Taking Utah By (Laser) Storm

16 hours ago
3 min read

I closed out my first night in Utah with a visit to Laser Assault in Provo, which was long overdue, but well worth the wait! At the end of an amazing day I continued on to the Laser Storm arena that Brett (aka Snake) had set up with his original business partner, Aaron, following the closure of the former Storm arena in that town. Now Brett operates the business with a new partner, Chris, and I got to jump into a few games with the awesome group of regulars who showed up for their Friday Night Firefight.

Laser Assault opened four years ago in 2022 and is now located inside the Towne Centre mall and I was really looking forward to seeing what they have built here. Brett came over to greet me as soon as I arrived and showed me around the lobby.

They have a pool table, some games and a real clubhouse/lounge kind of feel out front. However, what interested me most was the briefing room and arena.

Brett led the group back and we selected our packs off the rack hanging on the wall.

Storm is not a system I get to play very often, so I took some practice shots against a player who was more my speed. ;)

Jumping into my first game with this experienced group and a sight-unseen arena behind us was definitely more challenging, lol!

We ventured into the arena to start a game and I followed my team over to recharge at a station that made it clear what we were supposed to do.

For me this game was surprising, largely because I had misheard Brett when he told me that the arena was undivided. I went in fully expecting to find a divided arena and couldn’t quite figure out what I was missing!

What I love most about this arena is knowing that many of these walls were rescued from the former Laser Assault business, meaning they preserved a little bit of that legacy here. This 2100 square foot arena makes the most of every inch of space with paint splattered walls, stairs, platforms and a floor plan with very close quarters.

Most of the players maneuvered around those walls like it was second nature. I was moving far more slowly, trying to get my bearings in this first game.

There are lots of windows and cutouts all throughout the arena where you can take cover…or be tagged by surprise!

There were no active pods in this game, but also no lack of targets…and I may have been the biggest one of all, lol!

My favorite perch in the arena was up on a raised platform where I got a great view of the entire field.

It was a great time getting to tag with the more experienced Laser Storm players, but by the end of a long day I must say I felt like I needed to slow my roll a bit, so for my next game I joined with a group of normal public players. We went and it gave me a chance to better process the nuances of the game. We had so much fun and I came out of that round feeling like I had a much better handle on what was happening.

The standard games were played with 250 shots and three lives.

Brett was great with briefing and explaining the game. I needed a bit of a refresher and was glad to be learning from someone who really loves the game!

I had only played standard Storm games up until this night, but to have a bit of a different experience for the last game we played a round of Zombies. In Storm this is a bit like a hybrid of Shadows and Vampire games because the humans have no lights, plus for extra fun we had K-Pop as the soundtrack. When you see flashing lights it indicates an almost dead human. Solid lights on = zombie. This was definitely cool to try!

By the end of the evening I was thoroughly exhausted, but also really happy thinking about all the awesome experiences I had including finally getting to play this arena that has been on my radar since I met Brett and Aaron three years ago at the Laser Tag Convention. This place offers an incredibly unique laser tag experience and I am so glad I had the chance to finally visit Laser Assault in Provo. Thanks to everyone who was part of this Friday Night Firefight!