Agape: Less structured, which is not always bad.
Splats: Similar, but out of business.
Review:
Seeing as how Agape has moved to mendota, I decided that I should find a new place to play, rather than drive an hour each way to Agape. Splats closed, which is a pity because I liked their setup. Lacking any other option, I bit the bullet and went to Blackbeards, aka IF Paintball or something like that.
Having heard so many horror stories, I was apprehensive at first. I walked to the check in station and noticed a glaring problem: they are slow as snot. I know that on the day in question they were training a new guy on how to input names into the computer, but holy crap. Hurry up already. The guy in front of me was a newbie, clearly out for his first day. One of his questions was something along the lines of "how fast should the gun shoot?" and the lady behind the desk answered "We limit the guns to 300 psi." My eyes immediately rolled back into my head in a show of disgust. First off, it's FPS and not PSI. Secondly, the limit is 280 FPS, not 300, even if she meant to say FPS rather than PSI. Sigh. Field fee is 10 dollars, as is all day air.
I eventually got checked in and set up on a picnic table. I looked around, and being a saturday there were a ton of newbies running around. Tons. There were a few there that had nice equipment, but generally there were lots of 98C's. The hyperball field is currently off limits because the grass is still coming in, but that beats gooey rocks any day of the week.
I podded up and checked out the one airball field. The bunkers are Spyder bunkers, and there's plenty of them. The ground ranged from hard to sopping wet, so wear cleats. The starting area on the south end is especially disgusting.
I quickly realized that there were "private games" that would go on nearly constantly. It seemed to be a "3 private games, 1 open game" ratio, but it was annoying having to wait for a bunch of newbies to finish. I don't care how green you are, play public or don't play. Clogging up the works by insisting on private games is irritating as hell.
The refs did a good job and were generally enthusiastic. Barrel covers on whenever you're out of the field, goggles on when inside, etc. Well enforced rules.
There were wayy too many people playing open games for the field. 20 on 20 or something close to it is hard on a 5 or 7 man (can't tell) airball field. I managed to run into someone off the break twice, and shot one of my teammates in the back of the head off the break. Hey man, don't run in front of my rope. Anyway, if you can survive the break and find a bunker that isn't quintupled up upon, you can find a lot of targets. I found a tombstone with at LEAST 5 people in it. They all became mine, which made me laugh. The games are chaotic and fast, which can be good or bad.
I eventually came to need air, and I was lead to a trailer with a full on compressor/cascade system in it. Holy jesus. 4k field fills have previously been unheard of. Very nice.
Overall a great day, and a good first experience. The people were great as always, no idiots. The check in could have been smoother and the chronoing should've been done more often due to the number of C02 guns being used. They desperately need to expand their fields, because there were too many people playing on one field. But they have a compressor. That makes up for everything.
WOW!! in the begining this field was the best in the middle it sucked with only 5 bunkers but now the Team bought a whole new field a spyder field it kicks a$$ its the same like all the fields on sat is for the newbs and rec ballers and sunday is for the practice for teams and such they even got benches to view the whole field its perrty kickin!!
refs they still need wrk on though there kool ive met them they jus need sum Role models to look up to mabey they will do better reffin but for now its the HONOR system haha!!! thats the best reffin huh well im outtie im out there every sunday holla at ya boi jer!!! if you knoe who i am hahahah!! peace out
oh yea the prices are still the same
i give it a 7 cuz the dirt is still hard but hopefully it will soften up from the rain and the refs still need to b showin the skills of reffin!!
Prs which is worse cuz you have to buy their paint!
Review:
The feild is decent and cheap. the refs know nothing, but they say that they do and they wont fix your gun due to them breaking it and getting sued. I gave them my tank and 15 minutes later they hadnt even started filling it. People cheat and get away with it. Just to see if i could get away with it i wiped, played on after getting hit, and shot people as they were going to the dead box and nothing happened to me! This field is pretty lame! I only reccomend it as a sunday afternoon passtime go to agape or splats if you want to have a good time!
Last edited on Sunday, July 30th, 2006 at 5:23 pm PST
Pros- Not to expensive, extremely cheap on Co2 refills, if you need food jst walk into Blackbears arcade. Airball field is ok.
Cons- Refs never do anything (cuz they too scared, they even have shields), not very knowledgable staff (theyb know nothing about fixing a gun).
Ok, to begin my complaints: the refs are stupid and dont pay attention. When i asked them (at the repair and refill booth) if they could fix my air coil (cuz it had kinks in it) they handed ME and wrench and said "here, you have to do it, because if we mess up your gun than you could sue us", which is really stupid, because if you ask someone to try and fix somthin, n they dont do it right, its still your fault for askin them in the first place. And last, they dont know anything about paintball besides how to fill up co2 bottles; they even told me their stupid Brass Eagle Avenger guns were better then their Tippman Pro Carbines.
My few thing i like about it: only $15 all day, only $1 for a Co2 refill, and there arent really many people that go there with Angels and Autocockers and stuff like that. Also, if you need a snack, just walk over to the blackbeards arcade, where they have food and drink.
paranoid - best so far
agape - getting there
raid - closed
Review:
Far from being a good field. This field caters to mostly newbies and rec-ballers. Players with experience don't usually come here they go to Paranoid. It was decent when they had the two asian brothers. They were cool. They helped us with our guns even though they had signs that they were not supposed to. But one of them quit and the other doesn't work on the weekends anymore. This field just went back to being pathetic. They have some nice employees but they don't know much about paintball. I would think twice about this field.
Last edited on Tuesday, September 27th, 2005 at 10:08 pm PST
I thought it was okie but the people who worked thier didnt know much about guns and the fileds where to small and the reffs doesnt pay any attention to the game cause they where all scared to get hit, it dint think its worth 15 all day its proby good for new people i would rate it a 5.
Although some people say it's a horrible field, take it from me, if you're looking to play a small field just for rec, it's great. After playing that first day, I was hooked. No they don't chrono you but I didn't get hit too bad. I even saw a kid get hit in the balls and he was alright. Since it was the first field I ever played on, I can't ever say it was bad.
I usually Just play with my collage buds in my back yard(it's about 24 square miles) but one day we went their just to see what a controlled game was like, what the hell are they thinking there was a kid with full auto (i'm not sure but looked like an angle) at about 360 fps, all 23 of us has massive welts.
don't play there the refs hardly pay attention one of the two was reading harry potter during the game(GAF)
