This is the place (BTW, dontcha love the cool background? It just blows my mind...) where you find out about the great ways I've found over the years to pass the time. Let's start at the beginning:

Manhunt - the ultimate game for teenage guys (and girls, sometimes.) The premise: an "it" person or a team of "it" people are chosen. A jail is pre-selected. There is no "goo" or "gool" or whatever that childish safety zone thing was. The idea: everyone ELSE has to pretty much get away and hide. Usually played in a wooded area (campgrounds, my house, etc.), the game takes on an almost "tag-like" quality as the poor victims are tracked and caught. Playing the dark is A) dangerous and B) way more fun. Sure, you've got a flashlight...but dare you use it? Usually not. And if you're spotted, the "it" person (and his buddies, if you're in REAL trouble) can use their flashlights all they want to keep you in their vision...and that usually doesn't help you at ALL in seeing what sort of things you're about to run into. In the mad rush to get away, a headlong charge into a heavily-wooded area is often necessary. Ahh, what a fun game. And of course, the added element to keep people from wandering off into Kansas until things cool down...the "jailbreak." If one of the remaining free people can get to the jail (without getting tagged himself, of course) and, upon tagging the table, yell "JAILBREAK!!!" at the top of his lungs, he has set everyone in jail free. Devastating for the "it" people, but usually also quite devastating for you, because they all come out of the woodwork when you yell that. Such fun. Unfortunately, Manhunt is so seasonal that we don't play it more than one or two months out of each year. Last game I can recall was in September of '97. Sooo...an alternative was needed:

Lasertag - The ultimate in fun. No mess. Little expense (new batteries, mostly.) Any weather (play indoors!) Perfect. My youth leader's son lent me his "Laser Challenge" set for a few days, and I got hooked. I played with the Sorensen guys (see Friends), Josh Kansiewicz and the Fast brothers as much as I possibly could during that time. In the end, we realized that this was a child's toy, and just not built for "serious play." It beeped constantly, supposedly to give your spot away and prevent hiding and ambushes. Which of course took out a lot of the fun. Also, it used only one infrared channel, so "friendly fire" was a constant fact of life. Of course, infrared bounces...so indoor plan was a real pain. I sometimes swore that I killed myself more often than I killed the others. Furthermore, its range was a compromise for indoor and outdoor play...if they made it powerful enough for outdoor, you couldn't fire it indoors without it bouncing all over the place and killing everyone. But if they limited the range to play indoors, you wouldn't be able to touch anyone outdoors over about 40 feet. And one final difficulty: it was chest-based. That is, the sensor was located on the chest, which of course would allow people to block themselves around a corner and stick their head and gun out and fire away. We would stalemate all the time. Sooo...I had by then decided that I wanted something like this, but better done.

'Twas then that I started poking around on the web for information about lasertagging. I came across an interesting site: The Razor Team HQ in Australia (Note: this URL has been down for a while.) They described this Lock-On lasertag system which sounded like it would suit my every need. Interestingly enough, it was put out by Sega. It had everything. It was headset-based, so it avoided (to some degree) the problem of blocking the chest and firing away. Basically, if you could stick your head out to shoot, you could get hit. It had a perpetual beep, but it could be turned off. Also, if you used the beep, it emitted a constant beam that, if it crossed an opponent's headset, would cause it to beep. This was called the "Lock-On" effect. It had an over 200-foot range, but that could be reduced to about 40 for indoor play through an option. So, sounds great, right? What's the catch, I wondered. Then I found out: Sega (actually Bandai, the distributor) has decided to distsribute this wonderful product only in Australia and the UK. So, my grandmother being in England for a while, I wrote to her and asked her to bring me back a few. We currently have six (minus one because someone shorted out one of mine.) Here's what it looks like:

The visor is for a HUD (Head Up Display) for your current score (it counts down from nine.) It ends up reducing depth and light perception, so we never use it.

Games played with this are just awesome. Whether indoor or outdoor, it is incredibly fun. If you'd like more info (or live in Britain and could possibly mail me a few [I'd pay just about any price!]), write to me at malalatete@juno.com.

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