Laserquest

With a little imagination, some plywood walls and ramps in the dark can easily become an abandoned and dilapidated spaceship, where your mission is to destroy enemies on sight with your pew-​pew laser gun.
I think the marvellous thing about Laserquest is how it’s completely impossible to be cool and grown-​up about it. It is among the silliest and most frenetic of group activities and after a few minutes of zooming around stealthily in the dark, the crestfallen howling of the stricken and the victorious ululations of their attacker become the sporadic soundtrack to A HUGE AMOUNT OF FUN.
This particular Laserquest is especially sublime. Some of the walls have small holes in them, permitting the more cautious and patient to take up advantageous positions and watch/​shoot from the relative safety of a blind corner. (The issue with that is when you get backed helplessly into your previously unassailable dead end by Rachel R with a triumphant gleam in her eyes and a merciless twitch in her trigger finger).
There were six of us present for this CMYE and it was pretty much the ideal number. I’d say you could go up to eight without messing up the dynamic too much, although there’s room for up to 20 players. You’d just end up shooting people non-​stop though! The fun with a smaller group is the occasional periods of silence as everyone breaks away from the mêlée to stalk a vulnerable outlier…
Once you’ve entered your name, that’s what the staff will call you without hesitation or irony. It’s apparent that they are well aware how much of the experience is the giddiness that comes with choosing a super-​awesome space name. (I accidentally named myself after an insane bad guy, but I swear it was an accident.)
The guns are less infuriating than the other laser game place I’ve been to, where if you didn’t hold them with two hands then they wouldn’t work. That made shooting blind around corners pretty tricky.
I want to go agaaaaaaaaaaaaaain.
Oh. And don’t wear a white t-​shirt. You will die.

This place is soo cool. Somehow I have avoided coming to a laserquest until the year, but I have fallen in love with the place. Me and a few friends got together after exams and decided to give it a go.
When we got there, the staff were really friendly and told us to type in the names we wanted to use for the game– but politely asked us to avoid using and swear words (knew us too well) because they had a children’s birthday party booked a couple of hours later!
After that you head down down and get given a vest and a gun and are then guided into the dark where the aim is to shoot the rest of your opponents as much as possible. We all thought we were going to be too old for it, but we definitely weren’t, it’s just like playing Call of Duty, but actually being active.

I love this place! We came here after our second year exams and it was easily one of the best afternoons of the year so far. It’s pretty expensive, costing about a fiver for a 20 minute game, but it’s well worth it. You each give yourselves a name and then get set up with a gun and vest which have tags for your opponents to shoot.
There were only five of us in the place and it was still incredible fun just running around in the dark shooting each other. It’s so dark that a few of us even walked straight into the walls. The aim is to just kill the other players more times than they kill you or, alternatively, you can divide yourselves into teams and try to take one another’s bases.
We all feared we were too old for it, but after two minutes of playing we knew we definitely weren’t!

There have been a good few birthday parties over the years that have involved Laser Quest in some form or other. I went to the Edinburgh branch last year with a group of friends, and it was a great time. It’s the sort of thing that doesn’t seem to get old. It’s still as enjoyable as it was when I was 7 or 8 years old.
The experience here is the same as most other places of the same type. You pick your name, and are then led to the area to be kitted out with your pack and weapon. The game then ensues. Each time, there is a frantic scramble at the start to get your bearings, and to find somewhere that you might be able to camp out for the duration of the game. At least this is the tactic that I adopt anyway.
Games here are reasonably priced, and doing 2 or 3 games is a pretty good deal. A game last around 20 minutes, which is about enough for running around in a dark room. I think Dark Ocean is probably my favourite place in Edinburgh, but if I don’t fancy the trek to Portobello, then I would happily use Laser Quest. In some ways, the original is the best.

Online gaming seems to be slowly but surely squeezing the life out of the Laserquest scene, but in all honesty it really can’t compete. Coming here with a group of pals is quite simply one of the most fun things you can do, and the best part of all is that everyone, no matter how placid in real life, will become exceptionally serious, competitive and aggressive for the duration of the game.
I came here with a big group once not long after leaving school. We did a team game and I remember me and my pal Alan finding a sweet spot where we could pick everyone else off without them being able to get us. It totally ruined it for everyone else, and a massive, swear-​filled argument ensued afterwards, which even resulted in us getting torrents of abuse from a couple of 10 year old kids who’d joined our game.
It still makes me laugh to this day.

Laserquest is so awesome I can barely contain myself writing this.
I used to play it as a kid and have recently started playing sporadically with my friends on fun days out. For around a tenner, you get between 2 – 3 games, split up into teams and off you go!
The aim of the game is to shoot your opponents in the other teams — you’ll be able to tell who they are since their back packs will flash a different colour from yours. Usually you’ll get on a team with your friends but occasionally you will end up with the remnants of other teams. That’s ok though — even if you’re stuck with a ten year old they know what they are doing (and will likely whip your ass while they’re at it!)
The area you play in is dark and looks like the set from Red Dwarf. It hasn’t changed since it started and that’s what I love about it. You need to try and shoot the bases of the other team. They are located on different levels throughout the arena. If you succeed, you will get a lot of points at the end of the game, not to mention infinite kudos from your team mates.
You would think this would be easy, but I seem to be the biggest loser of Laser Quest. Every time I play with my mates I get chased around and bullied by nine year olds. The last time I played I shot my own base and lost us the game. Saying that, I still think my aim is good and it’s a waste that I’m always losing at this! But I still love it. If you like old RPG games, tactics and feeling like you are in a SNES game from the early 90s I highly recommend it.

There is something quite unnerving about stalking your prey through pitchblack, smoke filled corridoors with a big lazer machine gun in your hands — knowing that you are being hunted too. I wouldnt be suprised is there was a slight blip on my radar, and a shadowy figure speeding past just outside my range of view, Alien style.
Fortunatly, you arent hunting acid bleeding, many mouthed hell creatures from outer space — chances are you are playing laserquest with your mates, and that shadowy figure is a hyperactive 12 year old who is way better than you are.
This is a great game, one I still enjoy more than most things — its fun, energetic, more than a bit mental, and for some reason (maybe its the desire to survive) it makes everybody who plays become extremly competitive.
Its amazing fun, and I suggest it to anybody who wants to do something different!

Both reviews for the place are great but I think they forgot to mention one key problem with laser quest.
The game has started and you’re darting around looking for cover. While hiding behind a pillar to avoid the hail of lasers that threaten your life, you hear some footsteps approaching from behind you. You turn quickly to ambush the enemy, only to find out he’s 7…
Somewhere in you’re brain, alarm bells start ringing. Even though it’s fake, your mind hesitates a little to shoot a kid at point blank range. By the time you’ve bypassed that thought and pull the trigger, he’s already buggered off.
If you’re playing with kids, you’ll loose (but you’re a good person!)

I recently returned to Laserquest after about a 12-​year hiatus, sceptical, feeling ancient, and with very vague memories about what it used to be like, and very definite memories about how I always came bottom of the scoreboard, much to my shame.
So, a group of us girls turned up one afternoon as part of my friend’s hen celebrations, and we chose our warrior names (mine was Cinderella, one of my friends went for Tinkerbell, fierce), then strapped on our laser packs, complete with laser gun. You get 2 games lasting about 20 minutes each, the aim of the whole thing being to run round a dark, smokey labyrinth shooting each other with laser beams and scoring points for doing so, but losing points for getting shot, obviously. We’re quite a girly group of friends, but anything ladylike about us went out the window when the every girl for herself survival mentality kicked in. I found myself feeling edgy and darting around everywhere, lurking round corners being sneaky, and cackling and generally being evil when I managed to shoot someone, with my friends taking the activity just as seriously. And result, the first round of scores revealed that my more mature years had somehow improved my laser shooting skill, and miraculously, I wasn’t in last place.

Okay so I see kids coming in and out here all the time, so clearly its popular as a sort of pre teenage birthday party location. But screw them its brilliant fun for adults too!
Basically you are put into teams (so ideal for team building, birthday parties, days out) and you have to shoot each other with these laser guns. Its reasonable cheap, we paid around £10 for three games. I think each game lasted about 15 minutes or so, and at the end there is a breakdown of your score.
You basically spend 15 minutes pretending you are Rambo and taking everything very seriously. My «POW POW POW» every time I shot someone got really old, very quick for everyone else but that didn’t stop me. There is a great atmosphere in the dark, smokey basement, although it does feel a little dated. Great for a starting point to a night out or a boys vs. girls competition.

Great place for teenage fun and parties. Large groups possible to play against each other at a very reasonable price. Games last 15 minutes and are very energetic. On finishing you can see the leaderboard and everyone receives a certificates giving a breakdown of exact hits. Good quality guns and equipment and suitable for all the family

I love Laserquest so much that I had my leaving do there. Not unusual if you are a small boy but I’m a middle aged woman. There is something awsome about running about in the dark shooting your soon to be former colleagues. The staff are helpful and build the tension between games. They poor dears can’t spell though and at one party I was at a small boy was labelled masterchef rather than Masterchief. Not really what he was going for. Still we all had a great time picking off the weak.

This place is really cool for kids and adults alike.
On entering you pay for how many games you want to play, 20 minutes per game, and once theres enough in the group (4 to 20) to play a game the staff take you to get kitted up.
The staff explain all the equipment given to you, and the safety proceedures and rules of the game, and after any questions need answered the member of staff will show you through the doors into the battle room.
Normally you’re split into even teams and you can tell your team mate by the colour of light on there vest (red or green)
or you get afree for all where you can shoot anyone.
The room is fitted out like a maze with a few raised platforms at the edges. The atmoshere is cool and they sometimes pump fog into the room.
The prices are as follows:
OFF PEAK
(11am — 6pm Mon — Fri)
£4.50 for 1 Game
£8 for 2 Games
£10 for 3 Games
PEAK
(After 6pm — 11pm Mon — Fri inc. all day Sat & Sun)
£5 for 1 Game
£9 for 2 Games
£11 for 3 Games
If you go enjoy

this is a fun place to go on a night out. you are also usually allowed to go for a few drinks before. When you get your equipment you go into the game room. there is a number of places to hide and sneak up on your opponents! :)

My boyfriend’s favourite place in the world, this surreal experience is great fun. It’s not one of the big chain lasergun places but basically a huge converted basement in Gorgie. As you descend into the pitch black, smoke filled maze with huge pack strapped to your back and a laser gun that looks like something from the 70s you’ll wonder what on earth you’re doing. However, it’s brilliant fun in a group and it’s open surprisingly late– allowing you to go for a few drinks first. It’s reasonably cheap (around £5 a game) and the staff are suitably geeky.