Doctor Who: Time Fracture - Immersive Theatre experience - 07.05.2022

****Please note - Massive spoilers contained as I record the experience thoroughly for my own memory of the event. Please do not read if you wish the experience to be a surprise, as I recommend it to be****

Arrived at the U.N.I.T headquarters on the backstreets of Mayfair at 11:15am, 45 minutes before our entry tickets. Of course the doors were closed and the street was empty. All local pubs were closed and places to kill time were minimal so I would advise against anyone else arriving earlier than required.

Just before 12:00 a U.N.I.T agent came down the growing line of attendees and checked our names against the list. We were not required to provide evidence of Covid-19 vaccination or a lateral flow test thought were encouraged to wear our face masks throughout the experience. I and my companion Brian initially did so, but upon finding no one else in the group was wearing them, we pocketed them as ostensibly pointless. 

We were herded to a cloakroom just opposite a few U.N.I.T offices where a ‘scientist’ introduced us to the experience and explained that time itself was about to be entirely wiped out of existence as a consequence of a time fracturing explosive device known as a Temporal Disrupter going off sometime in 1942 (or, maybe not)

We were told that our phones were to remain off and pocketed and that bags and coats could be stored in the cloakroom for £2 per item then were encouraged to browse the offices around us for clues as to where the temporal disrupter could be located. This, as far as I could ultimately ascertain, provided no purpose other than to keep us occupied until the staff in the next section were ready to receive us, as though we found hints as to what lay ahead, since we were mostly walked (ran, actually. There was something of a sense of chaos throughout) through the experience, there was no requirement for us to find or retain any specific information at this point. 

There wasn’t time to get impatient. Another scientist walked through the door a few minutes later, introduced himself and explained a bit of the madness the U.N.I.Theadquarters was currrently dealing with, before taking us on in to a large open room full of computer screens depicting various anomalies across the world and ‘DANGER’ alerts. Scientists and engineers were running about the room fixing various bits of equipment while a glowing ‘fracture’ at the far end of the room emanated an eerie pulsing light. After some more introductions which I unfortunately largely missed as though the actors made a commendable effort of pitching their voices loudly to the crowd, it was still somewhat muffled to those of us who found ourselves further to the back of a crowd of people who appeared to have their own things to talk about. If I were to attend again - and I likely will - I would make more of an effort to get close to the action so that one doesn’t miss out on any important information.

We are palmed off briefly on an eccentric scientist who tries to convince us that the explosion has not happened in the past but actually in the future, on a parallel timeline that rips into our own reality. She isn’t being listened to and begs us to encourage the scientist in the main room to see sense and to dial his scanners from the past to the future to find the source of the explosion. We do so, meeting some resistance at first, but after a couple of increasingly severe radiation outbursts the frantic scientists decide to give it a go. The attempt is interrupted by another pulse of the time fracture and this time we are attacked by Darlek’s (No fooling!! There is an actual Darlek knocking at the door of this reality and it is actually surprisingly scary, as the scientists scream at us all to stay low to the ground as the lights flicker on and off and the Darlek attempts to bust through the invisible barrier. The Doctor in his multiple incarnations appears on the screens and says that we are safe at present but that we need to go into the time fracture to repair it from inside and that its a proper nightmare in there. Then we are all marched through into a corridor where there is an option to turn either left or right. Just about everyone chooses right because it goes straight into a room where things are obviously happening. Just out of bloody minded curiosity I follow the snaking empty corridor to the left and only briefly have concerns that I am simply heading to the loo’s before I am picked up by an actor who guides me into a room where Elizabeth I is having her wedding. One of many anomalies that are highlighted as we proceed along the tour. 

This is where I feel I hit the jackpot. I am swooped up by a female courtier whose name I regrettably did not get (I didn’t get any names. My brain was too information-saturated to take them in throughout the experience) She had read hair, an amazing smile and was 100% engaged in the role. She somehow worked with my dazed cluelessness and kept us going at a fast paced momentum. More join us and we find ourselves in a group of 5. Our actor notes that we must be from the future and that weird things are happening throughout history, not least of all the fact we have just landed at the Virgin Queen’s wedding day. She takes us around the corner and introduces us to William Shakespeare’s who she pleads with us to talk him out of quitting writing as he is currently resolved to never write again, and if he were to not do so, history as we know it would suffer. I’m not great at it and Shakespeare ultimately ends up taking up both my name and my career, but we do follow him into a room where there is some archaeologist dude who describes himself as a very bad man, but aside from that I entirely lose the gist at this point and cant keep up with what is being said or why. Turns out, it doesn’t really matter. My guide directs us to the next room which turns out to be the Torchwood offices, but since the time fracture is running down the centre of it, one half of the room is in the Victorian era and the other is modern, with modern day computer screens depicting more examples of the global madness occurring out there, including upside down pyramids. 

The next room is much larger and appears to be something of a central setting for everyone and is ostensibly something of an inter dimensional post office.. There are a couple of ‘non humans’ floating around (giving the place something of a Mos Eisley Cantina vibe), including a pig-featured biped who is a black market trader who holds an an-lib auction on site. We bid for tickets then someone in the group behind us successfully bids on a Galifreying triangle which has no relevant to me at this point but which pops up later in the story (another hint to the fact that everyone is getting a different element to the story)

An oracle is also present and with the assistance of the energy from the time fracture, which is still glowing away beneath our feet in this room, she guides us on our next move. 

The pig-faced black market trader is since having a bit of a meltdown since the Turanium(?) he has ordered has gone missing and the people who want it are very bad people. 

Our guide herds us to the next room where we duck under the fire place into Da Vinci’s workshop since he is apparently the sod who created the disruptor device on a commision in the first place, but alas they have already been taken by Zoroya, a violent character dressed all in red. Return back to the delivery service room to find that the pig-faced black market trader is getting beating up violently by an individual in red. “Found her!” I point out redundantly to my guide, taking what little opportunity I have encountered to actually be passably helpful during the experience. An altercation occurs but the violent red-dressed individual ultimately puts down the pig-faced individual and runs off with the Turanium, which now appears to have resurfaced in our short absence. 

The next section is a bar. An alien-looking lizard woman is singing beautifully on the stage at the far end. I order a large wine from the bar. It costs £10.20. It is worth it! For a period of time everyone is just left to enjoy the setting and talk among themselves.After a while things start to happen. Zoraya’s there again and is being chased by one of the Ood guides I have seen in passing. There is a bit of a gun fight, which I would have almost certain fallen to while collecting my second wine from the bar had the the bullets been real then things calm down again for a while and I meander the room and eavesdrop on my guide talking to another ‘doctor’ whereupon it presents itself that actually we need the infinity disrupter to go off, because since it has already happened (even though it hasn’t happened yet) it is now an integral part of reality that needs to happen in order for reality to continue as it has been. Or something. Wine (shrug)

I pootle off to find the bathroom. It is not signposted as such, but can be located by the double doors next to the bar and then down a small maze of corridors to a (hopefully) unisex bathroom, because both myself and a man were there and at least one of us was wrong to be, if not. 

Upon my return the doctor my guide was talking to is working his way around the room telling a few people to follow him when the lights flicker. I ask if I can take my wine with me and he says that I may (This proves to be a mistake)

My own fabulous guide disappears at around this time, likely to return to her place to greet the next Time Travellers, but her disappearance isnt actually registered in the plot (unless I missed it. One thing I concede to about this experience is that there is a LOT going on all over the place, and a lot being missed if one doesn’t happen to be looking in exactly the right place at exactly the right time)

The lights flicker and I follow the gentleman with the beard down a few eerily lit corridors into a room where we are told to stay together and “Don’t Blink”.

Oh no. Oh no no no, not that one!!

The lights go out and everyone screams. Then even louder when the spot light highlights a fearsome stone angle at the far end of the room. It blinks out again only to land on an equally terrifying angel at the other end of the room, closest to me at the back of the group, which is suddenly huddled very close together. F&$k social distancing! Out it goes again and onto the angel on the other side which is now closer and even more frightening. Out again and the angel on my side is snarling and reading for me.

“Go go go!!” The guide urges us. I’m already gone! There is a lot of jostling and clammering as everyone seeks to get out of the dark as quickly as possibly, barring one woman who happens to be immediately in front of me and who adopts the more ‘deer-like’ approach to fear and just freezes entirely. Half my wine goes over both of us as I blindly smack into the back of her.

More Twisty-turny multi-coloured-lighty corridors before I come out the other end into a small room where the group is gathered and calming down. I spot my companion among them. “Brian, I spilt my wine” I complain lightly as I join him (to some snickers, as it transpires that I now appear to have been lactating down my right breast) and endeavour not to make eye contact with the glaring woman who has the rest of it all down her back. A NEW doctor greets us here, because apparently they managed to die in their previous incarnation. She guides us into the next room which is an auditorium where the ambassadors of Gallifrey are arguing about what ought be done. 

I don’t know if it was done intentionally, but this is the one part I might have suggested being done differently. Each small group has its own ambassador who encourages us to either vote for the resurrection of this all powerful being that can fix the rift, or to oppose it. But noone appears to get the full story. For example, I was with the group to encourage this resurrection, which sounded good on the face of it. We raise them. They fix time fracture. All is well. 

Turns out, they fix the time fracture and keep Gallifrey safe as the unchanging centre of the universe, but allows everything else to become destroyed so that it can start anew. I’m pretty sure they didn’t tell me that when they are asking me to cast my vote for the resurrection thingy. But I guess that’s politics for you. 

Aaaanyhoo, talky stuff happens. Opinions are changed. Reality and all worlds therein are saved and we all leave actually rather suddenly after such an epic climax via the gift shop. It is somewhat disorientating.

I loved it! But I will be the absolute first to concede that I did not ride out this experience to its fullest. It truly is immersive and one can be as much or as little engaged as one opts to be. I took something of a backseat in my discombobulation and my guide walked me through the experience, but I think it would have been enjoyed even more fully by those who will speak up, engage, ask questions and maybe even argue the case in the final auditorium. I think I might actually go again so that I might do so. 

Just as was my experience with the War of the Worlds Immersive Experience, I was surprised at how little the Doctor Who experience was promoted. My acquaintance Brian arrived first at the venue - located in the backstreets of Mayfair - and he spoke to a member of staff who conceded that things had been so quiet recently that he was surprised the event was still running. I myself only found myself there after having found last minute tickets on Central Tickets, for little more than the admin fee. The cost of this activity,  therefore, appears to vary madly depending upon where one sources the tickets from - running from as low as £10 pp as I paid to around £30 pp

Frankly, for my own personal experience I would have considered £30 pp fair, as the actor engagement was phenomenal and I don’t know how else they could possibly have been paid what they were worth. This was a really fun immersive experience and every actor I met gave their full range and competence to their given role.  It was easy to lose oneself to the immersion of it, and two hours very quickly passed.

Smokey Barrels Virtual Hunting - 31.07.2021

 I am an animal lover. I am morally opposed to hunting (though have not yet managed to find the moral fortitude to become morally opposed to Cheeseburgers, much as I recognise the hypocrisy…)

However, in ones resolution to experience the ‘everything’ that presents itself, one purchased this wowcher deal for a virtual hunting experience at the Smokey Barrel’s pub in Fulham. 

Firstly I would like to remark upon the exemplary customer service. I purchased this deal before Covid-19 hit, and the voucher was long expired by the time we re-emerged from hiding. New management had taken over by that time, but they honoured the expired vouchers without question and kindly pointed me in the direction of their new location in Fulham.

I took my friend Matt with me for the experience. 

Upon attendance to the bar we were taken past an interior golf driving range (apparently another activity available on site) down into a small private room with a wall sized television, fur lined wooden furnishings and a couple of fake rifles.

On the side wall was a touchscreen monitor on which we were able to choose the game to hunt - Boar, Deer, Ducks, etc - and the environment in which to hunt them. My favourite setting was hunting boar on a snow covered forest (they were easier to spot. Ducks were too small and fast and Deer just made me think of Bambi) but we also tried hunting ducks on a grassy river, and deer in a summer forest. 

Before the hunt started we calibrated the rifles by shooting an X on the screen, then we set to it. I was with one of my few competitive friends for this experience, so the games took of in earnest fairly quickly. You got higher points for scoring a kill shot (through the eye, head or heart) and each round summarised each players best shots, quantity of hits and overall score. My companion generally won. My excuse is that I am morally adverse even to virtual hunting and I’m sticking to it. The reality was probably more attached to ineptitude and being 3 pints down by the 30 minute interval.

The bar staff popped in to take drinks orders often enough for us to not get thirsty, without being remotely bothersome as we got caught up in the contest.

At the end of the game we ate on site from the fairly limited and pricey menu but if I were to return for the gaming I would probably eat elsewhere, for budget and selection, but by no means was anything about this experience a disappointment.

Axe throwing - 06.02.2022

Thank god we live in the age of mobile sat nav, because this place was tucked away behind comprehensive roadworks and only apparent when looking directly at it. However, the reception was immediately super warm and amiable. We were asked to sign a disclosure and, of course, sanitise our hand before being taken to our own two lanes by our own guide Jason. He was a funny and engaging chap, He kept score on a chalk board and was and very forgiving of the fact we as a collective entirely lacked anything resembling skill at throwing axes at targets. The fact that in the final round I came in second of four is more of a testament to the comedic efforts of players 3 and 4 than the skill of players 1 and 2. The session was for an hour, and I spent around 50 minutes of it retrieving the axe from the ground where it had ineffectively bounced off the target. Jasons advice was to hold the very end of the axe handle with both hands, raise it back high above and behind our head while keeping our elbows high and our bodies relaxed, before bringing the axe forward at speed and releasing as the blade lines up with the target. No rotation necessary. I understood the principle entirely though nonetheless failed in its implementation.

Lots of fun and a great Buckt subscription activity, but if it actually is £20 pp at full price, its a very expensive hour. Perhaps it would have increased in value if I hadn’t spent so much of the time honing my bend-and-snap.

Flip Out Pinball Club / Fun House bar with ballpond - 13.11.2021

What a hidden gem this place transpires to be. Tucked away in the recesses of an industrial park, it is easy to miss. Little by the way of signage or promotion. Only when you are walking directly up to the open door do you spy the world of flashing lights and celebratory pinball music inside. 

At present it costs £10 to visit for unlimited sessions of free pinball game usage (some of the machines do appear to cost extra to play, but not so many of them as to spoil a day out if you show up with empty pockets - as I did because my entry was free with my Buckt subscription)

The staff are super friendly and mostly stay out of the way and let you do as you will unless you require them. There is a kitchenette with an honour-system of one paying what one deems fair into a jar and making ones own cup of tea, coffee or hot chocolate when one requires refreshment. It is quaint and lovely.

There are 3 rooms of pinball games of varying age and theme. Having not played much pinball myself, I was surprised to find just how comprehensive the challenges could be, directing the player to target specific areas of the table within a certain order or certain amount of time in order to yield the maximum score. Teenie-bopper pinballer that I am, I was happy just to get a respectable number of ‘pings’ before losing the ball to the unreachable centre of the main lower flippers. I very often did not. It was enjoyable nonetheless, and the constantly ‘pinging’ musical and colourfully lit ambience was an enjoyable environment in which to spend a couple of hours. It is a wonderful little place and well worth remembering when in the area again.

Onwards March to The Funhouse - a bar also located in Croydon that boasts a ball pond. How is one to resist? It doesn’t open until 8pm, so a couple of hours are killed in a local generic pub. 

Upon entering Funhouse one is treated to a day-glo and crazily decorated interior as is befitting the name. The use of the approx 8ft x 10ft (?) glass tank containing the ball pond is a surprisingly cheap £5 pp. My friend almost immediately loses his wedding ring in it, thus providing a cautionary tale and the evenings objective all in one. I was the one to find it, so his first born is mine now. I’ll probably just accept first round next time we’re drinking. Kids are a pain in the ass and I hear that you have to feed them almost every day!

One has plenty fun enough regressing to childhood by leaping into the ball pond and burrowing oneself down beneath them. But when one emerges possibly some 15 minutes later there are reasonably priced cocktails on offer, which is a must. Let’s face it, if one is in the mood for a ball pond, one is almost certain in the mood for cocktails.

Flip Out Pinball, Unit 10, James Business Park, Mill Lane, Croydon, CR0 4AA

FunHouse, 91-101 High street, Croydon, CR0 1QF   

Trampolining and Salsa Dancing - 17.10.2021

I got to combine two Buckt activities together today. Trampolining at Zap Space and a beginners Salsa Class at the Lynch International School of Dance.

Now, I believe in Fun over Frills any day of the week, and for that reason I wasn't entirely disheartened when I walked into Zap Space to find it bore little more than a passing resemblance to the neon lit, high energy multi-floor soft-play arena of bouncing super-fun that Google images had hinted at. It did nonetheless fall short of those images. Additionally, few of the lockers actually locked, the toilets were 'yeesh' and the seating area consisted of a number of flimsey wooden bench-tables on a dimley lit,sticky-floored platform that resembled both in image and vibe a club dance floor at the end of the night.

However, that first precarious giggle-inducing bounce off a trampolining captured the real essence of the venue. The first section is a simple grid of equally sized, equally space trampolines for the beginners to cut their teeth on. It felt more peculiar than I remembered or imagined it would feel, being projected up into the air by that elasticated weave. For the first few minutes it was all I could risk simply to jump, and not even as daringly high as my companion, and that was all it took to get me sweating. I used the excuse of a break to pootle up to the next level which turned out to be something of a "Gladiator-esque" soft play baton battle over a pool of soft foam squares. I took on my activity buddy James and lost. I then took him on again with the berserker fury of a woman who would not be made to look a fool in front of 3 almost entirely disinterested 7 year olds (one of whom was more focused on gnawing at one of the foam squares, such are the catering facilities at ZapSpace) who had nothing to do with us.... and lost again. So I gathered together what remained of my diginity and took it to the corner of the room where there was a single small cirulate trampoline set in the floor in front of a panel of randomly lit buttons and a score board. To start the game I had to hit the red panel near the top of the grid, which required me to bounce as high as I could on the aforementioned trampoline and thus started the game inwhich I was to slap my hand against each of the panels as they lit up. I scored 28 by the time was up. I was pretty happy with it. Not because it was a particularly high score, but because it was A score. (A great deal of my contentment in life comes from setting a low bar of success for myself. I am almost never disappointed, whilst almost always being a disappointment. Meh! *Shrugs*)

There was also a half pipe trampoline in that section which I had absolutely bugger all idea what to do with. So I moved on up to the next level. And found a slide!! Back up a level. Slide again!! Back up a level... My friend James stopped me pre-slide on the third attempt and pointed me upstairs before I could make a fool of either of us for a third time (I dont think it was the slide he minded so much as the obligatory room-filling "Wheeeeeeeeee" that accompanied it each time...  But in my defence it was really steep and if I dont laugh I scream. I did it for dignity. And fun. Mostly fun)

The top level and we found "Trampoline Dodgeball" It was kind of fun, but us 3 were the only adults there, and it felt kind of dickish to throw the balls at teeny tiny little children, so mostly we bounced whilst playing catch for a bit, and threw balls (gently) back when they bounced our way. 
Back down again (Slide!!!) then back up again to the softplay baton area where I finally beat James and celebrated my utterly meaningless victory by waving my baton over my head as though it were a FIFA trophy to the amusement of the Floor Assistant and the bemusement of literally everyone else. 

Back down again (Sliiiiiiide!!) and we spent the remainder of the hour simply working on 'our moves' on the lower level trampolines. By this time I grew confident enough to project myself up as high as my daring companion and even attempted to travel from one trampoline to another, but alas, despite a couple of passable attempts I mostly kept landing somewhat uncomfortably and entirely without grace on the harder foam platforms that connected them. 
By the end of an hour I was sweaty but happy. Three of us attended and all three of us 30-somethings left broken in some respect or another. J's Back was Busted, L's Calf was a Casuality and my Thigh was Fu... *ahem* 'Fundamentally less than in perfect condition'.

But It - Was - Fun!

We filled up with Mexican food a short walk down the road before bidding our Adieu's and me moving on to my next activity for the day, an Introductory class to Salsa. 

The Lynch International School of Dance in Stratford is actually based in the Atherton Leisure Centre. I followed a crowd of very friendly people into a room which actually turned out to be a 30 minute taster session of Rumba dancing. It was a simple ballroom square dance which I was able to mostly pick up by the end of the session on account of both its delightful simplicity and the repetive, patient and charasmatic guidance of the dance tutor David (lovely man!) He had to show us all how to do the simplist moves repeatedly before we all got it (mostly) passably right, but his patience didn't drop for an instant. 
As is to be somewhat expected, the women outnumbered the men in this class by something outrageous like 30 to 5. So we adopted a system of the women queing in front of each man and the first one in line actually dancing with the man at the head of her respective queue until the end of the song, before going back to the end of the line and being replaced by the next woman behind her.
Me, I was just fine dancing by myself. I felt I had it until there was another set of feet to trip over. So I practiced until I got near to the head of the 'Line of Mortal Humiliation' then politely extracted myself from the class.
Worse caught by the stealthy assistant Yvone (Lovely lady!) who lured me back to the beginners salsa class in a different room. She showed me a few basic salsa steps in the remaining hour and a half. The Mambo, the backward combo, the side step, the cross step, The Open and The Bow Tie. On a brief intermission while she left the room I also quietly attempted to mirror the sensual hand-work being performed by the 'big kids class' at the other side of the room, but while they perfectly inferrred sensual caresses with their delicate hand movements, I myself looked like I was smothering myself with invisible jam. In fact Yvonne returned just in time to see me having given up on sensuality and simply resorting to licking the invisible jam off myself. (Yeugh, gooseberry!) She clearly had questions, but was too polite to ask. 

Both classes were amazing. And though I went for the Salsa class, I was actually most proud to have come away with a (admittedly basic) ballroom dance. That's another useless talent for my "be prepared for anything" personal-skills bat-belt.
Probably will not return for regular classes pretty much entirely because of how far out of my area they are. But I would heartily recommend either of them to anyone.

Digital Treasure Hunt - 14.08.2021

As part of my Buckt activity list for this month I received a digital treasure hunt for 2x people. It was provided by “The Great Game” and is available in multiple regions of multiple cities throughout the UK. For my own purposes I chose the North London package because it was on the door step of the Chaos Karting I was attending that morning, and because frankly there is little to do in North London (that I can afford to do) and so I know less about the area than I know about others.

The Hunt took us through the Barbican centre, alongside the London Wall for a stretch and past the St Paul’s Cathedral and the Museum of London. We detoured into the Barbican conservatory as it was close by and I had never gone before. Entrance is free but one is meant to book ahead. They were kind enough to let us little two through on this occasion though. It is a pretty little tropical forest enclave in the urban labyrinth of barbican walkways. There is even a koi pond and some terrapins.

The treasure hunt itself relied heavily upon a sense of direction, and even with a compass I concede to this being something of a major weakness in this individual who basically derives the bulk of her joy from getting and being lost. Fortunately, my companion James counters it with an almost superhuman ability to point himself in the direction of North upon request. For my part I found I was better able to unscramble word clues. Neither of us was particularly good at spotting the landmarks that were supposed to indicate a change of direction, so a 2-3 hour hunt became an 6 hour one, admittedly with the assistance of a couple of interesting looking pubs along the way that simply needed to be investigated.

The end prize was a 20% discount off food and drink at a traditional pub not too far away from St Paul’s Cathedral. The Food selection wasn’t astounding but cheeseburgers were on it and that’s all I require from my menu selection.

I cheated myself by cheating on the hunt. I think that it would have been perfectly accomplishable with some genuine effort if I hadn’t felt compelled in myself to get us through each stage quickly enough to not incur frustration in my companion. And for that I failed us both as I know my companion is not remotely prone to frustration or impatience. I will most likely be attempting another Treasure Hunt in the fullness of time, with a resolution to tearing up the cheat sheet. 

Chaos Karts - 09.08.2021

 

The first rule of Chaos Karts is “You do not talk about Chaos Karts”.

Well, at least it was at the time, when I found it on a debut deal of £15 for two people to test the bare-bones experience before it opened to the public at full price the following week. 

I don’t know what the full experience would entail but what I got was a whole load of exhilarating, side-splitting fun. It is indoor go-karting without the spine-juddering vibrations or need for a helmet or safety gear. If you come off the tracks, the Kart slows to a crawl. If you are particularly inept as a driver, as I appeared to be, you can still crash into other karts (though I don’t recommend it. They felt expensive. But there was no pain to the driver upon collision)

This experience allows one to whizz the kart around a day-glo track in a dark room with a virtual scene (such as “space” or “a desert”) changing on the walls around you every so often. Overhead lights project gems and “power up” items at random places of the track. The aim of the game is to gain the most number of points by collecting gems and using the power up items to disable the other karts. The button to the left of the steering wheel shoots the karts ahead of you. The button to the right of the steering wheel drops sabotaging items onto the track such as (virtual) eggs for the unsuspecting karts behind you to get stuck in. If you are skilled, you can veer around these dropped items. If you are me, your Kart will be forced into a halt for a few seconds while you simmer with plans of vengeance. 

Shooting lasers across the arena whilst throwing ones kart around the corner was tremendous fun. I got 2 rounds out of the experience, and that is the only slightly negative thing I have to say about it. Two rounds didn’t last very long at all, and at the price it currently promises to retail at, I would hope that the consumer would get a longer experience.