Extoling my Ego

The Ego as it arrives is an amazingly designed gun, here you can see one in the custom DesertEdge colors, dusted brown and silver (click in it to see larger).  Out of the box, the gun is amazing.  It weighs far less than any other marker I've had, is extra narrow, making sighting easier, and has excellent customizability.

Part of the reason we received our sponsorship is the fact that we are a well ranked hybrid play team.  That is, we as players rank well in the existing speedball tournaments, but also rank very well in the growing Scenario and Woodsball tournaments.  Often times Speedball class guns are not well received by woodsball players, since they are not deemed as utilitarian enough.  Often speedball guns cannot handle the rigors of full scenario games, unable to blend in, using far too much power, having abhorrent height profiles (tuned for bunker play), as well as only being able to fire fast for quick engagements.  Planet Eclipse wanted to see how well their new marker could manage in the rigors of long term scenario games, in the hands of hybrid players.

Using a speedball marker has definitely required some modifications to my play style.  I'm no longer using my beloved Apex barrel (still on my A5), and am using the stock barrel.  Several team members have upgraded to the Sly Kit and are loving that barrel set.  I'm one of the only members who plugs a remote into this gun (often gaining me strange looks from speedballers).  What can I say, with such a light gun, why tack on the excess of a tank?  I can now plug into my back tank, and with the Ego's excellent air efficiency, I can play much longer without air refills.

While most of us received the team's custom colors, a few purchased a special all black version.  I took the time to trade the accent kits with one of these people, and now have a sweet brown/black model, while a team member has a nice black/silver, as pictured here:

Since receiving my marker, I've played several forms of scenario and woodsball game, and I must say I'm incredibly impressed.  This gun is quiet, efficient, amazingly fast, and light.  While the pricetag for a base model comes in at $1,250, that's not unheard of in the higher end markers, and actually a decent price.  Getting one can be tough, as the limited supply has been selling out nearly on delivery (think Wii stocking problems).

A high end speedball gun always has certain caveats though, and for the Ego, the learning curve is it's problem.  There is an amazing amount of bits you can twiddle, enhancing any aspect from air efficency, to shooting speed.  This is what you want, of course, in this type of marker, but it is still a daunting task to become an expert in all the options.  In another post I should review the complete menu set, along with the amazing board set inside.

The Ego is a gun that has already earned my respect, and the respect of many of the people it's targeted recently.  If you are in the market for a quality higher end paintball gun, this is definitely one to be on the watch for!