Laser tag was first released in 1979 with the release of Star Trek Electronic Phasers toy manufactured by South Bend Electronics. Much like the show by that name, the game was tremendously popular, and its popularity has only increased over the years. In the 1980s and later, hundreds of arenas were built all over the nation to cater to the fans of the game. With time, the prices of the laser tag guns lessened, which induced players to buy their own laser tag guns, and play the game at home. Enterprising and innovative ways were found to mesh the two forms of playing together – with portable and inflatable laser tag arenas, you could have the fun of a professionally designed arena at the location of your choice.
The first step for online laser tag games can be said to be first person shooter games like Wolfenstein and Half-Life. The player of these games has a gun and other weapons which he or she uses to accomplish the goal provided within the game. These games were widely popular, and allowed virtual gunfights between players or between players and computer. First person shooter is a classic form of a computer game, and some of the later laser tag games are inspired by these FPS games.
With the popularity of Quake and the more recent Halo, first person shooter games have proven themselves to be one of the most popular forms of computer games. Online laser tag owes a lot to games such as these.
Online laser tag properly refers to playing laser tag on a computer or arcade system, and following the rules of the game. Usually, online laser tag is played as a team game, with different members of the teams playing the games from their own terminals. Most of the online laser tag games are flash based, and can be played from within a browser. But these are also the simplest of all games. For more interesting versions of online laser tag, you can play the game within the game engines of games such as Half-Life or Quake. These games allow arena mode of game playing, where you and your buddies can follow the rules of the laser tag game you wish to play.
Just as you can in laser tag arenas, you can play different games of laser tag online too. These include the games inspired from movies such as Terminator and Alien; and classic laser tag games such as the Laser Tag Elimination or Basic Laser Tag. With the use of virtual arena from games such as Half-Life and Quake, you can choose from all the different games you play in real life.
Online laser tag is the virtual cousin of the game of laser tag, and just like some cousins, it can prove different than expected, with its own peculiarities. But once you get accustomed to it, you can expect a lot of entertainment from online laser tag – as thousands of players have already found.