Official Site: battle-tag.us.ubi.com

Intro:
There seem to be a shortage of more in depth reviews of Ubisoft’s Battle Tag system out there so thought I’d post one. I’m a 26 year old male, and picked up the system in March, 2011. I’ve gotten to play with up to four people at a time with smaller kids 8-14 years old as well as 19-25 year olds. Let me just start off by saying, it’s a blast!

Simply, it’s a home laser tag system. Supporting up to 8 people at a time right now (I’ve heard rumblings of up to 16 at a later date), you can essentially create a lot of the styles of games you find in modern day FPS computer/console games, but play them in your house, in the backyard, at the park, wherever!

What is Laser Tag:
For those of you that don’t know what a laser tag system is, basically each player has a gun and a sensor vest that are attached together via a coiled electrical cord. You use the gun to fire an invisible infrared beam at your opponent’s vest and when the sensors on the vest are hit with the infrared beam from a gun, it sends a “hit” signal to a radio transmitter inside the gun that relays the information back to the base station which is small 8” diameter glowing ring that connects to your computer and is powered by USB. The base station and computer software keep track of who hit who, health, deaths, lives, shot accuracy, game time and points.

The guns also have an LED screen on the back and a button that lets you switch between displaying your remaining ammo or health. The guns also have a speaker that makes the firing laser “pew pew” sounds at a volume level you can set on the computer. They will be releasing updates to the software soon that will allow you to customize the firing sounds from what I’ve read (a welcome addition). The speakers also serve to tell you when the game is about to start (automatically via countdown after activation on the computer or by player 1 pulling his trigger), when the game is over, and if you set it, who’s in the lead for points and other information (when you have it on this setting it even starts calling you names and telling you how lazy you are if you haven’t gotten a kill in a while hahah)

With the starter packs you get four small 4”x2”x2” plastic blocks that act as your bases and ammo packs (more on this below).

From my experience, the gun range is around 40-90m depending on environmental conditions (ambient sunlight and beam strength setting) and a play area around the base station of about 100-200m diameter, also dependent on the environment the transmitted radio signals must pass through (walls, brick, etc) as to be expected.

Game On:
After the initial, sometimes buggy and annoying software installation and launch, you’re presented with a bunch of different games to choose from in the software. There’s everything from free-for-all, to a version of “tag” with points (very fun and intense), team death match, last man/team standing, and quite a few more unique ones. A lot of these are possible due in part to the unique base and ammo pack “blocks” that you place in your playing area.

So with each starter kit you purchase you get two bases and two ammo packs. These work as RFID tags, so that when you pick them up and tap them on a button underneath the barrel of your gun it registers that you’ve used it.

To give you an idea of how this works and creates for some interesting game play I’ll give you a great game I was just playing with some of my 19year old cousins this past weekend. We had 4 players and set up for 2 vs 2 team deathmatch. We placed team 1’s base in the backyard, team 2’s base in the front yard and an ammo pack in each alley way on the sides of the house that you’re not allowed to move (great choke points). With the base station in the center of the house it had no problem with the playing field extending about 100m to the back of the back yard and 50m to the front.

In this game we set it up to start with 27 rounds of ammunition (3 clips of 9rounds) and 5 health before you died (both programmable in the pregame setup). When you run out of ammo you have to get to one of the ammo packs we’d placed on the side of the house and “use” it. The fun part is you can set it up so that you HAVE to alternate between the ammo packs so you can’t just camp around one of the ammo packs.

When you lose all 5 health points you die and have to run back to your home base and tap it with the button on the bottom of your barrel, this regenerates your health and ammo and you can set a time delay of 0-15 seconds before you’re activated again and back in the game. When the game’s done, everyone strolls over to the computer to take a look at all the stats and get the final scores.

Having bases, limited health and ammo like this prevents the game from turning into everyone just running next to each other and firing forever. Yes, you can play this game too (free-for-all with infinite ammo and health) but that gets old and boring quickly. They’ve really captured the heart of the first-person-shooter genre of computer games with the different types of game modes and that’s what I really like about it.

The neat thing about it is that although it requires a computer, you could drive out to wherever you wanted to play, leave your laptop and base station in your locked car with a cigarette lighter adapter for power and then you have an instant +200m diameter playing area without worrying about your laptop getting stolen while you battle it out nearby! Think of all those times you’ve thought “man, this old factory/deserted underground parking lot/rocky field/grandparent’s basement/shopping mall would be awesome to have a shootout battle in…” and now you can! Ok, maybe that’s just me, but it is pretty sweet to be able to now!

Accuracy:
Now if you’re an older player (read as: young kid trapped in an older body) then you’re first question about the system is probably about the accuracy and range. From having played paintball extensively, I can say that they are near equivalent in range and overall accuracy, the only difference is that you don’t get the physical pain of being hit, just a vibrating gun and your vest lights flash red.

The gun beam spread at the longer distances is still quite narrow which is good (I’d guess around 5” diameter spread at shots over 50m distance). Complaints that people had about accuracy while I was playing was mainly because they weren’t actually aiming well. It’s hard to hit a moving target, as it should be, but if you aim well, you can make those hits. I feel like they’ve struck just the right balance between sensor placement/sensitivity to gun range and beam spread/accuracy.

The same applies for running and gunning. As in paintball (and real life I’d imagine) it’s damn hard to run and shoot accurately at the same time and actually hit a target, and this system really makes you realize that.

Yes there will be times where you are aiming perfectly and your target is not registering the hits, but on the whole it is very good. If someone is making a break out into the open for some nearby cover and you have a clear shot at them, you will likely tag them a few times. There’s just enough inaccuracy between the shooter’s ability and the system where they have a chance, but not enough to actually frustrate everyone trying to pick them off! It makes for some very intense sprints for cover with limited health that, like in paintballing, can be quite rewarding for position on your opponents.

Comparison to Paintballing:
I already spoke of the accuracy compared to paintballing above, so I’ll just talk of the other aspects.

First, in paintballing you have paintballs whizzing by your head and the associated pain/shock of being hit which adds to the realism of the game. You obviously don’t have that in this laser tag system (for now…I’m looking to change that though muhahah).

You would think this completely eliminates the incentive to play well/smart, and it does when it’s the simpler games of infinite ammo/health, but when you’re playing the other style of games where dying means a long jog back to your base and out of play for 15seconds, you start to subconsciously internalize the implications of getting hit so you actually start playing much more smartly, it’s an interesting transition that takes place.

Ultimately though if all you do is complain about how unrealistic it is, you won’t have fun. But if you’re playing well, and are playing with other people that are taking it seriously (in a fun way) then it is actually a blast. You’ll find yourself swearing and cursing the other people when you get shot or miss a shot just as you do in paintballing, it’s great!

What you lose in realism from paintballing, you more than make up for in accessibility, cost and ease of play. All of a sudden inside your house can be an arena, playing in the streets with the cars, trees and other urban cover is a blast (although trying to remember to look for cars driving down the road is usually an afterthought while sprinting for cover behind the SUV parked across the street hahah…seriously though, be careful…) and you don’t have to worry about stray paintballs or people getting upset with paintballs flying everywhere.

Once you make your initial investment of the system and guns, you’re good! You don’t have to go out and constantly buy more paintballs or refill your air tank whenever you want to play. Although from what I can tell, they will be sure to release cool hardware updates (there’s an unused electrical interface contact for future accessories on the front of the gun under the plastic cover, future “grenade launcher” perhaps?) that will make you want to spend more money, but you don’t have to as the base system is great as it is!

If you’re a hardcore paintballer, then I suppose you will at first find this system “childish”, but if you can get past that, the potential for some great games is enormous, not to mention you can play with everyone of all ages and have lots of fun.

The Current Issues:
The main issues that I’ve had with the system are on the software side. They involve dropped players during a game (infrequent though), frustrating installation on certain PC configs and operating systems and a somewhat slow UI to set the games up (not actually that bad though).

Hardware wise, I’ve had a weird bug where one vest just self registering hits every time I fired in a specific game mode (was fine in all others…), on one of the guns where the rubber cable attaches to the gun broke, but the wires are still in tact so fixed with some electrical tape, and another vest that only works intermittently.

These are all mostly minor and haven’t affected the overall experience, but they are there and do need fixing. The nice thing on the software side is that as it’s computer based, the software automatically checks for updates on the net before loading and a lot of the issues that plagued early buyers at the end of last year have been resolved.

The Bottom Line:
It’s a fun system with a few minor issues. I would absolutely recommend it to people with the caveat that it’s still in the teething phase of its true potential but otherwise it’s awesome!

Pros:
- Solid feeling and well designed equipment, well placed sensors
- Decent range on both guns and distance to base station
- Fun for all ages (seriously, four of us twenty year-olds were playing and I think we had as much if not more fun than when my little 12 year old cousins were playing)
- Awesome upgradability likely to come in the future
- Great way to get some physical activity
- Potential to be integrated into some amazing drinking games (if of drinking age of course)
- Bases, ammo and different game mode keep this from just becoming a walk up to someone and shoot game like laser tag at arenas can turn into.
- LED screen on back of gun for health and ammo is genius!
- Battery life is great! I’ve used them for about 10hrs so far and still no low battery signs.
- Battle arenas and variation of games are limited only by your imagination!

Cons:
- Installation of software buggy and downright frustrating at times, but once you get it usually functions well (DirectX and intro movie are the causes of the issues usually)
- Not enough customization of games/avatars/sounds possible right now. An advanced mode with full customization would be appreciated for us older players to tinker around with
- A gun may disconnect from the base station from time to time during play
- Rubber cord wears quickly at the gun connection and has broken on one of my guns exposing the wires. Advice: throw bit of electrical tape around this bend point to
- No way to securely holster your gun when you’re putting your shoes on and off or don’t want to hold it between games. You can kind of holster it in your chest vest but not a great way to do it.
- At $170 Canadian for a starter kit of two guns, it is kind of expensive for small kids, but for the technology you’re getting in it, it’s actually a pretty fair price.

If you have any questions feel free to PM or comment here and I’ll be happy to answer!

Well definitely been back in Canada a little while now and realized I still haven’t linked on here the last of Thailand and Laos pictures!

So here they are:

Thailand Part 2: Journey to the North Click me for the facebook link

Chillin’ in Laos Click me for the link

I realize a few hours later as I’m walking the night market in Luang Prabang, Laos one last time, that it was almost a year ago today I had sat down to the dinner table with my parents to tell them that I was going to quit my job and travel the world. I wasn’t looking for their approval as I had already made my decision, but I was hoping to have their support.

They each questioned with how, why and where and listened carefully to the answers I had rehearsed in my head countless times when questioning my own motives. I already knew that as parents, they would be concerned for my safety, but I hoped that the non-parent side of them, the side that didn’t look at me as their little boy but rather a grown man, would support me and understand. As always and as much as I had hoped for, they did.

A few months later in January, I flew to Peru, the world mine to discover. I left knowing myself, nervously confident that I would have an incredible time and when my uncle said I was off to go “find myself”, I remember laughing and saying this trip was just for fun, I already knew who I was!

I couldn’t have been more wrong…

It’s not so much that I didn’t know myself at the time, it’s that when you’re on 17 hour long bus rides, 30 hour plane trips or just spending hours watching the sun rise and set over new horizons you have a lot of time to yourself to think. Your mind eventually wanders to uncharted territories and something you thought you knew suddenly reveals itself as much larger than you expected and far, far more complex.

All of a sudden I found myself questioning everything, becoming less and less knowledgable of my universe and what was around me, but that process was in itself something astounding. It was like opening the door to your closet and instead of a small room with some clothes, there’s a huge banquet hall filled with the excitement of people laughing and dancing for some grand event you can barely comprehend. Then comes the realization that in this new room are hundreds of more doors along the walls, leading to who knows where!

This sounds great and wonderful, but trust me, it’s pretty terrifying when all you were looking for in that closet was an old sweater to throw on!

Suffice to say it’s certainly been a life changing trip for me.

I’ve learned so much about myself, others and the amazing paradoxical world we live in. At the same time I’ve truly come to realize how little I know, understand and comprehend, merely catching tiny, momentary glimpses of the vast breadth of what it is to be part of this incredible universe.

It’s both frustrating and rewarding. At times I’ve lost myself in trying to wrap my head around the answers to some of life’s great riddles, often coming to paradoxical conclusions, which don’t really provide any satisfactory answers.

But then on aspects of the life we lead, the world we evolved for and understanding of the love we all share in the world, I’ve grown so much. I’ve been privileged with seeing so many different people of the world, the common kindness so much more prevalent than reported malevolence, everyone just trying to live their life.

No, none of these things is unique to my trip, and yes we all know these things to be true, but it’s the experience of it that created such internalization for me, a truth for which I can believe.

This was what I was looking for when I set out a little over ten months ago. I didn’t know it then, but I know it now as I type this on the plane ride home.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life, I’m more uncertain about my future now than I was before I left, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I know I have incredible friends, I have my loving family and I have a world that I’m damn happy to be a part of. Most of all though, I’m honored with the privilege of sharing it with you.

We all smile as we climb onto the back of the Green Discovery Tours truck with the other trekking couple and two guides. It’s an hour of driving before we reach the start of the two-day Laos jungle and hill tribes trek, and as usual the conversation starts with the standard, “So where are you guys from?” and “How long are you here for?” questions so commonly asked among backpackers, an instant friendship being formed in the process.

We swap stories from South America and other parts of the world, while giving each other advice and tips on future locales from our own experiences. The drive goes quickly and before I know it we’ve stopped and are walking up a dirt road, a 3.5hr hike to the first hill tribe.

Our main guide, Sack, stops periodically as we walk, pointing out different plants that the locals use, be it spices, fruits or medicines. Naturally he offers us samples which of course we all try, usually to our taste buds delight!

The first few hours are a long climb up the low Laos mountains through the sticky rice and hops fields, all of us appreciating the fact that the fields are farmed by hand as the terrain is too steep for machinery and with an average income of $50 per month far too costly anyways for most.

Arriving at the first village, one of the Hmong Tribes, we’re greeted with pigs, chickens, ducks, goats and cows milling about. The hard reddish-brown soil covers everything and nearly matches the color of the bamboo houses, the dusty brown of the village a stark contrast to the lush green jungle and blue sky of its surroundings.

Little children smile and hide behind buildings peeking out to giggle at us with each other as we sit down for lunch. Only a few adults are around as most are out working their rice fields, the kids left to look after themselves.

The four of us scarf down our delicious meal of sticky rice with side dishes of mixed vegetables and various meats using only our hands and then satisfied, sit back and relax, taking in the village, imagining the life these locals live. It’s definitely a hard one.

Next we hike 10 mins over the hill to a larger forty-family Khmu Tribe village that has some subtle differences in their building design. Our guide explains that even though they live so close together they have a completely different dialect that only our other guide understands. A group of young boys follows us out of the village for a while as they take some cows to feed, smiling and laughing. Zdednek, the other guy in our group, teaches them “Good”, “No good” and “Maybe” with thumbs up and down gestures. We all laugh and the kids love it, being pretty good too by the time we wave goodbye to them further along the trail.

The rest of the day we trek through small trails in the dense jungle, periodically stopping for a rest, leeches taking advantage of our pause to swarm our shoes trying to climb up to our exposed legs for a quick meal. It was like a B-rated horror film as we all keep checking our shoes, desperately flicking off the little blood suckers slowly inching up. But hey, it’s all part of the Laos experience hahah

Arriving at the village we’re staying in for the night before the most of the adults get back from working the fields, Brie, my travel buddy for a week here in Laos, and I go for a walk. We head towards the sounds of splashing and laughter to find a group of little kids playing in a small creek. Overcoming their initial shyness they start jumping, doing flips and cartwheeling into the river, performing for us. We laugh with them at their antics and then continue checking out the rest of the 35 family village.

As the evening sets in the adults all start coming home, splashes of color added to the brown of the village by a few of their surprisingly vibrant clothes. Some of the younger men play a game like volleyball with a softball size bamboo wicker ball, using only their feet and head, a few of their acrobatic kicks truly awesome.

We eat another meal that’s similar to our lunch and then about fifteen of the younger kids are brought to come sing for us. Initially it’s a pretty lame tourist thing they do but then the kids actually get curious and we all start playing games like rock, paper, scissors and such so it turns fun and was actually pretty interesting.

We teach them some english words and they make us attempt their words, laughing at our feeble attempts. Then the shots of the local Lao-whiskey start…and continue…and continue. We spend the rest of the night chatting with the guides, finally heading to our bamboo shack when 2 liters of their 100-proof whiskey has made us all very drunk.

We’re woken up in the morning by the village roosters’ continuous salute to the sun right outside our hut along with ducks and pigs quacking and snorting away. It may sound nice and cute…but trust me, its not the greatest at 6am after a night of Lao-whiskey hahaha

We head off after a quick breakfast, each taking about an hour to fully wake up. It’s a good five hour hike to where we get picked up. Another day hiking of striking scenery, beautiful weather and passing by the locals tirelessly working in their fields.

As we all climb into the back of the truck, I take a moment to reflect on how different our lives are in western countries, and yet still, we’re all so completely the same.

Just finished up three weeks in Indonesia and it was spectacular

I was traveling with Nerissa, and having someone to share the experiences with was awesome. Basically we traveled to Jogjakarta (temples), Mount Bromo (active volcano!), Gili Meno (paradise island) and Ubud (artisan capital of Bali).

I can’t believe it’s over already and I’m back on my own again here in Singapore.  I think I’m going to spend the next couple weeks in Northern Thailand since I missed it last time I was there and then head into Laos for a few weeks after to meet some friends there. After that…who knows…my plans change every day anyways hahah

Hope you enjoy the photos from Indonesia!

Indonesia Click me for the facebook link

I am born. A new universe explodes into existence.

Galaxies taking shape with consciousness. A limitless world created in the dream of my life. A pause. I breathe.

I am ten, playing basketball in my driveway. A shot. Miss. Getting the ball again, prepping for another shot. I pause. Will I remember this moment? This exact location in time ten years from now? I’ll never be that old.

I am twenty, doing differential equations on my desk at university. I pause. Look up, staring at the wall. I remember the basketball shot in Georgia so long ago. Will I remember this new moment in the future. I’ll never be done university.

I’m in New Zealand, hiking on the ridgeline of the Kepler track. I pause. How did I get here? The clouds part slightly and beams of sunlight shine on the landscape around me, warming my face. I remember the other pauses. My eyes well up with realization.

I am already back home. I am working at a new job. I am at my own wedding. I pause. I do. I am holding my child in my arms for the first time. A new universe exploding into existence. I pause. Tears. I am watching them ride a bike for the first time. I am seeing them off to university. I am at the funerals of loved ones. I pause. I am old.

A grandchild sits on my knee as I tell them stories from my past, my present? I tell them about the strong Greek blood that courses through their veins. Their skin armoured against the sun’s rays just like their grandfather’s. I pause. We smile.

They are at my funeral. A fraction of a moment after a universe explodes into existence, there’s a pause, and it collapses again.

Well I’m flying out tonight for Jakarta, Indonesia where I’m going to be traveling with Nerissa for about 3 weeks! I’m pretty excited to be traveling with her and after doing some research on Indonesia for things to check out, it looks like it’s going to be a pretty awesome trip! There should be a nice mix of checking out wicked temples, mountain climbing, wild animal watching (komodo dragons!!), snorkeling, scuba diving and some island paradise relaxing.

Here in Malaysia I basically just spent two weeks on Borneo. I did have 1 day in Kota Bharu and 1 day in Kuala Lumpur but those don’t really count. The two main things I wanted to go to Borneo for was to see monkeys in the wild and climb Mount Kinabalu, which is the tallest mountain in SE Asia at 4095m.  I did both and made some great friends along the way. Check out my two friend’s blog, Paul and Klara, that I met there for their hilarious accounts of it! I was also attacked by a monkey on an island off Kota Kinabalu that some friends and I visited. Thankfully a girlish scream and hitting it with a bag containing shoes kept it from closing the last few inches to sinking it’s fang-like teeth into my leg hahah

Malaysia’s quite expensive compared to all the other SE Asia countries I’ve been to and drinking here is almost the same price as back home in Canada (due to the insane amount they tax alcohol), but all in all a pretty good time! Check out the photos below:

Malaysia Click me for the facebook link

Here are four TED talks I’ve been meaning to post on here for a while. Wide range of topics, and some of the best ones I’ve listened to while traveling! Gotta love TED.com!

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Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one. An astonishing story.

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Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can — and should — be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a good life.

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Henry Markram says the mysteries of the mind can be solved — soon. Mental illness, memory, perception: they’re made of neurons and electric signals, and he plans to find them with a supercomputer that models all the brain’s 100,000,000,000,000 synapses.

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Mycologist Paul Stamets lists 6 ways the mycelium fungus can help save the universe: cleaning polluted soil, making insecticides, treating smallpox and even flu …