Combat Ops Entertainment-Columbus — Attraction in Columbus

I've been a serious tactical laser tag player for the past 2.5 years so I was excited when I came across your place. I decided to make the trip there from Dayton last Saturday. To say that I was disappointed is an understatement. I purchased the all-day pass but actually left after only doing 3 missions because it was just so lame (felt like only a half step up from the typical kiddie laser tag).

I really liked the idea of there being different types of weapons to chose from. But there is absolutely no organization in the armory. If I hadn't looked online to see the different types of guns, I wouldn't have know what the guns were. Imagine someone who has never played before getting stuck with a shotgun. Also, the first gun I used was one that does not come with a scope. But it also didn't even have iron sights. How am I supposed to aim if I have no sights at all?

The reload button is extremely unreliable. Numerous times I had to push it several times in order for the gun to reload. This meant that I was completely defenseless for 20-30 seconds.

Since the vests are tan and gray and the sensors are not lit, it makes it extremely difficult inside the arena to determine which team someone is on or know where to aim. Plus the arena lighting has a blueish tint so that makes it even worse. Since there is friendly fire, I had to hold fire a lot because I didn't want to be "that guy" that shoots teammates.

The arenas are extremely small, especially when there are 20+ players. There is no way to do any type of tactical moving. It's pretty much everyone sits in their own little corner and camps waiting for someone who decides to move. It would be a good size for say a 3v3, but it's definitely not fun with a large group of people (you need to use all 3 arenas for groups that size). The arena size combined with the number of players makes the game very slow paced compared to other tactical laser tag facilities.

Some of the staff are also not very helpful or concerned about the customer experience. One of the missions I played was the one where the first 5 people who died became a 3rd team who were then supposed to kill members of the original 2 teams (I don't remember what the mission was called). My team was told to head to the back part of the arena (the one with the cars in the front). As a group of us were still walking back there, I started taking hits (2 to be exact). I was angered because the game hadn't even started (that's at least what the group thought). All of a sudden, there were 5 enemies on us and I ended up losing more than half my lives. Basically there was no indication to the people in the back of the arena who were told to go there that the match had started. At this point I was furious so I just let the enemy finish me off and went to say something to the sentry (I don't remember his name). His response was "oh, sorry about that" and was very dismissive. No real apology. If I hadn't just let the enemy kill me, I would not have been one of the first 5 deaths (I was actually #4) and my experience would have been done in 30 seconds. Luckily I did well on the revenge team but the experience was already soured for me at that point. This was my 3rd and final mission.

I wanted to get something to eat before driving back to Dayton. That was a mistake too. I ordered the pretzel bites and a personal pizza. When the pretzel bites came out, they were cold (like they just came out of a refrigerator) and a cold cup of cheese. If I hadn't been so hungry, I would not have eaten them because they were unappealing. The pizza (once it finally came) was actually pretty good.

I cannot understate the disappointment I felt, especially after driving a hour to get there. It is definitely not as "cool" of a place as the website makes it out to be. I guarantee that I won't be coming back. I wouldn't even give this review 1 star except that...

Let me lead with this: my group had a ton of fun. There are a lot of things that, if it were up to me, I would do differently, but it was still a very fun time.

I went with a group of 10 adults for the 5-game package. The 5-game package is $300 for 8 adults or 10 kids (which is unclear on the website), so for all of us it worked out to $375 after tax, or $37.50 per person.

Coliseum X really leans hard into the "this isn't laser tag for kids, this is REAL GUNS laser tag". They talk about how cops come and train there and whatnot. It's basically airsoft without the pellets. To me, I didn't think this theme made it more fun and in fact would have greatly preferred the old-school smoke machines and techno music laser tag; but, they're the only surviving laser tag in town, so it is what it is. Theme aside though, this did have a few drawbacks. The first is: the guns don't actually project lasers. I know they're going for realism here, but it is extremely difficult to know when you're being shot at, or even if your gun is shooting sometimes. The second is that there is no centralized scoring system. They play this off as "there's no scoring in war; you live or you die", but I would really have liked to know what my accuracy was, who killed me, etc. In several of the games, it wasn't even clear who or what team won, and they did not tell us afterwards. On the up-side, they have a lot of different guns, which are all very well-made heavy metal things with different stats (which are on the website, but nowhere to be found at the actual venue, so read up). They all have names, too. I highly recommend "Grace", though a friend of mine swore by "Nicole".

Each of the 5 games we played had a different setup. The first was the 10 of us against 10 others, which I thought was the most fun. The second was a battle-royale that was I think too chaotic for 20 people in a fairly small arena; would've been better in a bigger arena or with fewer people, and also, we couldn't even figure out who won at this one. Third was a smaller team deathmatch, our 10 split into two groups of 5. Fourth was pairs (for us, mostly couples), which was hilarious. Finally, our team went up against another team in an attack/defend scenario where we were infiltrating a house that they were not allowed to leave. This one, I will say was fun for us but probably less fun for them. The house had way too many points of entry to be defensible (which is realistic but not fair). We massacred them.

Other than the laser tag matches, we each got a $10 (40 credits) game card to play various things. We were all tired of shooting by that point so we mostly played claw machines, which had surprisingly decent claw strength and we left with a lot of things.

Other comments: I know they had to pack 5 games into 2 hours, but it did feel pretty rushed. We would've preferred more down-time between games to eat, drink, talk strategy, etc. Pizza took ~3 games to come out but was pretty good. They take a free group photo and email it to you, but I wish I would've taken one myself instead as the photo they sent is not...

TL;DR Didn’t do arcade, Axe-throwing/laser tag was cool but this place is DEFINITELY a sun-down place (if you know what I mean).

Walking in directly to the left is the waiver/purchase station. Here is where you sign your waiver and purchase your wristbands. The representative though was SUPER condescending and treated all 6 of us (all 21+) like we were 6 year olds who weren’t speaking English, a lot of rude faces and dramatic sighs: first red-flag. The arcade is what you walk in and see and it gives off a very meh Chuck E. Cheese/child-like vibe that may be off-putting to an older crowd but don’t be so quick to judge, the axe throwing area is a bit deeper in and had a much better vibe. Axe-throwing itself was genuinely fun and the vibe was nice, but it can get boring quick if it’s only a few of you (I came with a party of 6 and the one hour was great; anything longer would’ve been too long). The laser-tag was more of a “whoever is here for laser-tag join” kind of gameplay so my party of 6 played with 10 random strangers. This was fine until we realized that it unfairly and slowly broke down to us 6 black people vs 9 white people (one guy was black). Throughout the missions teaming became a huge problem even though it was supposed to be matchups like 2v2’s or Team Death Match, all 9 (literally) white people would camp the back “spawn” and wait to eliminate my 6 (even though some of us were on their team). When this issue was brought up to the staff they shrugged their shoulders and said there was no teaming that they witnessed-second red flag-. So, in retaliation, my 6 teamed to overcome the unfair advantage and we of course got INSTANTLY penalized. Some white players were caught even covering their bandoliers with 0 consequence and some players even given extra lives by staff {extra lives given were not during any missions where respawning was allowed} while our players weren’t even allowed gun reloads when fully empty, while the 9 were allowed infinite ammo. So all in all with the condescending remarks and skin-color based favoritism, it became enough for me to deem this place as a sun-down place. I cannot blame any customers as they carry the right to behave how they want to, however I CAN blame the staff as they are meant to ensure a safe and fun environment for ALL, which they FAILED very openly to do. Very unfortunate as I would’ve loved to come back, but...