Laser Tag

Yesterday, my family traveled to Richmond Hill to surprise my brother-in-law for his birthday. His wife had set up a surprise party at the local Laser Quest. He was told to stop by the strip mall where the Laser Quest is located because the grocery store in the mall was having an "amazing sale on ground beef". For some reason he bought this story and had no idea that about 25 friends and family were waiting for him. The look on his face when he pulled into the mall and noticed all the people he knew hanging around there was just priceless. He must have thought it was one hell of a good ground beef sale to attract all these people!

The Laser Quest game begins with each person coming up with a code name to play under. Your name is entered into the computer and then you wait in a staging area where the rules are explained to the group and then you get your equipment. You are given a vest that has flashing targets on the front, back and shoulders. A laser gun is attached to the vest and you are given a magnetic key to initialize your equipment with your name. The laser has a display on it that will tell you during the game who tagged you.

The playing area is a multi-level maze and is lit with black-light. They have different game types. We played a free-for-all game where every player is a target and we played a team game (girls vs. boys) where you only shoot at the other team. The computer keeps track of how many tags you make as well as how many times you were tagged and gives you a score. The game lasts 20 minutes. By the end of the game you are drenched in sweat despite the fact running is not allowed. The play area is warm and the vest weighs a couple of pounds but the sweat must be mostly due to the adrenaline rush and thrill of trying to succeed in the game.

Once the game is over you are given a score sheet showing your "stats" and your ranking. I found this was when some of the most fun occurred. People that seemed so un-competitive (like my wife and sister-in-law) were pouring over their sheet to see if they had out scored their spouse or kids. It was very funny to hear them teeter on the verge of trash talking.

If you have never tried this game, you might want to consider it for your next party. In the group we had together, the ages ranged from 8 to 68. And from the feedback I was hearing, everyone enjoyed it. I was especially surprised that my wife enjoyed it. She is usually quite anti-gun and violence being involved in things labeled as "play" but she found this game to be fun. The game might be more costly than a bowling party, but it was also more fun.