DARLIE WRITES

Darlie sent me this piece he wrote a while ago. I apologise for the lateness.

Its a good piece about when you buy your first marker dont jump the gun (pardon the pun).

I'll edit this further when i have some time.



'Because Winning is More Fun' by Darlie

Alien Paintball has spearheaded the Interceptor campaign with the above moto since the Markers first release back in 2005. Correct me if I am wrong but perhaps Alien at that time had intended to say that 'Wins' would come easier, if one had shot an interceptor. I however, find the statement quite contradicting as during my course of using of using the 06 Ceptor (the 2nd and final release of the Interceptor range) winning was quite scarce indeed. Now, upon reading that probably the old saying 'only a poor workman blames his tools' might come to mind, but yes these are due to many many technical issues which the marker presented. This is my experience with the Alien Amarda.

I'll have to admit what attracted me to the marker in the First place was the price and the fact that it was uncommon, during that time period june-july ish, I was in search of my first marker, therefore I had my sights on cheaper guns, so yeah I did some research on the interceptor, was convinced it was the greatest, most bad ass, fastest cycling marker in the market. So I booked a 2nd hand one a whole month ahead, slaved the entire summer, and got it immediately after I got my paycheck. First Impressions, Ego's come in spiffy metal boxes, Invert Mini's come in bulletproof looking brief cases with acoustic foams inside (god knows what for) And the list goes on, these days many Paintball companies emphasize quite a fair bit in packaging and presentation, Alien Paintball on the other hand obviously lacked human resources in the Market research sector as they seemed to be convinced that people didn't give 2 craps on what their markers arrived in, be it in glad wrap, tin foil, a shoe box, or some other dodgy package, or in this case a plain white cardboard box.

The marker itself seemed flawless, the gold fade finish was superb and the overall build of the marker can be summarized into 1 word, solid. Really impressive indeed, and I remind you that the marker was 2nd hand. The gun comes stock with a 10.5 inch Invasion barrel, WAS Electronics tournament ready board, a sweet trigger, break beam eyes, and the option of either the stock regulator or a CP regulator, mine obviously the former. Upon gassing it up during my next visit to the field, problems immediately arised, when dry fired really inconsistent shots sound patterns could be heard, still that was not the worse to come, when shot with paint, the chrono results were off the chain! 367,220, 318, 119, 200 fps, after much contemplating with a couple of guys the problems shortlisted were, either the Battery or the Regulator. After changing the battery, and sending the regulator for service with the previous owner, my beloved Ceptor was fine..for a day..the next it started acting up once again. Countless of times, for months I attempted to troubleshoot the problems with many people, but sadly no solution could be found. Maybe the Quality Control ran a little off when my regulator was in production, who knows maybe I got a lemon Interceptor. After a while I just gave up and the only use for the marker was for display in my room, not until just recently the previous owner offered to buy it back. To be honest, it was no fun at all owning the Interceptor, only regret that I had rushed into a decision without much thought. But oh well that's life, I have absolutely no clue on what 'fun' Alien meant in their slogan, and I guess I never will ;)