
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Paintball
Experience: |
More than 5 years |
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Other Fields
in the Area: |
TAG (was a reg at their old old old location many years back), Woodstock, Ft. Ord indoor field, TAG new location. Only field I enjoyed more was TAG's old school location in Watsonville. |
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Directions
to the Field: |
See site. |
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| Review: |
I drove up from Santa Cruz, and it wasn't a bad drive at all. The directions were easy to follow, though bear creek road is kind of sketchy, as is the steep dirt driveway that leads down to the field. But hell, this is woodsball in the SC mountains right?
I arrive there and there is a relatively small group getting geared up, probably about 25 total. I paintball alone considering all my friends have backed out of the sport, so I needed no reservation. I was actually later glad that there wasn't a huge group. as BC consists of only one field, and it's not that huge a field all things considered.
One really cool thing was that my tank is being hydro'd at the moment, and I can't run CO2 on my guns. They don't rent out nitro tanks, but I had been talking to Clint, who had done some work on my spyder years ago and it turned out he reff'd at this field at times. He said he wouldn't be there the weekend I was going but to call the field up and ask a ref to bring me a tank to borrow for the day. So I left a message at the field and they called me back promptly, asking what kind of tank I needed (hp/lp) and told me they'd take care of it.
When I arrived they had a nitro tank waiting for me and didn't charge me for the rental. Good stuff. The lady running the shack is really nice and helpful, hooked me up with some bandages for a scraped knee and evened out all the testosterone running rampant.
Staging area: consists of a sales shack, canopied fill stations and a trailer with gear. There are a few picnic tables next to where you park your cars. Parking lot is a dirt area, and there are plenty of trees to find shade under.
Prices: Prices are fair for the most part, save for paint which is WAY WAY WAY overpriced ($70 a case). I brought my own paint as a self equip so this was not a problem for me, but I felt sorry for the renters. I know this is one of the only ways for fields to make money but.. still. $70?
For me it cost $35 bucks for entry and all day air.
Food and water and energy drinks is cheap and very good. The hot dog/chicken skewer lunch was really nice and it really felt like summer had begun.
Orientation: orientation is quick and concise, all the important factors stressed. Easy to listen to, the usual safety and newbie info included.
Refs: Refs are NPPL registered and helpful and friendly. They will do paint checks (even if begrudgingly) and there are always at least 2 refs on each game, keeping things organized and ensuring safety and rules are followed.
Field: Field is found down a path and consists of a gradual slope with a flat area at the bottom. Plenty of bunkers, woodpiles, and a few trees and some foliage, though overall it is pretty much open. In other words, the field itself isn't in dense woods. It's open and sunny for the most part. There's plenty of cover but not so much that you don't take some risky slides. No poison oak that I saw. It really reminded me of the "Triangle" field from old school TAG. The "hill" is rather minor, it's just sloped enough that you get some exercise when assaulting it, but it's not really major. You don't need to be in that great of shape to handle it.
Teams: Teams were mixed pretty evenly between self equipped and rentals. Everyone plays together, which is nice as it allows for big games. It was also good for me since I'm still rusty having not played in years and using my old gear.
Gameplay: Gameplay is really fun. Most of the day was spent on elimination games, mixing up the start points for the teams. Other games played were capture the flag (though no one ever managed to grab the flag before the time ended.. these should be longer games IMO), and attack and defend (very fun) where one team must stay on the hill and gaurd the flag pole while the opposing team assaults it and are all terminators (can respawn as many times as they like). When we were defending they gave us one terminator as well. This place reminds me of the good old days at TAG's old location years ago.. classic woodball with a big group and everyone having a good time. They know how to work with what's given to them and make the best of it. Good stuff.
The format was 2 games (switching sides) and a "5 minute" break, which always ended up being 10-15 minutes. Everyone likes to relax in between games, but it would be good for the refs to rush people a bit more. Though, at the end of the day, our group stayed at the bottom of the path on the field to ensure we got another 2 games in.
Rules: Rules are fair and the usual safety stuff. Chronoing between games is fine and smart, even if it takes up a little time.
The only issue I had was the no-bunkering rule. It's not that I want to bunker noobs all day. It's not even that I really love bunkering people (though..I do), it's that this rule really can mess up gameplay. It creates these awkward situations with people yelling "SURRENDER!" from like 10 feet away and you're thinking to yourself "hm.. I could just shoot this person", or two people rushing each other yelling surrender at the same time and then not knowing what to do. Our ref even had to get 2 players to start over from opposite bunkers a couple of times because of this. Also at times there's simply no way to tag a player from the distance they desire, and running up to surrender the person would inevitably cause problems.
Though it does suck for noobs to be bunkered, the no bunkering rule causes real problems in gameplay, and should be modified. Refs should ask that players surrender, but should not require it in all situations.
Personal stuff: Well as I said there were a fair amount of first timers and renters there, so I took it easy at times. When I was up against self-equips I went all out, but a fair amount of the time I was relaxing, just walking around and giving my team info. I assumed a leadership role on my team and encouraged players to rush and move up, and I think they had a better time for it. Everyone had grins coming off of the field.
When we broke through their flank, and got behind the other team, I would tag a few players but for the most of my part I'd let my team do the flanking. Truth be told I would have felt a little guilty taking out the majority of their team so once we broke through I let the noobies have their fun and relaxed till the whistle blew. I was using a used angel I picked up on craigslist and I definitely was not used to the sensitivity of the trigger, so I did get yelled at once for hitting a player with a few too many balls, and with good reason. After the game I informed the guy (JR) about my situation and he understood.
JR is actually a ref there but played some of the games with us. I started shooting the sh*t with him and we got to talking guns and what not, and he told me he had an ion as a backup. I told him how I'd been looking into an ion and he offered to let me play the rest of the day with his ion, no problem at all. JR's the man! So I put the angel away (it was double balling anyway) and used his ion the rest of the day, and I might mention had a blast with it. He reffed a few of our games towards the end and I got to know the ion and overall had a good day of paintball. He left his gun and tank with me and I dropped it off to the lady at the shack (sorry don't remember her name) at the end of the day.
Overall, this place is a solid field to have a good day of recball in the mountains of Santa Cruz. They may only have one field, but they know how to work with it and mix up gameplay to keep things exciting. It really brought me back to the old days of recball and reminded me what paintballing is all about. Everyone was having fun and I met quite a few cool people playing there. It also reminded me why I love woodsball vs. speedball. The game brought everyone together and everyone was socializing and having fun in the sun, getting some good exercise in beautiful surroundings while playing safe and everything staying organized.
Rating: 9/10
This rating is considered in comparison to other local fields and considered what they do with the area they have. There are better woodsball fields in California, but this place offers a great time with just one small field.
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Period of
Field Use: |
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| Last There: |
September 3rd, 2006 |
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Paintball
Experience: |
3 years |
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Other Fields
in the Area: |
Santa Clara FairGrounds-very disorganized compared to bear creek, but still very fun, a good variety from speed ball to hyper ball.
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| Review: |
The safety at this field is extremely covered, there is a chrono before every two games to get the max amount of rounds into the hours that are available.
All of their rules are enforced very well to ensure everyone's safety.
The staff there is extremely nice I would give them all an A, the refs too.
The refs know what they're doing and try to make the game fun for everyone.
From what I've experienced the players at bear creek are always nice, since they're just there to have a good time in the first place, you'll encounter a noob every once in a while but they won't bother anyone.
Bear Creek serves food from their "Snack Shack" and their BBQ, which makes everything convenient. One great thing is that they do have objective games, rather than just shoot the other team.
3000 paintballs is more than enough at bear creek, and if you're going in the fall summer or spring bring some water, but if it's anywhere near the winter bring a heavy jacket for the morning.
Bear creek is great for having fun with friends or family. |
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Legree |
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Wednesday, July 5th, 2006 |
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| The accuracy of this review is disputed. Please see discussion on the comments page. |
Period of
Field Use: |
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| Date There: |
July 2nd, 2006 |
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Paintball
Experience: |
More than 5 years |
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Other Fields
in the Area: |
Used to play at the old Bear Creek, Woodstalk, Venture Games, Carpet Bobs, Mare Isle, etc. |
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| Review: |
I flew out from the east coast to visit a Bay-area friend. He usually plays arena-style ball, but I wanted to play some woods games, so we settled on Bear Creek. Neither of us were very happy with our experience.
CONS
• LONG delays between games. Playing from the beginning to the end, I think we managed 8 games. Back in the days of giant woods fields (anyone remember Prime Time Paintball in Vallejo?), 8 games a day was doing good. Bear Creek however isn’t much more than an oversized speedball field, and you should be able to get twice that number of games in a day. Having to chrono before every game is overkill, but even that shouldn’t take that long if the field operators tried to speed things up.
• No pink paint. I never heard a good explanation for why pink paint will cause more problems than any other color, but if you show up with that color paint, you’re screwed. Yes they do have a small sign at the registration desk, but wouldn’t a warning on the web page be expected?
• No field variety. Yes, their one field is nice. It’s good sized, has a good variety of bunkers and some interesting vertical terrain. Playing the same field all day gets old though. If they don’t have the land to add another field, how about playing occasional half-field games?
• Mandatory surrender rule. This is a personal peeve of mine. Whenever a field requires that a surrender be accepted (ie, you can’t turn around and try and shoot the person calling the surrender on you), you start running into people that will use it as a defensive weapon. That’s where a person hiding behind a bunker will tell you to surrender even though they can’t see you, and they don’t even have their marker pointed at you. It should be mandatory to call for a surrender within a certain distance. It should be optional if you want to accept it.
PROS
• As I said above, they have a pretty nice field.
• The people (workers and other players) were for the most part helpful and well-behaved.
This place has the potential to be a really great paintball field. All of the CONS I listed could be corrected without that much trouble. I would not recommend playing at the field until some of these things get fixed.
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| The accuracy of this review is disputed. Please see discussion on the comments page. |
Period of
Field Use: |
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| Date There: |
April 9th, 2006 |
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Paintball
Experience: |
More than 5 years |
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Other Fields
in the Area: |
APG Paintball Sacramento-Great fields owners are jerks.
Extreme Paintball Modesto- Good time, I'm not much of a Speedball player.
Venture Games Clayton- Great woods ball field.
Piantballzone Waterford- Good woods ball field.
Paintball Paradise Vallejo- Nice woods ball field. |
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| Review: |
This is the first and last time I visit this field. We get there and Clint starts the safety speech. So once he gets done, we start to put our guns together and Clint comes over and starts giving me crap for not having a barrel plug in my gun. Oh by the way, there wasn't a tank or hopper on it yet. Then my wife walks over to me and Ratman starts giving her crap about the 1st rule on paintball. She wasn't even touching a gun. My wife and kids lasted 1 game because of Ratman, they ended up going to Santa Cruz because of him. Thanks Clint, They left because of your attitude and your Big Mouth!
Today there was 2 private groups at this field. My group had about 7 people and another had about 20 people.
One of my friends shows up early and Ratman walks up to him and says "I don't think you belong here today there are 2 private groups. My friend explained to him he was with one of the groups. So Ratman walked away. Hey Ratman do you like our business coming to your field? If so try saying Good Morning to people. Before you act like a jerk.
So we play a couple games, and Ratman starts following us around the field. Now we play alot my group and the other group was all noob's except for about 5 of them. And we have the same amount of noob's and so the teams were pretty even. Right off the bat Ratman has a chip on his shoulder for us. Telling us where we can and can't shoot our guns during a game. I shoot one guy, but because I shot him over the out of bounds line he starts yelling at me. Don't you see the O of B tape? In the heat of a game I'm not looking for O of B tape covered by a fallen tree. So we continue to play and my friends gun has ramp mode on it and Ratman almost craps his pants and starts yelling at him. Hey Ratman ramp mode is not full auto.
So we finish that game and we are starting a new game. My son is chronoing his gun ( Who is 12 years old by the way) when I wasn't at the station yet and can't figure how to turn down his to 270 when it was shooting 272,because the gun was new to him. Ratman wouldn't help him. That's what your there for to help the KIDS. So they can learn.And have FUN.
I can keep going all day about Ratman.
He dosen't like Electronic guns or people who know how to play.
All day long smart ass comments keep coming out of that mouth.
Ratman anytime you want to play and teach us a lesson. Let me know, I would really like to shoot that stuffed animal off your head.
Enough about people wearing stuffed animals on there head.
The rest of the staff B+.
The field C-.
I was really disappointed with this facility. It was along drive and a waste of time. My family and I were looking to have a good time, and it didn't happen.| Last edited on Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 at 11:48 am PST |
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Period of
Field Use: |
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| Date There: |
August 17th, 2003 |
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Paintball
Experience: |
3 years |
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Other Fields
in the Area: |
SCP, Sunol PB, Venture Games PB (My favorite) |
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| Review: |
When I first got there and got set up, the field reminded me a lot of VGPB as it's on a hillside. I was a bit let down when I got there because I had a whole unopened case of pink fill paint and sure enough, they have a sign about no pink filled paint. Now if their website said something about that so first time players there would come prepared rather than screwed and milked for their money. My whole group had pink and had to suffer. Also, I found it hard to shoot up and over/shoot uphill due to low trees.
Pros:
Friendly Staff (from what I remember)
Bunkers
Variety of games
Cons:
Anal about pink paint (which doesn't stain)
Driveway sucks to the max...1 car at a time, 1 lane.
Low trees make shooting difficult to shoot uphill
This field was ok...just bring something other than pink paint or you're SOL and have to shell out more money. |
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Period of
Field Use: |
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| Last There: |
November 19th, 2005 |
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Paintball
Experience: |
More than 5 years |
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Other Fields
in the Area: |
Venture Diablo
Paintball Jungle
Bay Area Paintball |
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| Review: |
Prices: fairly average, ok to BYOP, but field paint isn't bad. All day air is the best deal.
Staff: Excellent. Safety is strongly emphasized, and rules are stringently enforced. Refs are courteous and professional. Staff is friendly & helpful, as well as very patient with new players.
Field: Average size woodball field, lots of bunkers. Plenty of "vertical" terrain (ie. hills), so expect a workout. Good mix of natural & man made cover.
Games: A variety of scenarios are played, including capture the flag, attack/defend, elimination and the dreaded Cowbell game.
Rules: rules are strict (more so than most fields), but evenly enforced. Experienced players may not care for the mandatory 15ft forced surrender rule, but newbs might find it comforting to know that they wont get lit up at close range.
Overall a very good field, especially for beginners. I have a great deal of respect for the owners of this field. They run a tight ship, but still make sure that everyone has a good time. Not the biggest or the fanciest place in the Bay Area, but a good solid experience none the less. I recommend Bear Creek for anyone who just wants to have a drama free, fun day of paintball in the woods. |
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vl lynx |
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Wednesday, December 21st, 2005 |
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Period of
Field Use: |
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| Date There: |
September 25th, 2005 |
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Paintball
Experience: |
3 months |
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Other Fields
in the Area: |
none, i love bear creek |
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| Review: |
When my dad told me we were gonna try out paintballing, at first i was hesitant but once we got to the field, the staff there treated me well and not like i was stupid for being a first-timer.
The course is really cool because it's all a really big incline and there are lots of bunkers to hide behind. Being a first-timer, the amount of space the course provides was a big plus because you have to be more than 10 feet away to shoot someone and it isn't like most small places where people come up and shoot you point blank in the head. I really love also the safety and that they chrono every game so people don't crank up the fps and seriously hurt someone. |
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Period of
Field Use: |
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| Date There: |
November 23rd, 2005 |
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Paintball
Experience: |
3 months |
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| Review: |
this field is tight but there are some problem
PROS:
huge field
cool refs
chrono every game
very safe field
CONS:
chrono every game
rentals are sh**
sh** paint
I wrote chrono ever game under both because though it can take quite a while, it is somewhat good because that way, you dont have people shooting 350 fps and caving in ur mask cuz they didn't chrono before the match.
This field is ridiculously big, bout the size of 2 football fields, and its on one huge incline which makes the game interesting. There are a lot of bunkers, which is good and bad. A lot of bunkers makes the game extremely intense but some parts of the field it is kind of ridiculous because you can move about 5-7 ft in any direction and your behind cover again. They rent out PMI piranhas which r crap n crappy masks too, but what do you expect? Paint is 70 bucks for a case of practice paint. Games are all extremely fun but I wish we had played attack/defend more. People who play there are generally nice. One guy let me use his tricked out 98c which was cool. No one wiped and refs made sure of that. Overall great field |
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Period of
Field Use: |
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| Date There: |
N/A |
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Paintball
Experience: |
6 months |
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Other Fields
in the Area: |
Santa Clara/ Fairgrounds Paintball |
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| Review: |
one of the best fields i've played on.
why? let me tell you:
one Large playing field
all the refs are cool and protective
the bad things are that all the classes are bunched up into one group, no beginners, intermediate, or pros, just everyone.
crono checks every game.
overall, very fun. nice bunkers and such. |
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