Biohazard: The Escape

So during my Golden week I went down to Universal Studios Japan and took part in Biohazard: The Escape.  I was supposed to blog about this ages ago but because I'm stupid I forgot to do it.  Just for the record, the people who run the event are very adamant about people not posting spoilers so I'll only be describing what the event IS rather than any of the intricate details.

So one thing that seems to be quite popular in Japan are "Escape Games".  These are games where you are given a bunch of puzzles to solve in a certain time limit and you must solve them all in order to win.  Each game comes with its own plot line to add a little bit more immersion to the whole experience and while they are very challenging (and a little expensive) they are very enjoyable.  The company who run these games do have their own original stuff but sometimes they theme their games on popular anime/movies or whatever.  The last game I did prior to Biohazard was based on a show called Assassination Classroom

I've never seen the show or read it's Manga but that didn't take away much from the overall experience, these things are rather well crafted.

So what about Biohazard?  Well of course, this thing being part of USJ means that it was WAYYYYY above anything that I've done before this point.  At the start all the players are herded into a big room and are given a map, a padlocked box and an iPad.  The basic premise for the game is that you came to a recording studio to see a presentation of a new energy patch put out by Umbrella but during the show the place gets overrun by T-Virus and Zombies.  From there you are told you have 60 minutes to cure yourself and escape the building or, like all classic Resi games, you get bombed to death.

Then the game starts and you are let into a 4 story building in order to solve a punch of puzzles that are delivered to you via the iPad you were given at the start.  If I mention any more specifics from that point onwards I'd be spoiling puzzles so this is where my description ends.  At the end though, all the losers, which comprised 85% of the players were put into a room, told the answers to the puzzles so we could have a collective "are you kidding me!?" moment and then we were bombed to death (room filled with smoke) while I Tyrant ran around the room scaring people.

During the event, there were a number of actors dressed up as Zombies who were lurking around the venue in order to scare the pants off you.  They absolutely weren't allowed to touch you but they did an effective job.  They would move around, hide, act erratically, my hat goes off to the people they brought in to do that, great job.  Overall the whole thing was awesome and it was a truly memorable experience.

I'm already excited for my next escape game, I'm just surprised one hasn't been Layton themed yet.