New York City Paintball

So, my first NYC paintball experience.

It's located on Van Dam St, in Queens, just around the corner about 3 blocks from the 33rd-Rawson St station on the 7 train (you need to take the 7 circle, not the 7 diamond cos the express will skip 33rd-Rawsone) from either NYC Library/Madison/5th, Times Square, or Grand Central Station if you are coming from Manhattan.

The place is painted bright yellow so when you walk down Van Dam St, you can't miss it.  It's also just one block down from the Correctional Facility there.  Once you get inside, you start to feel the seediness of the place.  The stickiness of the floor, the smell of paintball paint, the not particularly well lit ambience.  A counter presents itself to you where you sign the standard liability waiver, and then you pay, get issued your mask, pack (2 tube only, which is really little), and a foam chestguard.  Depending on your payment choice, you get issued your paint in bags of 500, two bags for the 1000, or a box which has 4 bags in it for the 2000.  If you want extra paint, its $20 for 500, $35 for 1000 or $65 for 2000.

There is a picnic table arrangement inside where you sit around, have your drinks or food, and wait for your turn.  They come and get you when it's your turn, and you come into the armoury where you pick up a paint marker, any random one on the bench, since they are all virtually the same.  The markers that we got were tipperman style semi-automatics with non-electronic triggers.  Gravity fed hoppers sit on top.  As part of the safety brief, we are also told that we have to have the safety switch on and the barrel sleeve on until we are instructed to take them off, fair enough.  The no-shoot distance is 10 feet, or about 3 meters roughly.

So, in this place, there is two fields, one big, one small, and a side laser tag field.  Since we had 18 people in our group we got "private" play in the big map.  It's filled with speedball barricades such as cans, the snake down one side, doritos and cubes.  The field size in fact is TINY.  You could easily throw a paintball across the entire distance...  Anyway, the masks are dirty as, even when you try and clean them, it's still pretty fuzzy with them on.

Well, you play in four end rotations.  So you switch sides four times, then get off the field, wait, refill your pods, then get back on etc.  In the first round, I was given a warning for shooting someone who had surrendered to me under 10 feet.  I was like, uh, I didn't hear him??  This was because you can't hear ANYTHING in there, even the referees have to yell multiple times for any instructions to get across the sound of paint markers and paintballs hitting surfaces...  In any case, I backed off in my aggressive running push style and stayed back to lay down suppressive fire.  I did pick it back up a few rounds later, one round where I cleared straight up the middle in a sprint and cleared out the entire right side of the field before I got shot crossfield on my back shoulder.  On another round I cleared down the snake while standing, then got to the other end and ran out of paint LOL, and well, no surprise, got nailed by three guys down the end... >_< XD

While the paint prices are awesome, it's a bummer that the markers are so crap.  The other thing is, 3 hours on the same field, even if you switch sides, gets kind of boring even if you try different tactics.  I prefer the outdoor rounds more for the entertainment value.  If I was playing tourney, it would be different, and the field is actually also much larger.  The only other issue I have with the venue is the lack of ventilation.  From what I could see and feel, there is very little moving air at all.  The heat, the sweat, the respiration from players, and the paint, it makes for a very moist, wet, and sticky environment.  The walls in the waiting area is disgustingly sticky and it doesn't even have any paint on it -_-;;;

But, I guess it's okay for the odd occaision, not a every day thing.

So, if you're in New York and you're after something to do for a few hours, then you can head down for some paintball action.  Good prices, kinda friendly staff of sorts, basic play no frills no fuss paintball.