By: Mike Lang
Submitted: 2009-10-23 05:59:28 | Word Count: 521
“Look out! You’re about to be hit!” THWACK! THWACK! “Run! Run!” THWACK! THWACK! These are the sounds you might hear at the exhilarating sport called paintball.
If you are looking for an exciting activity that will give you an adrenaline rush, then try paintball, the sport where you try to eliminate your opponent by hitting him with pellets of paint. Using guns powered by compressed gas, you shoot those pellets of paint (paintballs) at your opponents. When a player is hit by the paintball, he is eliminated from the game. Because the pellets are filled with paint, it is easy to tell who has been hit and is thus “out” of the game.
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Imagine the adrenaline rush of chasing after another human being, your heart pounding as you dart your eyes back and forth, scanning the surroundings for other opponents. When you shoot your paintball game, THWACK! THWACK! your paintball splatters against your enemy, spattering paint all across his uniform. You took out a man!
Eliminating your opponents and evading being hit yourself makes this sport such a great competition. The most popular game of paintball is Capture the Flag. Two teams can play this game whose objective is to capture the flag at the opponent’s base and bring it back to your own. When a member of one team is hit, he is out of the game, but the rest of his team still plays. Whichever team can steal the other’s flag, through whatever strategy needed, and bring it back to their own home base wins.
Although Capture the Flag is the most popular game, there are many others paintball enthusiasts can play, too. One simple version is just a basic game of Elimination: in this game, once a player is hit, he is eliminated. The last player left standing is thus the winner. You aren’t trying to work as a team to protect one another or steal your opponent’s flag. You are just fighting to “stay alive.”
As with any sport, the game does have some hazards. After all, you are running and shooting shooting pellets out of a gun propelled by compressed air. When the pellets hit you, they do sting, but don’t typically cause real injury. If the hit is at close range, you might be bruised; therefore, masks are typically worn to protect the face and eyes.
However, all in all, the game is less dangerous than many other sports.
Since the sport began in the late 1970s, it has become very popular. Most research shows that well over 5 million people play in the United States alone. In fact, there are organized competitions with regional tournaments all around the nation. Paintball leagues and professional games are also becoming more popular.
However, the sport is still most widely enjoyed at the recreational level by amateurs just looking for a few hours of fun. Men make up the majority of players, but women are increasingly finding the thrill of the game as tempting as men.
If you want to feel an adrenaline rush like not other, then try a game of paintball.
Author Resource:-
Mike regularly writes for http://www.ProlificPaintball.com, they carry such paintball equipment as the Invert Mini Paintball Gun and the Freak Barrel Kit, as well as many other items from a variety of manufacturers.
