Well, paintball is one of my far too expensive hobbies.
Still play, love it. I have two teenage sons and an 18 year old daughter. We all play, great father/kid sport. I haven't got my wife or 13 year old daughter convinced yet.
I would actually advise you to check out some of the online used equipment boards. But first, if possible, I would try to rent or borrow equipment to play a few times. The problem with the cheapie gear is that it often malfunctions, and if one of your cheapie guns doesn't work, then you can't play against each other.
Paintball is a lot of fun, but only if you actually are playing and not sitting on the sidelines trying to fix equipment. Used better gear can be found at the same price as new cheap gear and will give you a lot more satisfaction. (Speaking as one who has too much money wrapped up in paintball gear!)
Full face coverage is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL. Do NOT play unless you have approved paintball masks. Take a grape, hold it between you thumb and first finger, squeeze hard. What happens is exactly what happens to an eye hit by a paintball! NOTHING will ruin your life faster than losing an eye (or more important, your wifes eye)to an essentially worthless game like paintball. (And remember, I love paintball!). Paintball masks also cover the ears, so they can protect your hearing as well. From calibrated guns, paintballs travel 275-300 feet per second, that's 200 plus miles per hour.
Good luck and feel free to PM or email me if I can help.
Three war stories--
1st time I played, about 8 years ago. Still in the era when most people were playing with pump guns. Two teams, old against young, I was the oldest young guy at 33. Game was search and destroy, were one team goes and hides and the other tries to ferret them out. We were playing in an old corral area. We formed a skirmish line and were advancing down the road into the corrals. I heard a noise to my right rear and half turned, didn't see anything. As I turned back, my best friend, the youngest old guy, drilled me. He had been laying in a loading chute, had .75 of an inch to shoot through beneath the loading door, (a paintball is .68 inches in diameter). Nailed me square in the middle of the forehead, between the top of my mask and the visor. I guess thats why most newer masks have a solid or vented plastic pieve there now. I had never been shot before, distance was less than 12 feet, I never saw or heard ANYTHING. I thought I had been shot for real and was DEAD and was too stupid to fall down. Pain went away in 5 minutes or so and I was ready to go.
2nd Story--
I had been playing for a couple years, My older son, 15 at the time, was on the other side. I knew he was close, but not where he was. We were playing in a forested/brushy area. I heard something move to my right and popped up to shoot, but he was what I had heard and was quicker up with his gun. He fired as I tried to throw myself back away from him. In throwing myself back, my throat was exposed and he nailed me right on the adams apple! Fortunately I was moving away, but I gagged for about 2 minutes and it took me 5 minutes to catch my breath.
3rd story--
I have a VERY quick gun and trigger finger. Quick enough to have 8 balls in the air at one time. We were playing in a brushy area, my sons best friend was on the other side and I had a pretty good idea where he was hiding. I moved into a concealed position at an oblique angle to him and waited for a teammate to flush him to see if he was really there. He took the bait and stood up to get a better shooting angle at my teammate, not realizing where I was. I saw his head start to rise and as soon as I saw his mask I started shooting, My first shot hit his goggles (the ultimate paintball insult because it means you were looking at who shot you) as he turned to see my motion which he had caught in his peripheral vision. My next 4 shots hit his lower mask, neck, chest, and stomach. Fortunately for him, I only pulled the trigger five times, because shot number six would have made him a high tenor with the spacing the way is was! He still thanks me for not having pulled the trigger one more time.
Bonus story--
My son and I were on opposing teams. Playing woodlands paintball. He was the next to last left on his team, we had three left. He is an intense, gifted player, and has actually won some bets for me playing 1 against 6 in woodland games. He is one of those people who are freakishly quick, and astonishingly fast, and to top it off he stays in incredible shape. Matched with this, he is one of those people who can move in the woods without making noise.
He is just one of those freaks of nature when it comes to athletic ability. He steps on snow skis and two hours later is going off jumps, steps on a wake board and is doing spins and jumps on his second run. Started at 3 different spots on his high school football team, QB, ar Halfback when they wanted to give the other QB's playing time, and Safety. Started on varsity soccer as a freshman, was the only underclassmen on the varsity basketball team (oops, I'm sounding like a bragging Dad, well, I guess I am!) I digress but my point is that he is scary at paintball because of all of those traits.
Anyway, my two teammates thought they had him pinned down, in reality, he had THEM right where he wanted them. He didn't realize I was still in the game, which is one of the beauties and problems of woodlands paintball. I snuck through the brush on my belly on this little rabbit trail he didn't think I would try, (I'm 6'3", 250+). I got behind him and was only about 6 feet away when I invoked our mercy rule, called, "surrender or die". If the person immediately throws their arms up and says "surrender", you don't fire. He didn't surrender, but spun and fired. He hit me three times in the chest, yelling, "I got you", but I had fired as soon as he started to move. My three shots hit him in the back, left side and chest. He swore we had killed each other until I pointed out that my first shot hit him in the middle of the back and he couldn't possibly have shot me at the same time that shot hit him in the back.
Thats all folks, thanks for listening to my babbling!
Bill