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| - The arena is fantastic. It's not only well themed, but well balanced and offers great gameplay. The packs are lightweight and very comfortable for people of all sizes. They were in good shape and fairly accurate. They have an observation deck, which is a nice touch.
My biggest complaint is that there were way too many people in a game. The field is large, but 36 players is too many people for that sized arena. People were crashing into one another, and it was impossible to walk more then a few feet without being shot from someone somewhere. It didn't make the game very fun.
They started most games before everyone had a chance to enter the field, which was annoying.
The other problem is the timing of the packs. When you're shot, your pack shuts off for 5 seconds like in most other lasertag systems. However, at this site, your lights will come back on and you'll be vulnerable to be hit 1/2 second before you can fire back. There's no rule about no following. This means that you can stalk someone and prevent them from ever shooting just by shooting them in that vulnerable last 1/2 second of their 5 second down time. I'm sure this is software controllable. Why they would choose to run their games this way is truly baffling.
The last issue I had was how they make the teams. Rather they having red and blue areas of the briefing room and allowing players to see who's on what team and choose what team they want to be on before suiting up, teams aren't decided until they enter the briefing room. Staff were alternately assigning every other player to the red or the blue team as they entered the vesting room, which made it impossible to play on the same team with others in your group.
If you want to have a birthday party here, I'm sure they'll have a fun time. I recommend coming on a weeknight or early on a weekend when it's slow. Don't come here on a Friday or Saturday night when they're busy unless you like playing mosh-pit lasertag.
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