MI-Combat — Local services in Madison Heights

Went here with my 16 year-old son to play during an open session. We have played laser tag at lots of different places from family-friendly Zap Zone to scenario-based Hard Knocks in Orlando. MI-Combat is probably the most physically intense laser tag experience we've had, but not our best overall laser tag experience (which belongs to Hard Knocks). The session is 90 minutes. Once you enter the arena to play, you'll be playing the entire time - breaks between games are short and you stay in your gear, which I enjoyed. I'd suggest bringing a water bottle in with you to leave in the base. Games run around 7-10 minutes, and there are many different styles of games that mimic the current trend in video game shooters - capture the flag, team deathmatch, etc. This kept things pretty fresh. Wyatt was the employee helping us out and he was great. The girl at the front desk that checked us in was amazing. Average age of the other players was probably 20.

The equipment seemed to work fine, despite a little difficulty with a clip that didn't want to stay in place. We wore headbands and vests, neither of which were heavy. A couple headbands on the other team weren't working. The guns were heavy and looked realistic, which we liked. The arena lighting and obstacles were cool. If I were running things, I'd probably eliminate lines of sight between the two bases so that players did not get sniped by veterans as soon as they spawned at the base, but perhaps I could have just played better, who knows. Veterans in the session knew exactly where to camp and were far better players, leading to far more eliminations. Kudos to them.

The issue of veterans playing with newbies during an open session isn't unique, be it paintball, airsoft or this style of laser tag. People that play frequently are generally going to OWN people that haven't been there before, and in the general session this was no different. There were 3-4 veteran players/employee-players with incredibly high stats who were mixed into the open session, and they really dominated things and seemed to be playing their own game by their own rules. We eliminated them from time to time. They were not impolite and barely interacted at all with us newbies. They vastly outscored everyone, but again, they weren't rude or anything - laser tag just appears to be their thing. Hard to fault them. My son and I agreed if we were coming back we would probably want to come back in a party situation where we had the entire space rented and the playing field a bit more level. We were level one players, and some of these guys were level 99, so the disparity was real.

Overall it was really fun and intense and a great workout, despite being a bit imbalanced. I suppose if you know going into an open session that you might be up against elite players, all good. Employees were nice, facilities were nice and clean, players were fine. Games were intense. I'm still giving it five stars because we had a great time, even though I'm not sure we'll return. Maybe...

I absolutely love this place. I been coming here almost 2 years now. The staff is absolutely amazing. I love them guys. I promise you their number one goal is to make everyone happy and try their best to make sure everyone has a good time. I normally don't write reviews but I felt the need to because I been seeing some misinformation in the reviews. First off, most pro/regular players ARE NOT EMPLOYEES. We pay just like everyone else does. We literally get treated just like everyone else and we get absolutely no special treatment. We all started off getting our butt's kick but we spent alot of money and time on getting better. Not to mention this game is very fun and addicting.

PUBLIC SESSIONS: Anyone can play in a public session. It literally tells you on the website that their may be a skill difference in public sessions. Having good and competitive players is apart of this game. In some public sessions the pro players are told to chill out and or we have to play on a higher difficulty especially if it's a bunch of kids. When we play on a higher difficulty it takes us 4 shots to kill everyone and 1 or 2 shots for everyone to kill us depending on the difficulty we chose. You literally have 3 seconds everytime you respawn to get out of the base. I can't tell you how many times the field judges and the players tell people this and they literally just sit in base dying and complains about not being able to get out the base. If you keep dying over and over the field judges will also tell you where you are getting killed from. In addition to the field judges, the pro players also try and coach our teams and gives newer players tips and tricks on what to do. Besides a few people, most people love when they have pro players on their team. All of us are nice people so don't hesitate if you have any questions or want any tips on how to play. My gamer name is ALFDAWG by the way if you have any questions or just want to say hi.

TEAM BALANCING: At the beginning of the game, the staff tries their best to put balanced teams together. If it's pro players in the session they try to even them out on both teams. One of the hardest reasons why sometimes it's hard for them to balance teams is because it's a big group and they all want to play together. So sometimes you'll end up with a team of adults vs a team of kids. I understand people want to play together but sometimes it would be easier for them to balance teams if big groups were more willing to split up. If teams are not balanced and one team is winning all the games, they will either swap a pro player from the other team or put an employee in to help the losing team win some games in which I think is fair. Sometimes the pro players are told to chill out and we would literally tank games so the other team can win. In which I have no problem because I understand.

If you have any questions, problems or concerns, go talk to the staff. I promise you they will try their best to make it right. Like I said earlier they want everyone to leave happy and have...

Was a big fan of this place before my previous visit. When I arrived with my group of 4, we found out that some employees were going to play with us. I had a buddy visiting from NYC who had never done anything like this before so I was very excited to share this place / experience with him. Me and my 4 buddies were teamed up with a bunch of 13 year old kids, which was no problem to us, until we realized 4 employees hopped on the other team... They absolutely feasted on us the entire time. We couldn't even last 2 seconds out of the respawn zone because the employees knew all the camp spots and just dumped fire onto the spawn non stop. It was absolutely the worst experience ever. The employee who watched over our game was absolutely terrible at his job ( bigger kid , brown hair and glasses). The one employee we got on our team ( yes we only had 1 to their 3-4 ) was named tofur. He was absolutely amazing, not only at the game , but just as a person in general. He actually sympathized with our situation and felt bad. The employee who was monitoring our team however , was a huge jerk, saying " they have the same guns you have " and basically mocking us the whole time. This event costs 30$ and it was an absolute waste of money. I'll never be coming back here in fear that I might show up and have to play against employees who have done this 1000 times. Where did it say I was going to have to play against employees when I signed up? There were only 4 open slots so it's not like we didn't have a large group and needed people to fill in to make it fair. The fact that once the employees saw it was a bunch of kids and their dads and decided to hop on the opposite team and feast on us was a disgrace. Spawn camping in the same spot every single round for the duration of each round.... There were times we would not even make it 5 steps out of the spawn and all of us were dead . This would happens 4-5 deaths in a row. Clearly this place is run by people who just want to boost their stupid personal ranks and stats against amateurs. Total joke, my guest was super disappointed and it put a huge damper on the night. Couldn't shake the feeling that we were absolutely taken advantage of and the employees didnt care at all. After the first game we voiced our concerns and we were met with rude remarks from the employee with the glasses ( who also refused to give me his name once he knew I was going to leave a negative review ) . This was also a small going away party for myself as I'm moving to Pittsburgh In a few days. Huge disappointment. I hyped this place up to my siblings with children and now I'm going to have to share with them how poorly this place is managed. I would have given it 0 stars if that was possible . Thankfully I have a very large social media following who I will be able to warn...