Strikeforce Sports — Attraction in Town of Babylon

Living on Long Island, you don't have much of a choice when it comes to airsoft. Strikeforce (for me) has a great location, and a very nice field. Every month or two the inside is changed up to create a different environment. Also, they recently broke down a wall and made the field twice the size. The new size, however, may not be a good thing. While it is definitely cool having a larger field, they only have one or two refs out there at a time (and you'll quite often find one of them chillin' in the back texting. What this means is that there is a lot of full auto and people not calling their hits (not to mention the occasional little kid blind firing). Over all, it’s a nice field, but the refs aren’t that good. Another good thing about Strikeforce is the owner. He is very committed to customer satisfaction and does his best to help you out. That’s why it’s a bit upsetting that the employees don’t care at all.

If it was only the field, I'd probably give Strikeforce four stars. But you can't forget the pro shop. Before I start, I'll say I'm surprised that I didn't give the entire place two stars because of the shop.

Being straight up, the shop is awful. You'll be lucky to find a gun for less than $300, everything is extremely overpriced. That's not why I have a grudge against it though... I tried to use them for gun repairs (TWICE). Both times I got them back unfixed. [Skip to the end if you don’t want to listen to me rant about my encounter with the pro shop] The first gun I dropped off was a G36c, a fairly common gun. I was told that it would be about two or three weeks for the repairs. After two months, they finally stopped answering my calls (good customer service, right?). That's when I showed up. Turns out they lost my gun… Lucky for me, it happened to be the only tan G36c. If not, they would have had no idea what happened to it. At the end of this story, they had my gun for over a year. It was actually approaching two years. I finally stop by the shop (for the 12th or 13th time) and they give me the gun, saying it’s fixed. Guess what! It wasn't fixed.

Now for gun number two. I dropped my other airsoft gun off, and again, two or three weeks. I show up after a month because I was playing that day. They said they needed more time. I then showed up a month later, again because I was playing, and they had some dude bring the gun to me. They diagnosed it, telling me the single part that was broken, but then he said they don't have that part and handed me my gun back. (When I got home, within five minutes I contacted G&G and they sent me the part) Even though I was a little upset about this, at least they didn't hold onto my gun for a year and a half. What does make me a bit mad though, is that they cracked my optic. To some of the spoiled little kids that play at Strikeforce, an $80 EOTech replica wouldn’t upset them. They'd just have their mommy or daddy buy them a new one. For me though, that's eighty bucks down the drain. I brought this up with the techs and they said that they won't be held responsible. (For both guns I ended up talking to the owner and told him about what I was dealing with. Both times he said that he’d make sure the gun was fixed by my next visit. I even saw him talk to the guys at the shop. Problem was they didn’t listen. I actually think the techs the first gun ended up being “let go” within a few months after I encountered them. Sadly, the new guys for my second gun weren’t too qualified either.)

(Oh, I forgot to mention this in the first part. There are a lot of spoiled little kids who have their "trophy wife" mother buy them every little thing with the doctor/lawyer father's money. These ten to thirteen year olds look like they're about to be dropped off in Afghanistan, all decked out in equipment. I guess that could be good if they'd enlist when they turn 18, but chances are they won't)

All in all, the field is alright and the...

Been here twice already on Saturdays for the 12-4PM session.

Price: On the verge of being expensive. We've been to other fields in the tri-state area and this one is a bit pricey. $40 for a 4 hour session is a little much. Other fields I've paid $20 for a full day. This is further compounded by the number of players on the field resulting in half of the groups sitting. More on that later. I do think that $40 should be for a full day.

Staff: Great Staff is great and they REALLY focus on safety. Zero tolerance eye protection which is a must and they REALLY enforce it. Don't take your mask off or adjust on field no matter what or get kicked out for a game. This is critical because of how many little kids are playing. It takes one eyeball lost before news crews show up and now the community is in the spotlight in a negative way.

They are doing what they can so everyone can play and that might mean things are rushed. Also as a result, it's usually TDM (Team Deathmatch aka team vs team). With the number of kids here during this time I get it.

The staff overall are great. The pro shop has some knowledgeable staff and great to chat with. The refs are fair and they pay attention to what is going on in the field.

Field: CQB. As with most indoor fields, it's a CQB field. (Close Quarter Battle). Which means rooms and hallways and winding paths. No minimum engagement distance (aka no bang bang rules aka you can be shot point blank range). No full auto. No binary. No trigger feathering (use two fingers to shoot faster). No gas grenades. FPS: 380 for AEG and 350 for HPA I believe. Sidearms need to be chronoed (tested for speed).

Number of Players: 40+ from 12-4PM sessions on Saturday One criticism is that the staff chop each session in half. I understand that they are trying to do the best they can with balance and number of players. Both times I've visited, each session was cut into short rounds with half of the players sitting in alternating rounds. The rounds get shorter for each group and they end up sitting for about 10 minutes between rounds.

For $40 that's a bit annoying but again I get it. I think it's almost unnecessary because most of the players during this time are little kids and they are a bit afraid of pushing out. So the field was mostly empty. Possibly a safety thing. Not sure. But I think they could keep the groups together and keep more players on the field. Especially if there are a lot of first timers.

Being a parent, it's tough to try and do 10pm+ session for adults. Would like to see adult sessions once a month during the 12-4 period. Hoping it would be better and more intense.

New Players: I went with a few buddies and as more experienced players with our own equipment, we were swarmed by little kids asking questions. We're all down for helping others so we didn't mind but they seemed a little lost and unsure as to how to use the equipment. Not sure if they were given a briefing on their weapons prior. Also being rentals, there are a lot of "on field" issues we helped resolve.

Maybe putting a staff member on the field to play with them as a "squad leader" might be cool for a round or two.

Also if annual memberships were a bit cheaper, I'd definitely get one. Tiered memberships maybe?

$500 would be good with no more than two sessions a...

This is a mostly okay field, yes its big and large groups can fit but there are many problems that me (and possibly my friends) had. I have only played one session and been to their pro shop a few times, but these are the problems I saw while there.

The admins are maybe there for 5 minutes while they explain the game type and have you go to your spawn. Once you begin, they seem to disappear, its really disappointing. People start firing full auto instead of firing semi-auto and people don't call there hits, classic cheating.

The staff in the staging room was also very uptight about barrel covers, fair enough. But as soon as I walked out of the chrono room they yelled at me to put my barrel cover on. You also can't point your gun up and shoot because of equipment, you also can't take your mask off until your out the arena, another fair safety rule.

Another problem I had was that I was still new to the sport the last time I went. So fps didn't occur to me. It took the staff in the chrono room the entire session to realize I was above the fps limit. Seriously? They have cameras all over the arena and they couldn't see that?

I've been to the pro shop on 3 separate occasions. A week before my session, during the other teams' games, and a month after to separate the upper and lower receiver of my gun. The shop for one thing is VERY overpriced. The last time I went there, when I needed help separating the upper and lower receivers he sounded like he doubted me and my dads ability to replace the spring. The staff you see as well seem unenthusiastic, they seem to not care and they are boring almost.

The biggest problem for me and possibly many is the tape color. The tape color my friends and I were given was purple and it was a very dark purple. You could ask someone "What color are you?" But they can see your color because its a yellow that is lighter than your purple and they shoot and its pretty stupid if that were to happen.

I gave it 3 stars for the reasons above, I would've given it 2 but they are good with help questions. If the owner reads this I hope they can address my last problem about the tape. If anything, strikeforce isn't the greatest place in the world but it is the only airsoft arena remotely close...