Went and played laserforce last night. Cat had organised a bunch of her friends and some of the soccer girls to play 3 games at Woolloongabba. I’ve been wanting to play it ever since I’d heard about the game years ago and was pretty excited about finally getting a chance to do it.

The laserforce building has a large party room and a video arcade so you could have a party or a work thing there. The laserforce area is decked out like a starship enterprise ship or something. After paying up and getting our membership cards with our nicknames written on it (3 guesses for my nickname) we were ushered in to a room to watch a video explaining the rules. Near the end of the video the ship is taken over and you have to go out and protect the ship.

We left the tv room and headed in to the armoury. Basically you are given some gear that looks like a lifejacket that you clip on. It’s coloured in either red or green and has flashing lights that match the colour of your jacket. It also has a radio on it that screams instructions in your right ear. On the front and back are some black areas that you have to aim for to make a kill. The laser gun is attached to your jacket and it requires that you hold down a side button as well as the trigger to shoot. This means that you can’t go in all John Travolta pulp fiction style. It’s more like a Monica Seles two-handed type grip. You have to grunt like her too when you make the shot. 😉

Once equipped you go through the activation zone where you swipe your membership card and your lifejacket starts flashing ready to be shot at. Our first two games were team events where the red were against the green. One of Cat’s friends was colour blind so he had a few issues with the colour choices. I was in the red team and had some fun in the first event killing Doonah over and over again. While we all run around like crazy chooks (even though you’re not supposed to run) there is music blaring songs like Cameltoe and orders are being blared in your ear from the radio. It’s very surreal.

The area you play in is full of different levels and nooks and crevices. You think you are perfectly hidden and then someone higher up will take you out. You can do the whole commando roll thing and it so cool when you see someone coming and take them out to their surprise. When you are shot your lifejacket lights go off for 6 seconds and you can’t do anything at that time – you just have to go in to hiding until you are ready to shoot again. Everyone is visibly deflated when the get shot, it’s kind of like their body physically says “awwww damn”.

The game lasts about 10 minutes then you go out and check your scores. You get pretty hot as it is great exercise so the break gives you time to have a drink and get re-energized. Next time I’ll wear shorts cause my jeans were just too restricting. Our red team won both the team events and I got about 23% accuracy in both games and came about 3rd in my team.

For the last game we went individual so everyone was fair game. I think I enjoyed this game the most because in the team games I kept running in to the red team members and wasn’t able to shoot them. This time I could get everyone. Ran around like a chook at the start and then I found this excellent position up high where I could run from one side to the other and pick off people like a sniper. Felt like I was “in the zone” and it was just great! This position allowed me to win the event which was a big surprise. Must have been all those games of Time Crisis using the light gun on the playstation!

We were all grinning at the end – I don’t think anyone was dissapointed. Afterwards we went across the road and had a drink at the Norman. A great way to finish the night. Best fun I’ve had in a long time and definitely want to do it again.

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