If you’re one of those people who gets just the slightest bit competitive while playing Mario Kart (and honestly, who isn’t), you’d probably jump at the chance of competing with your friends in a real life video game. Well now you can do just that, because a racing-themed live action video game experience has opened on Shoreditch’s Fleet Street Hill. Chaos Karts throws players into a virtual world, where they can live inside a real-life video game to race-battle their friends while driving real go-karts. Better practise your racing skills beforehand!
The experience combines real-life go-karting with the realms of a digitally projected world, connecting the physical vehicles with a virtual track. Drivers can cruise through the streets of London, the Nevada desert, Florida beaches, and even outer space. Just like in our favourite video games, players can use power-ups and ‘weapons’ such as laser guns, hammers, bombs, and speed boosts to add that extra bit of competitiveness to the battle. Since there will be no actual obstacles on the track, and an anti-collision technology prevents karts from crashing into each other, it’s entirely safe for anyone over the age of 13 — no helmets or driving suits required!
Tom Lionetti-Maguire, the founder of Chaos Karts, said: “Every time you play it, the adrenaline, the pure elation of it… it still surprises me every time. The gamification of experiences is a phenomenon that is here to stay, and this is the purest distillation of it… it’s a game and an experience, wrapped up in a whole load of silliness, with a sprinkling of nostalgia for good measure.”
Tickets for the Chaos Karts experience are now on sale, and you can find more info here.
