Hitting (and Tagging) the Bullseye!

I have wanted to experience Bullseye Lasertag in Edison, NJ for quite some time, but the timing never worked out until now. Let me say, this experience was worth the wait…especially since it had previously been an outdoor field and now they have the largest indoor field on the east coast at over 10,000 square feet. I was ready to hit (and tag) the Bullseye at last!

When I spoke to manager Christian about the availability of the arena (which typically does private sessions during the day with public sessions during specific evening times) he happily coordinated a special game for me with staff members Andy and Paul.

I was excited to play using iCOMBAT gear, but before we got into the game briefing I enjoyed a tour of this particularly unique arena. I’ve seen a lot of unusual items used to create tactical arenas, but this one had some really interesting elements.

Everything you see makes much better sense once you have the context that this space previously was a home remodeling supply store. Here you can climb the stairs to get a better vantage point on the arena…

Or warm up by the fire…

Or, for a really rare experience, you can even tag in the shower, lol!

So yes, there are a lot of really interesting elements here. And of course there are some more traditional tag obstacles too.

The map has a lot of various “rooms” and spaces to explore.

And I found domination tubes scattered throughout the arena, even hanging from above for specialty games like Hells Bells and others they offer from the iCOMBAT library.

We were going to keep things simple by playing a standard game. However, what made it most memorable for me was having my first opportunity to use the irShotgun tagger in an actual game (as up to this point I had only tried it out at iCOMBAT HQ and at IAAPA).

I got a briefing on the irShotgun from Christian who showed me how to pump the shotgun in between shots. You get eight shots before you must reload with a button underneath and I also learned that you can hold the trigger down and simply tag by pumping the tagger instead for what they call “slam fire”.

Time to tag! We scattered throughout the arena and I started over by the red base.

I was excited to try the irShotgun for real and OMG I really love the feel of this tagger! Even though it felt a little heavy by the end of the game (as I am more accustomed to holding traditional laser tag phasers at a different angle) the tags felt very natural and I got decent accuracy with my shots. So much so that I think it surprised the staff to learn that this was my first time using this particular piece of gear.

This game was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the entire experience. When it was over we walked to the briefing area to check out not one, but two scoreboards.

The first was the traditional iCOMBAT scoreboard that has all the standard result info you would expect to see when using this equipment.

I had won the game and could see my stats in the typical format here. However, they had a custom achievement monitor set up as well, which is very eye catching and clearly shows key highlights from the game with a very attractive display.

If you are wondering where the “Tivia” name is on the board you are not missing it. They instead assigned me a special codename and I got to play as the “Queen of Lasers.” Love it! And I hope I did justice to that name with my performance in the arena.

This was such an awesome experience and I am so glad that timing worked out this time. They have some cool ideas in the works, so I definitely plan to make a return visit as soon as possible. If you have a chance to pay a visit, this experience definitely hits the “Bullseye!”