My tactical target for my recent trip was a visit to Bullseye Lasertag, which is now open in a new location in Woodbridge, NJ.
Their new location is inside the Woodbridge Center shopping mall on the lower level, where I found some cool surprises. The first thing that I noticed was a striking entryway with windowed views into an arena filled with colorfully lit cube structures. This was very attractive and a cool, contemporary look, but was completely different from what I expected to see. The reason why? Their main tactical arena was right next door and I just had to look to my right!
CubeTown is actually their second arena, which is used for Nerf tag, small tag parties and younger players. I watched some young ones having a fantastic time in this arena as I waited to chat with owner, Vic Pellegrini, about this new space he moved his business into earlier this year.
Vic told me they see good foot traffic in the mall and where they are located has made a big difference. They have one of the largest tactical fields in the area with 8000 square feet of space and currently 28 iCOMBAT tactical taggers (perhaps with more soon) for use in their Dead End City arena. THIS is what I came here for!
The iCOMBAT line of equipment has a variety of realistically styled tag units and at this location I had my choice of tagging with the Valkyrie, the irSMG (which most of the players used), the irSAW (which Paul opted for) or the irShotgun. I chose the irShotgun to start because it is my sentimental favorite from the line.
Why? Because a few years back I got to try out the prototype at the iCOMBAT home office ahead of its release, which makes that model feel more personal to me…and it’s got some kick!
20 players showed up to play the 90 minute session. We played quite a few games and at one point I opted to swap out my irShotgun for the irSAW, just to compare and contrast my experience with each. This was a really fun group and an excellent opportunity to try things out.
I used the irShotgun for the first round of Team Deathmatch and I used this early round to feel out the flow of the arenas and check out the features. There are a lot of structured “rooms” as well as a variety of halls, walls and windows to make for an interesting field.
These things you would likely expect to find. What you might not expect to find is a poker table!
We played several games including Domination and Capture the Flag using the Dominator tubes. CTF was one of my favorites!
I like the feel of the irShotgun and the speed of reloading is fine by me. But what if you want to have a more rapid succession of tags? The irSAW is the faster choice.
However, the deliberate balance built into this tagger is if you fire too much it “heats up” (metaphorically) and requires you to “cool down” for about five seconds once you have run through a rapid succession.
I wanted to try this out for the second half of our game session, so the staff hooked me up.
We played Blackhawk Down, Recon, Elimination, Sniper and a final round of Team Deathmatch. I had some nice success in a few of these rounds, playing under my new codename “TiviaWasHere”.
I must say, playing with the irSAW made me feel like I was Tim Taylor…more power!!! During the Sniper game I had to deliberately remember to only take one shot, which is more of a challenge with this model. However, all the games were a lot of fun and I can definitely see the appeal of using this particular tagger.
At the end of the session the overall stats went up on the leaderboard and I had taken the top spot. I was pleased. :)
This was a great time! My thanks to Vic and the Bullseye Lasertag team for making sure we got a chance to experience the new arena on this trip through New Jersey. I look forward to the next time I find myself in the Garden State, as I would love to return for a little more tactical tag!
Comments or Questions?
Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com
Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com
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