My Q-Zar Free Decade

This year, I will be celebrating ten years since I last partook in a game of Q-Zar. I can't say that I miss it.

Some quick information for those who don't know: Q-Zar is an interactive laser-tag type game where you wear goofy vests with sensors. You try to shoot the other team or their base and you get a score at the end (complete with some extreme insult or compliment) that can be jotted down on your college or job application. It was something fun to do for dorkwads on a Saturday night.

So what kept me away Q-Zar all this time, despite being a dorkwad and often being awake on a Saturday night? Well, for one thing, I'm too damn old. In some states, you automatically get registered as a sex offender for being anywhere near a Q-Zar and over 21 years-old. Secondly, the game just annoyed the sweet yellow piss out of me.

When you begin playing Q-Zar, you are herded into a 'briefing room' with the other players where an under-payed employee with delusions of power begins screaming instructions and threats at you. Thank you, Patton, but I'm playing laser tag not invading Normandy. Upon entering the dark room, you start firing at any little snot that gets in your way. While that sounds easy enough, many of them employ cheap tactics that exploit your punishment for getting hit. Let me explain: you get a six-second penalty when shot. For three seconds, you can't shoot but you can't get shot either. For the next three seconds, you still can't shoot but you can get hit again, resetting the entire penalty phase. So all some kid has to do is follow you around to rack up a more-than-respectable score (Ivy League aspirations, you know). The referees frown on retaliation with the business end of a backhand, so you just have to sit there and take it like a bitch.

(NOTE: I just found out that there apparently was a one-second window for a reflex shot that allows you to take out your oppressor. Unfortunately, the minimum wage drill sergeants never told us about that.)

Let me throw out some advice. If you ever have the urge to play Q-Zar, just give your best friend five dollars to punch you in the nutsack a couple of times, and then spend the rest of the evening watching old Nickelodeon game shows. You will wake up the next morning having had the same experience but for a fuck of a lot cheaper.

But my final question: is it not pointless to discredit a corporation that has very little exposure on pop-culture minds? No one's thought about Q-Zar since the invention of X-Box Live - especially now that you can have some remotely-located punk school your ass by means of cheap tactics in the comfort of your own home.