Legend . . . Wait for it! . . . Dary

I am no stranger to Lazer Tag, as I used to play the game regularly as a kid at a local establishment not too far from my house called Q-Zar which basically involved a dark room, black lighting, plastic barrels and various colors of florescent paint strewn over the walls. Mix in a little soda and caffeine and you have a hyper active ball of energy bouncing around the room, armed with a laser gun, shooting everything in sight. I remember it being AWESOME and I would generally play game after game, or at least as many as my feeble allowance would allow.

However, it has been well over a decade since I last played, and I had long since stopped even thinking about game until a little while ago it was featured in one of my favorite shows How I Met Your Mother. When the character Barney, an unapologetic egomaniac, could not convince his adult friends to play laser tag with him, not only was he shocked by their lack of interest he decided to mock them at every opportunity. One line he utters in the phone while in the midst of a heated laser battle, “Hey Loser how is not playing laser tag because playing Laser Tag is Awesome!” As you can imagine it made an impression. So a couple of weeks ago I learned of the existence of a Laser Tag establishment in Manila across town from my humble abode and immediately became interested in giving it a shot (excuse the pun).

So I head over to Lazer Extreme, pay my 190 pesos, and am ushered into the waiting area where a creepy futuristic women’s voice proceeded to explain the rules to us. My opponents consisted of several young boys and girls and a few parents who looked eager to begin. Next, I donned my fluorescent blue armor, grasped my gun, and entered the arena. As the game started I was filled with high expectations because my obviously imperfect memory had thoroughly convinced me that I was pretty good and as such would dominate. I mean we are talking little kids here. But as I have learned with video games, wherever there is a game at which I believe I am good, there is always a nine year old kid that can do it better. This game was unfortunately no exception. After minutes of crouching behind barriers (designed for people much smaller than myself) and using what I believed to be superior military tactics to make my way around the arena, I came across a group of kids who after spotting me, immediately rushed in my direction. After surrounding me they stared at me with murderous intent and took turns shooting me in the back, chest, gun, hell if my face had a laser sensor it would have been set off. They just shot me relentlessly until I was forced to execute a pitiful retreat and flee away from their onslaught. The game ended shortly after and I still felt that I had done a respectable job until I gazed upon the stats displayed in the lobby. Overall, my accuracy was just north of 13% which means those shots that were successful were probably more luck than skill. My only consolation is that I shot more people than I was shot myself. That’s me, Flash, on the top 6 out of 13 people. Looking at my stats, I apparently am not so awesome at laser tag.