Laser League, like Disc Jam, is a unique take on the sports genre which sadly didn’t get the momentum in needed. A few weeks after release and it’s hard to find a full game of only six people, and I can only imagine that people wrote this game off before they’d played it. It’s incredibly simple, but reactions and team strategy are everything in Laser League.
The aim of the game is to touch posts that appear on the stage so that they turn to your colour. If an opponent comes into contact with a light of your colour then they’ll be knocked out – they can be revived, but their teammates need to be quick. It might sound plain but in motion it requires a lot of forward-thinking because you can have a bunch of ally lights set up but simply having loads of them isn’t as helpful as you’d think but, really, it’s all in the timing. The lights rotate so filling in as many gaps as you can is helpful, especially as you can run through any walls and appear on the opposite side of the stage.
There are pick-ups that reverse the flow of the game and put things in your favour, but they also work in the opposite way too. Pick up the reset item to disable all light bars and maybe your opponents will take advantage of this over your team or pick up the reverse item to change all present light bars into the opposite colour. I’ve done the latter a few times and accidentally gave the advantage to the opposing team, and it’s not something you want to pick up if you’re the dominant colour.
Laser League’s true enjoyment lies in its accessibility and ease to grasp, but teams with good communication are more likely to win as they can co-ordinate timings and pick-ups in a way that a team consisting of random people likely won’t. The tables can be turned at any time meaning that a lesser skilled team can still grasp victory if they play their cards right, but timing and reaction speeds are what’s going to pull your team to the win screen.
Verdict
Laser League is a game that can be picked up and enjoyed by everyone, but it’s a shame that it seems to have died on arrival. Finding a full game seems nigh impossible unless you round a group of friends together but selling them on the idea of a game that requires 4-6 of you to be on to get the most out of is difficult too. It’s a solid game by developers Roll7 that sadly hasn’t caught fire, and if more people were willing to check this out I think they’d be pleasantly surprised just by how enjoyable it can be.
Review copy provided by 505 Games