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Light touch needed

29Aug06

Rod and James McIntosh are part of the winning natonal laser tag team.

JAMES McIntosh would like to spend his life in a dark room with lasers.

The 22-year-old captained the winning team of the Australian laser tag championships, held at the Zone 3 centre in Leumeah recently.

Although laser tag is an amateur sport, McIntosh hopes its popularity in the US and Scandinavia will lead to it reaching professional status in the next few years.

"If I could get paid to play it as a professional sport, that's the lifestyle I'd choose," McIntosh, who also works at Zone 3, said.

Teams of six players, who wear computerised vests and use gun-like laser "phasers" to defend their own base and "shoot" at the opposing team's base, contested the laser tag national championships.

McIntosh's team, Campbelltown A, called themselves "the Anti-Crisis" during the championships, a tongue-in-cheek reference to how the other teams in the competition handled the high-pressure games.

"A lot of teams, if they don't do well, they come out yelling," McIntosh said.

"They spend their time having crisis meetings.

"We just get on with the job."

Zone 3 co-owner Andrew Larkin said laser tag, which is generally played in a multi-level maze room, was a physical activity.

Mr McIntosh said he "actually felt healthy" after the championship marathon.

"For anyone who wanted to lose weight, it's definitely the way to do it," he said.

"I've never sweated so much in my life."