Have some fun with your friends by recreationally hunting other humans (a sport made popular by Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles) with today’s Groupon: a day of paintballing at either of the two Giant Paintball parks. For $20, you get entry (a $20 value) with all-day play plus equipment rental—a combined value of $67. Fulfill fantasies of expertly evading crossfire as you infiltrate enemy territory and annihilate the opposition faster than Reverend Johnson threatens to leave the town after discovering that the sheriff has been murdered. Or just spatter strangers with neon splotches. Giant Paintball’s fields are designed with novices in mind, so you don’t need years of mercenary training or a Blu-ray copy of Blazing Saddles to try it out. This Groupon does not include paintballs ($14 gets you 400 rounds, enough for about 5 hours of play).

Redeem your Groupon at two Giant Paintball locations: the 25-acre Alpine fields (formally Weekend Warrior Paintball) or Lakeside (in Barona). Both locations have a huge castle field, a range of close-quarters combat zones, a cowboy ghost town, a bombed-out city, and an exciting turf field with inflatable bunkers. They were designed by the creators of the world-famous SC Village and Hollywood Sports Park, so pulling the trigger on friends and foe is nicely coordinated and easy to do.

The parks are open on Saturdays and Sundays, but if you and 20 or more pals have Groupons, either location will open the park for your group on an off day so you can have a birthday party, a retirement party, or a tea party. Reenact the final battle in Starship Troopers. Or spend all day building their trust and confidence before spattering them in the back like Richard Pryor did in the famous campfire scene from Blazing Saddles. As Hedley Lamarr said in the DVD copy of Blazing Saddles on DVD, “I want you to round up every vicious criminal and gunslinger in the West, line them up, and splatter them with paint.”

What you get

Entry with all-day play ($20) Equipment rental:

• semi-auto gun (usually costs $14)
• ammo belt ($6)
• mask ($6)
• goggles ($6)
• loader ($5)
• air ($10)

Reviews

Paintballers must be too busy cleaning their goggles to leave online reviews for Giant Paintball, but SPLATXD magazine, a digital digest for serious ‘ballers, gave an enthusiastic account of the first-ever West Coast Castle Conquest, held at Giant Paintball’s Alpine location:

• At 11am the game whistle blew and West Coast Castle Conquest was on! A number of the Defenders ran outside to specially build rampart walls that lined the perimeter of the castle, while the remaining crew manned windows on all four sides, waiting for the Attackers to send in their first wave. Over the course an hour, the Attackers continued to pour up the hill towards the castle, driving the Defenders out of the outside defensive positions. Eventually the Attackers swarmed the castle, captured all five designated props, and declared victory. – SPLATXD