This is your mission... if you choose to accept it: Grab a handful of friends and find a fun alternative to movie nights and house parties.

Your supplies include a plastic gun, glowing vest pack and some trippy blacklights.

(Cue spy music.)

No longer just for 8-year-olds' birthday parties, laser tag is steadily becoming a more popular outing for the college crowd.

"Anything involved in games, you can write off as childish. But mature people like to have fun, too," studio art freshman Kyle McPhail said of the game he plays monthly.

"It really gets you pumped up. It's fun to stop being serious for a while and get out and have fun."

When McPhail walks into the dimly lit, fog-filled, neon-glowing laser tag arena, he creeps around every corner, formulating his strategy.

"My friends and I get pretty into it. It's very competitive," he said. "You get to brag when you win."

In a game of laser tag, competitors split up into two or three teams of up to 15 people per side, while some more hard-core competitors choose to play one-on-one. The teams enter the nearly pitch-black arena - often tagged with neon-colored graffiti and blacklights - then peer through fog and listen to a countdown as they run and hide, waiting for the game to begin.

With the starting note of a heavy-metal song with a thick bass line or maybe the theme from "Star Wars," players run around as if they were military commandos or international spies aiming at opponents, while shooting them with plastic laser guns.

For about 15 minutes, it's a no-holds-barred, all-out, shoot-em-up match that turns friends into enemies - kinda.

Running around in the dark while shooting friends with plastic guns might only seem like fun to those who still have training wheels on their bicycles, but fans of the game swear it's for us soon-to-be grownups, too.

"Just because they haven't played, they might think it's for little kids," said Frank Aljahmi, an advertising senior and manager of Lansing laser tag spot Zap Zone. "Usually when they experience it, they realize it's worth their time and money."

While playing laser tag, people can really get involved in the game, Aljahmi said.

"It's like putting yourself in a video game rather than just playing it," he said.

Zap Zone is a 4,000-square-foot arena with two-and-a-half levels.

According to www.lasertag.org, online home for the International Laser Tag Association, laser tag began in the 1980s after a "Star Wars" fan watched the Millennium Falcon battle scene.

Laser Tag facilities started popping up around the country through the '90s. Now, hundreds of franchise and privately owned laser tag venues are operating across the country.

Lansing resident Samantha Cartwright, 21, is a Zap Zone employee and proudly boasts her agent code name, "the queen."

"I'm never going to grow up," the Lansing Community College student said.

For students looking to add some excitement to their weekend activities, some say laser tag is a good option.

"At a movie, you can't talk - you veg," Cartwright said. "This is high-energy. Everyone comes in and goes crazy."

Most laser tag venues are open only during the evenings and weekends, but both Lansing-area arenas do offer private rental times for groups or corporations.

"It's an entertainment that's active," said Dave Jackson, manager of Edru Skate-A-Rama, a one-level 3,000-square-foot arena which houses Laser Storm in Holt. "It's almost like a workout."

While Jackson said the majority of his clientele is middle school students, college organizations such as sororities and fraternities might enjoy a night of laser fun.

"If you're older, you can kinda be a kid again and run around and shoot your buddy," he said.