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LET'S FACE IT: THERE'S NO WAY TO LOOK COOL PLAYING LASER TAG

3/8/2017

32 Comments

 
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Laser tag - the infrared duelling game rather than the trademarked product with the real cool Z - is quite the fun thing (especially if you're too scared to have your precious baby skin smarted by airsoft and paintball pellets).

I owned a Photon set, which I bought from the Brent Cross Toys R Us in 1988, blowing my entire wages for the month in one impulse purchase. It was a big, bulky, ridiculous thing, and I only ever got to play with it about twice, because - frankly - where was I going to play it, and with whom?

Mr Hairs and I were invited to cover the opening of a laser tag centre in Wembley during the Digitiser years, only to be frustrated by the actions of one particular player, who failed to enter into the fantasy of it all and won the game by a significant margin. He wandered around imagining he was a Terminator, and will probably spent the rest of his life feeling really good about himself for ruining everyone else's day. I still hate him.

Heck, I even got a Sega Lock-On as my leaving present when I left Teletext to write Digitiser full-time from home. I played it once, in the Teletext car park, on my last day. And that was the end of my laser tag story, until a couple of years ago when I played it again at a leisure centre in Swanage, or somewhere.

Somehow, the reality of laser tag has never been as fun as the fantasy. Here are ten images which demonstrate this fact.
STAR TREK ELECTRONIC PHASER GUNS
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The very first competitive infra-red laser game was - remarkably - a licensed product. More remarkable still, the guns were pretty accurate representations of the Star Trek phaser pistols.

What a terrible shame that this landmark product was sold via the means of a pair of rubes, who would've looked more at home running around a field, having recently helped their community construct a new barn in which father's many wives were to be stored.
LAZER TAG
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Achingly 80s-looking, like something out of V, Lazer Tag arrived in 1986 - two years after the opening of the first Photon arena in Dallas, Texas. Unfortunately, while the Lazer Tag vest and helmet made the wearer feel like a Boba Fett, what they actually resembled was a big twat in a life vest and bucket. Peripheral vision? Clearly, it's overrated. Still, less chance of you catching your reflection and seeing what a massive cretin you looked.
PHOTON
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Despite being first, Photon never quite reached the heights of Lazer Tag. Potentially, this might've been due to the the helmets being even more ridiculous than the Lazer Tag ones - even though they had flashing lights on them and everything. Perhaps the military might consider looking into adding flashing lights to the uniforms of their troops; that's bound to make them less conspicuous!
SEGA LOCK-ON
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Sega was late to the laser par-tay, but its kit did at least do away with the absurdly bulky helmet of its predecessors - favouring a neat heads-up display that beat Google Glass to the post by 20 years.

Regrettably, once again, we have the above image to remind us that laser tag games never make you look anything less than laughable.

What's with the feller in the flouncy white shirt, business slacks and leather gloves? Why can't he see the other chap? Perhaps he's too busy considering how cool he looks, dressed - as he is - in the clothing of a 17th Century dandy.
LASER COMMAND
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One of countless Lazer Tag knock-offs, the most baffling thing about Laser Command is the boy's arm there. What is he - triple-jointed? Who holds a gun like that? Answer: a big, Photoshopped, idiot.
HE'S GOT IT ALL
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Yes. Yes, Lazer Tag is a game suitable for all ages. Still, perhaps they should've used models who might at least make a fair stab at offsetting some of the equipment's inherent ridiculousness. That hand on his hip doesn't exactly help matters.

"I've got it all going on, guys!"
NICK COTTON
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There's so much wrong here, not least the fact that they hired a young Nick Cotton to be one of the players. No wonder the girl is looking directly into the camera; she's probably a big John Altman fan. 

"Ma... Ma... I'm going to shoot you, Ma."

"OMG! It's Nasty Nick (not the one out of Big Brother)!"

POOR STRATEGY
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"What's the strategy?"

"Stand in a big group in the open, and have three of us kneeling down. Put the two who are terrified of harmless infrared beams in the front. Also, we must be flanked by The Twins."
GOTCHA!
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Words scarcely do this justice. Red Helmet looks as if he's just coming around after having a wisdom tooth extracted, while the boy on the right is taking full advantage.

"Drop the gun!"

"Hunnnnnhhhh...? Is this real life?"
THE TWO EXTREMES
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Kudos to the one on the left. He at least is buying into the absurdity of Lazer Tag, and therefore somehow pulls it off. His brother, on the other hand, is doing his best to look mean, forgetting that he is still wearing his pyjamas. And he's probably pooed himself.
CAPTAIN POWER
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Released to tie-in to a live-action TV show, the Captain Power Powerjet XT-7 was an infrared gun built to resemble a spaceship, which came bundled with interactive video tapes. Players could shoot at the on-screen action, allowing the player to murder enemies - or be shot by them (resulting in the ship's cockpit blowing apart).

​Judging from the reaction of the middle-aged woman in the ad, it was the single most terrifying thing anybody could ever experience.
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NOW THAT DOCTOR WHO IS A WOMAN: WHAT'S NEXT?!
32 Comments
PeskyFletch
3/8/2017 10:03:03 am

Wrong Biffster, i look kewl as fuck playing laser tag.

I remember reading a series of novels where a real life alien invasion overlaps with kids playing laser tag being chosen to fight it off. I remember barely anything about it (even less than the cyborg commando (?) series) bar that the main character's sister had "all this and brains too" on her t shirt. That became my go to opening line on dates.

I'm still single.

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DEAN
3/8/2017 10:35:51 am

Try scratching those words across your lower abdomen with a compass point and wearing a crop top to your next rendezvous!

Chicks'll be digging that psycho shit.

For bonus points - hurl some ketchup across the restaurant - just to see what happens - and run up to the biggest nastiest looking fucker you can find and tell him that he better stop making eyes at your woman or the next pretty lady he sees will be dressed like a nurse. See, you've just told your date that she's pretty and that you're interested in another date if she's up for it. Don't forget to wink and blow kisses at the now angry nasty bastard so he 's knows that you're just trying to impress a date.
The brotherhood has your back, Fletch.

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PeskyFletch
3/8/2017 12:09:05 pm

Thanks Dean, words of comfort as always very mush appreciated. Punchline to my little bit aside though, i have a long suffering partner, because i'm really good at pulling as well as make believe shooting children!

Picston Shottle
3/8/2017 11:43:08 am

My brother, who isn't really a terrible misogynist, did once kill, stone dead, an argument with an over bearing American lady, by using the line "Ooohhh, tits AND an opinion". Well, I say killed stone dead but, rather, it stopped the argument because she went absolutely mental whilst everybody else pissed themselves laughing.

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DEAN
3/8/2017 02:23:46 pm

OMG, Picston!

I aggravate my wife all the time and I'm an idiot for doing so - she goes over the top and makes comments that aren't in the spirit of it.

Damon link
4/8/2017 11:17:37 am

Photon?

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PeskyFletch
4/8/2017 04:16:52 pm

Them' the ones, thanks!

David W
3/8/2017 10:17:32 am

Well, there's an idea for completing the Found Footage finale on a budget.

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MENTALIST
3/8/2017 10:58:33 am

Nowadays, laser tag has gone all Call of Duty.

http://www.combatcity.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/young-guns.jpg

Actually, the improvement in available mobile tech, wifi and suchlike has improved gameplay a fair bit (although I miss the magic of "firing" your scoring data into the computer at the end of the game in the olden days). I had a go on a recent stag do, it was quite good fun.

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PeskyFletch
3/8/2017 12:06:46 pm

As au unreformed saddo/foster carer i play a lot of laser quest and can confirm the battlefield live stuff is a lot more fun, although this might be influenced by the fact the gun i was given was a replica pulse rifle.

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Biscuits
3/8/2017 11:25:53 am

I played with the Sega one loads with a bunch of Chinese kids at high school. This was in the pre-booze days, so our interests inevitably got way too involved: we played a 10-man game over the entire school over the course of hours, and we would spend 1/2 hour staking out various locations or hiding behind a door or something to try for that one perfect shot on an unsuspecting friend

The games disbanded when the owner of 3 of the sets (!) was caught cheating by resetting his headband to maximum lives and shooting it a couple of times, in an unconvincing attempt to make his victory seem more realistic.

I maintain that these are extremely fun

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Raybies
4/8/2017 01:16:05 pm

Was that kid really cheating?

Or were some bad losers feeling Jeffrey (jealous)?

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ZoddyZod
3/8/2017 12:41:25 pm

You have awoken the vaguest of memories of me owning a Photon. I can almost smell the helmet and the feel of the polystyrene packaging that it came in, that I kept to store said item. I also have an even fainter memory of being the only idiot I knew to own one. I assume this is the reason for having zero memories of ever playing with it.

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Starbuck
3/8/2017 10:20:37 pm

"I can almost smell the helmet"

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Roger Federer
7/8/2017 10:08:05 pm

Bwahaha!

RG
3/8/2017 02:33:14 pm

Out of interest - how did the one particular player ruin it? Was he cheating or was he just better than everybody else?

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LaserHag
3/8/2017 04:53:55 pm

Sometimes, to make up the numbers, they throw someone that works at the laser place on a team. Sometimes these people are a combination of try-hard AND jobsworth, and they are literally being paid to participate in a competitive children's game - they can get carried away.

Last time I went, one of them had joined another team who received their results at the same time as us. He was beaming when he was told he had 'won' and was best player against a team of honest-to-god 10 year olds (How I know: It was the birthday of one of the 10 year olds, and he wore a badge that displayed his age). This would have been annoying, but the kids were smirking and side-glancing at each other in a snide manner that suggested they were more mature than the employee.

I was 25 as you asked

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
3/8/2017 02:41:00 pm

I played Q-Zar (for it was called such in Canada) a fair bit when I was a teen. I fondly remember one day when another player smashed my friend in the nuts with the barrel of his gun.

Captain Power was extremely popular here (it was filmed in Toronto after hours in streetcar maintenance buildings, to get that "derelict industrial" look) and everyone had the toys.

The toy itself worked by sensing two pulses of light. A steady "snow" could be shot for a hit, and a flashing pulse would cause damage. The thing is, the enemy soldiers on the show would wear these on their uniforms and during some sequences you'd just get hit continuously with no chance to avoid it (the writers more concerned with telling the story than just making it a 22 minute fight sequence that was "fair") so you either just pointed your ship away from the screen, or you'd "die" and have to reassemble the ship's cockpit (which would automatically eject the seat, canopy, and figure) multiple times.

The show itself was surprisingly dark for a kids' show, dealing with a robot uprising and the last desperate days of society trying to prevent it... and then humans living in the disease infested ruins, hiding from Terminator-style "Biodreads" who would forcibly digitise them and deposit them into the human souls version of Photobucket.

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Kelvin Green link
3/8/2017 07:38:53 pm

Written by J Michael Straczynski off of Babylon 5, that was.

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Raybies
4/8/2017 01:18:55 pm

Not J Michael Straczynski off He-Man?

David W
4/8/2017 01:33:55 pm

Also: J. Michael Straczynski off The Real Ghostbusters.

Kelvin Green link
4/8/2017 05:56:54 pm

The very same. I only mention Babylon 5 because the cgi was done on Amigas -- as Amiga Format told us every month -- and I know how much Biffster loves the Amiga.

Gosunkugi
3/8/2017 02:48:53 pm

The middle-aged woman in the ad is Crooked Hillary Clinton herself, and I claim my five roubles.

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Mrtankthreat
3/8/2017 03:04:48 pm

It was called Quasar where I'm from (I'm from Ireland). Everyone knows Qs makes things cooler. It was also invented by a pholosopher which is pretty cool. He was Australian though, which is less cool and then his original system was bought by Irish investors which is even lesser cool (I'm from Ireland).

I always felt it was one of those things that adults thought kids would like but they didn't really, like the circus and scalextric.

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PeskyFletch
3/8/2017 03:24:52 pm

Quasar was a brand of laser shooty games. I always preferred it to laser quest(although laser quest had faster firing guns) due to the heavy, differently coloured packs

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Col. Asdasd
5/8/2017 12:28:48 pm

Yeah, we have both where I live. The difference seems to be much of a muchness.

Playing these games is a lot like dancing: you have a lot more fun if you don't think about how much of a tit you look to anyone watching.

King of Duckhenrys
3/8/2017 05:15:43 pm

My brothers and I we really excited to get a set of those Lock-on things. This was short lived due to our house's decor, which was wood-chip wallpaper painted white in every room and most importantly, the hallway. It didn't matter where you fired, the beam would bounce around and hit the other person even if they were upstairs. :-(

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Tristain Violence
3/8/2017 05:46:48 pm

I remember having one of those weird "shoot at the tv" tins but not the Captain Power one. There were only ever two videos released for it. One was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the other was some weird plane thing. My mum got it me from Index for xmas. Another sad year in he Violence household.

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Elyl
3/8/2017 06:55:41 pm

Probably the Action Max. It was shit. "TARGET HIT".

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mrak
3/8/2017 06:16:56 pm

"Why-aye Noddy, man. You comin' tae tha Groove? We're gonna play Quasar Laser."

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Treacle
3/8/2017 10:16:13 pm

Blimey this brings back them memories. Way back into early 90`s when I started Uni there was a Quasar or Laser Quest across the road from one of the lecture halls and for a while it was de rigueur to to attend the Friday morning shoot out. However it was discovered that the art centre at the end of the street could sell booze from stupid o'clock and students being students the number of laser taggers diminished as youthful alcoholism won through.

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Laser Tag link
27/1/2021 07:33:38 am

Great piece, very informative and enjoyable. Thanks for sharing, keep it up.

Reply



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