Taking Tactical Tag to New “Heights”

Remember how Kevin Smith had his characters playing hockey up on a rooftop and it seemed like the coolest place to get away to? Well, hold that thought because (other than the hockey) I’ve been feeling like I’m in one of his movies ever since I got to New Jersey. And not just because I got to tag through a rooftop garden-themed arena at the third and newest Tac Ops location in Princeton, NJ. Here they are taking tactical tag to new “Heights!”

Officially open since last October, this place has been on my radar for a while. I arrived and met the manager, Zach, who right off the bat impressed me as a really service-minded “people person” who made sure this group was attended to properly. That actually is a BIG deal!

He handed me a cross-body strap (no tagger yet) and instructed the group to turn their attention to the monitor in the lobby where we watched a custom-tailored briefing video. The beginning at least was specific to Tac Ops. The instructional part I can’t say for sure if it was done in house or by Battle Company. What I can say (that surprised Zach) is that this is the first time I have ever seen this video. If any part of it came from the manufacturer then that statement becomes even more astounding! But it was well produced and informative, even regarding a few things (like specifically what “killstreaks” trigger) that I had not been particularly cognizant about before. Excellent opener.

We were each handed a Battle Company tagger from the armory with our CallSign ready to go.

Our teams were led into the arena separately, escorted by a marshal to our respective respawn rooms in opposite corners. I went in with the fierce blue team.

Here we got to take a peek at the map, which a few of these players were already quite familiar with as I learned there were some frequent players in the group.

I like this floorplan. Although the majority of the action seemed to take place right in the middle on one side, it had a good flow and they used the space well when it came to things like planting flags or domination boxes.

The arena itself is pretty balanced in spite of the fact that most of our games were predominantly played from the electrical room into the rooftop expansion. However, the best looking parts of the arena are the rooftop gardens with this cool water tower prop…

…and the electrical rooms themselves.

My first thought about this part of the space was that it gave off a Super Mario vibe.

You see it now too, right? :)

There were plenty of cool little spaces throughout the arena. But as for the action, it mostly occurred in this area.

We began with a game of Team Deathmatch. I’ll just consider this a warm-up, although based on my scores in that round I was thinking about you”what is this, Armageddon part 2, lol!”

Don’t worry, I redeemed myself in Capture the Flag. I may not have known the arena well enough to do the flag runs, but I did manage to keep the opposing team occupied.

In VIP our goal was simply to keep our VIP alive and in Gun Game we each began with a pistol mode. Since a pistol requires 8 shots to deactivate an opponent, but six to reload this is best played with teamwork.

Domination Heights was next. I really enjoyed Domination games, though I have only played it with this gear a couple of times with slight variations. In this case, I headed immediately for the Domination box closest to my respawn and held it the entire game.

The box was located at the end of this corridor that I enjoyed as a nice point for taking sniper shots straight across, so defending went well for me here.

Our final game in the session was Survival, which I’m told was a game created by their district manager, Shane. I do love customization! In this game you have no weapon to start, the boxes give you different weapons, when you deactivate someone and you get their weapon, and you lose your weapon when you are deactivated. This one was a challenge, so no wonder they saved it for last!

Whew, that was a good hour of tag! I really enjoyed a lot about this experience including the awesome players who were part of it with me.

Now that I have played all the Tac Ops locations I can confidently say they all provide a quality tactical experience, but I like that each one is completely unique from the others, giving enthusiasts a reason to try them all. In my opinion Fairfield is the most well-rounded combo of theming and function, Florham Park has the coolest aesthetics and Princeton is the most easily playable of their locations. I have enjoyed them all for different reasons.

And I thoroughly enjoyed the rooftop tag atmosphere because, as I mentioned at the start, that continued to remind me that I was in fact in Jersey.

So, let’s get back to me feeling like I’m in a Kevin Smith movie. It ended with me tagging on a rooftop (sort of), but it started with a “Quick Stop” (or two) before I got there. Yes, this is actually THE Quick Stop from his movies.

This time I got to wear my “staff” shirt for a pic by the counter where Dante and Randall got into their shenanigans.

And a visit to the Secret Stash in Red Bank always seems to result in meeting someone cool! This time I took a pic with “Cousin Johnny” John Willyung (aka Cohee Lundin) from Clerks, Chasing Amy, etc.

Pro tip: If you are there and don’t see someone familiar walking around the store, just ask them if “anyone you might recognize” is currently there. My random stops to this store have also garnered impromptu chance meetings with Mike, Walt and yes, one time I walked in and just standing right there at the counter was…

Kevin Smith! 

If the opportunity ever comes back around I will suggest that in the next movie he should have his characters laser tagging on the rooftop instead!

Comments or Questions? 

Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com 

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com

and https://tiviachick.wixsite.com/photonforever

and https://lasertagmuseum.com

Laserball Tournament

The Fun Warehouse’s first ever Laserball Tournament was held this past weekend in Syracuse and it was full of excitement and enthusiasm…and a few unexpected twists and turns. I showed up on the heels of one of my weekend tag trips to call this my “rest and recovery” time hanging out with my friends. In spite of a random draw, somehow the Plausibles all ended up together again as the Ax Team, ready for Laserball!

This tournament was successful in many ways. First, I give credit to the fact that it was planned, promoted and actually happened (which honestly is half the battle right there), but also because it had enough pre-registered participation for six full teams, which is an excellent start. By tournament time that number had dropped to five teams, but nonetheless, this bodes well for our local tag community and also for cultivating interest in future competitions.

Players were put into experience pools ranging from A-E to be assigned to their designated team with an A-tier captain. I was in the first round draw as a B player, so I was the first person to be randomly added to Axman’s team. The irony is, in spite of it being a random draw, the mix did not quite “mix” in the way you might think it would. I adore these peeps, so no issue at all, but parts of the draw could be described as an anomaly. You might even call it “implausible”, lol. :) Here is how each team shaped up in the order of the draw…

Team Alex:

Fenrir

Laser King

Stryker

Yetiguy

Team Cody:

Mama Bear

DogeBuster 

Hatchet Boy

DaBombMom 

Team Axman:

Tivia

RazorWires

Slayer

Woz

Team Evol:

Nobody

Saiyan Prince

Ski Patrol

Star Goddess

Team Golden:

Havoc

Cookie

LaserSteve

Mr. Laser

Now, you might make a few assumptions just from looking at this line-up, but that’s simply the way the cookie crumbles. Let’s play!

The nature of the beast when you read my perspective of a tournament is that you will inevitably hear mostly about my team, only because when I am playing I am not necessarily in “reporter mode”. So, for the full accounting of the tournament, I invite you to check out the Laserforce Tournaments livestream @LaserforceTournaments on YouTube, for which Rockwood did an excellent job as the event commentator.

My team made our best showing early on in the event. This is a rare instance when, thanks to that livestream, I could go back and pick out some of the highlights. For example, I know exactly when I made this goal because it is the moment when you can see the scoreboard shifted.

We were leading the first half up until LITERALLY the two second mark when Nobody landed a goal and tied it up in the very last possible moment. Props to her, because this really did mean we had an exciting start! Check out 34:56 on the livestream for the exciting final minute of this half.

It also meant the first awareness on the commentary track about a couple of things. First, no team played back to back halves. Instead they would play their first half, sit, and then go in for a second half playing on the opposite color. Honestly, I would rather have seen each half just stand on its own instead of calculating this unusual back and forth. It seemed to be a surprise that may not have been imparted to Rockwood in advance because it was not until close to the end of the second game’s first half that he realized that the teams in the Game 1 first half (Cody vs Golden) had been replaced by the Game 2 first half (Axman vs Evol) before the first line-up had actually played their second half. Well, the takeaway here is that sometimes communication is key to the spectators as much as it is to the players in the game! ;)

Once the scoreboard shifted, Rockwood took note of something that he found to be unexpected…my presence in the game, lol! 

I got quite a kick out of watching the playback and hearing that his initial thought was that it was entirely possible that someone else might be playing under my name rather than being sure that it was actually me playing in a laser tag tournament.

This gives a whole new meaning to the term “imposter syndrome!” :)

I also found it humorous that he was under the impression that I don’t play tournaments, considering this was the third tournament I have played in the last four weeks! However, that speaks more to the fact that I am not a system-specific player (or geographically bound for that matter), so he is correct that I do not typically play in the SM5 scene, but it’s all good! For the record, I still need to add a few recent events to my tournament wall…but I do play in tournaments. ;)

Leaving this first half I was pleased, as was my team, even though it had ended in a tie. Save for a practice session the night before in Long Island, I have not played Laserball in a VERY long time, so I when I left the arena I took a moment to analyze the data on my own phaser screen.

However, we did lose some momentum and missed it in the second half, which is another reason I found the back and forth scheduling of halves to be less congruent than it may have been to simply treat them as individual games.

Regardless, moving on. 

Our second game was against Cody’s team. This time the scenario was in reverse with Cody plowing in with a couple of goals in true Cody fashion during the first half and then we tied in the second half. Here is the unexpected twist though. Cody and I both took hard falls in that second half. 

Of course I was wearing my “we NEVER run in the arena” Brooks, however Rockwood offered this piece of advice on the livestream…

Well, after I stole the ball at one point I did take off in a dead run…which resulted in me ending up down on the ground in the melee. Kind of glad the cameras missed that, but thankfully all it did was bruise my leg and my ego. However, I was back up on my feet in an instant. Cody was not so lucky.

At the :39 second mark we hear that Cody stole the ball. Our team knows which way he will be headed and we are all tucked into various nooks on the base, collectively ready to stop him. We wait…and wait…and nothing. The clock runs out.

Well, come to find out that the reason for there being no base run is that Cody rolled his ankle, hard. He’s out of this. However, in the bigger picture, he’s supposed to be leaving for Nats in Australia in ten days. We are all wishing him the best for a speedy recovery, but that ankle did not look good. I certainly hope he can carry on with his Nats plans.

Rockwood had his work cut out for him following these games because they got reordered on the fly after Cody’s injury. A couple of players from my team left to get an ankle immobilizer, so our next games got pushed back in a different order. That interruption in the schedule was clearly necessary, but also did us no favors, as some of the team had car discussions that I think got into their heads before taking on Golden Pony’s team. Personally, I didn’t see this team as insurmountable, but mind over matter, and in that moment it was what it was. Sigh.

The final team we faced was Alex’s Mah-Na-Mah-Na team. Now, if one team ended up stacked (by circumstance, not intention) you could argue that the combo of Alex and Fenrir playing together was not one that we were likely to take out. Axman gave us a lovely “let’s just go have fun” speech before the game even began, so the writing was on the wall. Regardless, we went out swinging!

I had just returned from three days of tag travels through New Jersey, Long Island and the Catskills (ending with this tournament) and I was ready to call it a night once the clock struck 10:00 (which is the equivalent of midnight once you hit a certain point!) so, sadly I didn’t get to witness the results firsthand. But I knew exactly where to go to get those results!

I want to congratulate Evol’s team for their win.

I also want to thank and congratulate Beanz for pulling off this event, coordinating with the livestream, dealing with injuries and jumping in when needed. No one piece of that is an easy task, let alone doing all of it. This was a nicely executed event. On my post-tourney survey I noted that many things were done just right at this tournament. My only suggestions? Add Photon and chocolate!

Seriously though, this was a really enjoyable tournament and I am delighted to see Syracuse getting the ball (the Laserball!) rolling in such a successful manner. Great job everyone!

Comments or Questions? 

Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com 

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com

and https://tiviachick.wixsite.com/photonforever

and https://lasertagmuseum.com