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How do you play?
Home » Gadgets » Paintball » How do you play?There are literally hundreds of variations of paintball, some of which are significantly more popular than others. There are three games which are particularly popular: Capture the Flag, Center Flag, and Slayer. In Capture the Flag, two teams start on opposite sides and attempt to gain access to the other team's flag, all the while having to protect their own flag. The winning team is the one which takes the other team's flag to the predetermined location, or the team which eliminates (by marking with paint) all the players from the other team. In Center Flag, there is just one flag located in the middle of the field. Both teams try to acquire it and take it to the opposite end of the field. Slayer is a simpler game with a simpler objective: eliminate all the opposing players. Besides those three basic games, there are also a number of types of gameplay.
Woodsball is the original type of paintball gameplay. As you could probably deduce from the name, this type of paintball is played primarily in a wooded area. The area of gameplay is generally large enough for many people to play, sometimes several dozen. Woodsball is held in stark contrast to the other major version, speedball, for a number of reasons. Woodsball games take much more time than speedball games, and the guns used in woodsball do not fire as quickly as the guns used in speedball. Woodsball is more of a strategic, stalking game; stealth is more at a premium than speed. Accuracy is extremely important in woodsball, much more so than in speedball. This is simply because you generally only have one shot to get the opponent you're after, unlike in speedball in which the guns are often semiautomatic and fire through several cycles in just a few seconds. The guns used in paintball are fairly loud, making it even more critical to be accurate with your shot. Simply firing one shot will immediately notify many of your opponents of your location, putting you in danger of being eliminated. This version even utilizes the occasional paintball sniper. Unlike real life snipers, though, paintball snipers' weapons do not have the range needed to fire on an opponent from a very safe distance, so the sniper must use stealth to get near an opponent. Many of the different games can be played in the woodsball genre, with center flag and capture the flag among them.
Speedball is the other major type of paintball. While woodsball is played in large, wide open areas, speedball is played in a much more confined area in an effort to make the game more exciting. Several man made obstacles are placed all over the field. The obstacles, called bunkers, are usually made of some inflatable material, wood pallets, or tires. The field is split in half and the bunkers are placed in mirror images of each other, so as not to give either team an advantage. The guns used in speedball shoot a large number of balls per second (BPS to the experienced paintballer). Slayer is the most popular game played in speedball, although other versions can be played as well. This is the type of paintball that is gaining popularity and is usually played in local leagues and tournaments.
There are a number of other types of paintball with varying popularity. Scenario paintball is generally a large scale game with some theme, like science fiction or war. Many scenario paintball games last several hours, and sometimes even days, and include players dressed up in costumes of their parts in the game. Reball is a type of paintball that, strangely, doesn't use paintballs. The reball is a solid foam ball shaped and sized exactly like a paintball so it can be fired from the same gun. This kind of ammo is useful for indoor play where paint splattered on the walls may not be acceptable, and is also useful for teams which want to practice together, saving them money since they can reuse their ammunition instead of having to buy so many paintballs. There is a variation of reball called v-ball, which uses a Velcro ball instead of the foam ball. X-ball is a newer version of paintball which pits two teams against one another in a series of games of center flag. The game is timed, and whichever team has won the most rounds of center flag when time runs out is declared the winner. Slingshot paintball is just what it sounds like: the typical paintball guns are replaced with slingshots. The main advantage of slingshot paintball is that a slingshot costs far less than a normal paintball gun, making this version of the game far more affordable.
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