I'm not talking about serving in the armed forces or law enforcement, but rather a simulated role-playing environment that strives to replicate the main aspects of an FPS.

While there are plenty of games that have the mechanics of an FPS in real life (i.e. laser tag, paintball), an FPS simulation with character and universe immersion is a newly realised concept. The first one was created just this year, and is going through its maiden run in Melbourne, Australia.

IRL Shooter

This was a project run by a bunch of independent film industry guys seeing if they could put essentially combine laser tag and role playing. When the notion was first introduced, the gist of what we were promised was an immersive experience with real actors, real props in a detailed environment. The guns were laser technology but were supposed to have real recoil and sounds (sadly the latter part was stymied by Australian customs and our gun laws).

In short there are naturally teething problems and technical issues to be expected when running an unprecedented project built from scratch, but what one gets is an immersive experience which gives back as much as you put into it. Get into character and in this incarnation you're a soldier enlisted into a private security firm employed by a sinister corporate conglomeration which is trying to regain control of a research facility that has suffered an outbreak of a zombie virus. You've gotta infiltrate the facility with your team of six and find out what the hell happened, and whether anybody's alive... or whether the whole place has turned into a grotesque zoo of zombies and monsters.

Despite the shortcomings with the weapons (which ended up having crappy sound and no recoil), the experience was nonetheless very satisfying, with creepy atmosphere, mystery and intrigue and conflicting reports and a slightly open-ended backstory. For the average person who's never played paintball let alone been to a combat zone this was a good test of teamwork, reflexes and fitness... and funnily enough there was a lot of interest from members of the armed forces who were itching to test their skills on a recreational basis. I was kinda halfway in between, having plenty of paintball and FPS experience, compared to my teammates who had virtually none and screamed every time a zombie came charging out (and I mean charging). So they pretty much all agreed that I should be field commander and I got to draw upon my tactical simulator experience (thank my many hours playing Rainbow Six) and managed just about every action my team made until we were a smooth efficient unit. Even if the game itself wasn't particularly challenging for a veteran, I still felt a real sense of achievement that we all defeated the boss, completed the mission and made it out with no casualties, and that indicated that it was a good experience.

In fact I was so excited about this project that I even made t-shirts for my team. We're all resident doctors, so...

Haha geddit?

At any rate, to be entirely honest, being the way I am, if I wanted to feel the real visceral thrill of risking one's life and limb (and face), where I could pretty much go all out, I would still prefer paintball. But paintball doesn't have this kind of roleplaying experience which encourages one to get in character, and is physically demanding and caters to a much smaller audience (i.e. none of my friends, because they're wimps).

When the whole process is refined, and perhaps when some of the other obstacles have been overcome, I would recommend this "IRL shooter" experience to any who have caught themselves wishing they could saddle up and be the ****** they're playing as in their FPS.

but I think what you described seems pretty boring, I like paintball because if you get shot your punished

For me personally, I agree with you and that's the gist of my conclusion. But I see it being of independent value for other people.

What I've described is only relevant to your interests if you like roleplaying in a universe somebody else created. The big drawcard for me was supposed to be that the guns were laser tech BUT had a "realistic amount" of recoil, but since Australian customs prohibit the import of any gun components, real or replica, that was not possible. The other things that separate this from laser tag is that it's not PvP, there are real actors and universe-consistent props and briefing etc. i.e. the "immersive experience" I mentioned.

I think I actually like the difference of the depth of the objective. When I go to laser tag or paintball it's difficult to organise 30 random people most of whom you've never met before (usually it works out like this unless you book a party of dozens of people), into doing anything other than hiding behind a pile of rocks/a tree/some generic prop in rounds of 15 minutes. Paintball isn't demanding if all you're doing is that, occasionally ducking out, and firing a few shots... but I don't think that's fun either. I think paintball is a great opportunity to test out whether all those moves from Max Payne and The Matrix actually help you dodge bullets (to quote the referee: "I've never seen anybody dive through that window headfirst until today.")

Only time will tell if there's enough of a market for this business model to survive beyond the novelty value period. I for one wouldn't organise a group of people to do it, but would go along if good friends asked me to (and I wasn't running behind on my mortgage repayments), and some of the tech issues had been ironed out. I'm interested to see how the players in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth take it: there is apparently so much interest that people who can't book a slot into one state are going to fly interstate so they can play at another location!

and you are a doctor. No wonder you were team captain.

Well our whole team consisted of classmates from college so we were all doctors. Just out of them I was the only one who played lots of FPS.

p.s. I also agree, Miranda Kerr is a good thing indeed.

So what happens when you die? Do you just go limp and lay there on the ground or get dragged all around until it's all over? Or do you just leave the area?

Haha geddit?

You know it's bad if it makes me groan and shake my head.

So what happens when you die? Do you just go limp and lay there on the ground or get dragged all around until it's all over? Or do you just leave the area?

Game rules theoretically had two options: either you go easy and when you run out of HP I think you respawn (not sure how they'd make you do that), or you go hard and you have to stay where you are and HQ send a rescue team (i.e. staff) to extract you.

Hard mode was also supposed to have finite ammo but they configured our guns to have 40 clips of 30 rounds ROFL. Only one of my teammates was running out because he liked to spray and pray, and I was always telling people to hold their fire if the targets weren't immediately in sights because I'm used to games where, you know, I run out of ammo, or even paintball, where you have to pay for the extras and that's what blows the bill way outta proportion, so as a result I prefer to either play paintball without my gun, or pretending that my gun has ammo in it and forcing people to yield by jamming the barrel in their face.

I didn't know how difficult the game was going to be but since it was catering to "average joe", we could have easily finished the game on hard settings. I took more damage from lingering too near their control hardware (for sound effects, lighting and smoke lol) which was guarded by sensors that penalised you so you'd stay away and not break immersion. I suspect it would be difficult to adjust settings for all the teams as they were rolling a new team through the complex every 20 minutes and the mission took 60-90 minutes.

Considering lasers aren't too large, it would seems to me that it would require greater accuracy to score a kill. That probably wouldn't be as fun as just shooting paintballs.

The main problem I have with shooting paintballs is that because their muzzle velocity is only 300-400 ft/s, and they're sphreical low-density rounds, they tend to curve erratically. Outside of the point blank range they're not awfully effective except to scare people into thinking you can hit them. I mean seriously, after about 10 yards or so you can see the things coming. On that note I tend to only get hit by people who are shooting from point blank (generally against game rules for health and safety reasons) as a result.

And as a result of that, I've taken to hiding my gun and running around unarmed while playing paintball. I actually achieve more when not shooting.