Cerberus Airsoft - The Works - Site review.

[Airsoft-Ed]

Attended my first ever Cerberus event at The Works yesterday, I had to get up before 6am to give myself time to meet up with mates to share a car down and get a McDonalds on the way, we were utterly pumped for it, having only heard good things.

 

We arrived on site at around 9 and after talking to one of the staff were told that sign in wouldn't be for at least another hour! So we sorted our kit out in that space of time, paid and by the time we'd had the brief and got into the first game it was already 1045. Considering it gets dark at about 1530 I was expecting it to start earlier, but there were people who weren't ready and bombed up even at half 10, so there's not a lot they could've really done about that.

 

We were taken to our start points and the game was a straight death match, go and shoot the other team, when you're hit, come back to regen. Infinite lives, boom.

 

Being new to the site and Cerberus in general, I thought this was going to be a warm up game or something, there was no mention of keeping score and what became immediately apparent was that you could pick a route, right, left or 'the ridge' as we started calling it, and once you were committed to that route, there wasn't much else you could do. Not a lot of flanking opportunities, there was no cutting across lanes once you'd picked one, it was very linear and once both teams had made even ground, the infinite regens just made the whole game a never ending stalemate. If they advanced more, they'd be in our regen, if we advanced more, we'd be in theirs. All the while whoever held the ridge had clear shots on almost everyone at one end of the game area, or anyone who tried to cross the centre open courtyard type place.

 

I was given conflicting information 3 times by different marshals about where the boundaries were relating to the ridge and the paths up onto it meaning I couldn't even get up there with confidence that I wasn't going out of bounds. The marshals had radios; would it be that hard to confirm with each other? At one point one of them even said that he'd just "radioed another not 10 second since" confirming a certain path was fair game, when I'd just come from a marshal saying it wasn't... Do I use it? Do I leave it? There were people doing both. Once I knew where I was and what was happening I somehow managed to get into a little room overlooking the entire enemy team. Only, because I was new to the site, I wasn't sure if it was the enemy team, or mine had flanked around somewhere and started pushing the enemy towards the centre from the back.

 

The reason for my confusion was because the other team were given bands, which were both red and blue and from a distance blue is almost impossible to see against more or less any camo, I was staring at 6+ guys with no idea I was there, but team IDing was so hard I couldn't take the shots. I raised this with a marshal and was told people kept stealing the bands so they had to mix colours with what was left, originally one team would be blue and the other red, in which case IDing blue wouldn't have been an issue; they said there was nothing they could do about it. I think buying more would've been a fair plan? I suggested using tape in the mean time, but he said it wasn't cost effective, which I can imagine being true, but it could at least be used as a stand in until more armbands were acquired.

 

Food was provided on site for free, but the price tags were still on it, I'd have gladly paid the £1-2 for food myself if that money could've gone on armbands. I'd rather buy food myself and have a good day than get food free, seemingly to make up for atrocious service.

 

On top of the conflicting information from marshals there were also a ridiculous number of cease fires for members of the public entering the site, which I imagine can't be stopped, but it could be helped with better sign posting or something. Some of the cease fires lasted for minutes at a time and we had at least 3 in the same game at one point, if they're going to happen that often then I'm not sure the site should even be used, isn't it just a disaster waiting to happen?

 

Marshals were also not wearing anything to distinguish themselves from other players, other than one of them wearing a high vis belt, which was all too easy to miss depending on viewing obstructions. I saw a few people moaned at for shooting marshals, including a video showing it after getting back home - if you're marshalling and don't want to get shot, don't walk about with a gun like a regular player. Is that not the most obvious solution ever, to a problem that just shouldn't exist?

 

Marshals also seemed to pop in and out of play without warning, so I didn't know whether to shoot one and be safe but face a nagging, or get shot by them. It was ridiculous, I'm not paying £30 for a day of ambiguity.

 

A major game breaker for me was that there was no pyro on site, at least no bangs. I saw smoke thrown a lot (including in the safe zone) and a few thermobarics, but they aren't particularly loud. Despite having to contend with "noise issues" though, there were still a number of very loud bangs through the day, one in particular being in the safe zone when someone threw an empty green gas can onto a fire that had been made to dispose of all the rubbish on site and although I sat the afternoon's games out after playing the second game and finding it was identical to the first but with the teams switching ends; same stalemate, same lack of flanking possibilities, same lack of any objective or score count etc etc, I was told the 3rd game was objective based and included a bomb with a timer.

 

According to my mate who played the game whilst I changed a tire on the car, the game objective had some pretty major pyro attached to it - I'm going by what others said on this, so I'm not going to confirm there were big bangers attached to a device or not, but if they were, I didn't hear them go off from the safe zone, so I don't see why some small bangs couldn't be allowed. A Mk1 pyro cannot possibly be too loud for anything ever. They would have been better than nothing.

 

To top it all off, I've never seen cheating so bad in my life, at one point I put at least 6 shots single shot into someone's centre mass as they were strafing whilst shooting at me, this was from well under 10m away, I was peaking a door and shot him before he even knew I was there, only to have at least 4 shots sent back into my face on full auto. I stopped firing before he fired a thing, and he decided to take my hits after shooting me... Right, yeah. Very sporting. It wasn't a one off incident either. First and Only call it power play and it's a tactic for useless players who can't succeed without cheating. I also have video evidence of it assuming the camera angle wasn't obscured by the door frame. So unless you want to risk having yourself barred from every site you play at when I show the videos around, I would suggest not doing it again.

 

Not exaggerating when I say it was the worst day of airsoft I have ever played in over 3 years at more than 10 sites run by at least 5 different companies and some of them were pretty diabolical. I don't think I need to say anything more about how there were guns fired in the safe zone with no eye pro present. Can't say I'll be coming back any time soon I'd give it an honest 1/10 and I know other players who attended are attempting to get their money back.

[evilfree]

£30 quid is a bit steep for what is effectively an outdoor site on a disused factory.

 

Sounds like some lessons could be learned to improve the overall experience.

[Rock-climby-Dave]

That was pretty much my experience when I have been before to other cerberus sites.

Ed, If you don't want this video here, just edit my post/let me know:

 

 

[Airsoft-Ed]

I don't mind people sharing it, my Facebook post for it had over 8000 views last time I checked it.

The number of site regulars and even some members of staff having a go at me for not raising the issue with the site staff instead of just videoing it was ridiculous. I shouldn't have to go and tell them that they shouldn't be doing it, and the notion of informing staff about the behaviour of other staff is beyond moronic, why don't they just let me run the site? So, they're happy with people firing weapons in a safe zone? Their attitudes alone have put me off ever wanting to go there again.

My page gained over 50 likes and my YouTube channel over 20 subscribers off the back of that video and I'm not trying to big that up and laugh about how I gained some positive stats off the back of an obviously controversial video; it's more the fact that having gained followers from going public with it seems to suggest that a lot of people have shared this opinion of Cerberus for a long time, it seems I'm just the only person to go public about it and people are showing their agreement/support of my actions and comments via liking and subscribing.

I'd rather shit on my hands and facepalm with my mouth open than go there again; I hope they make some radical changes to the site off the back of this, because if it hasn't served the purpose of setting the site as an example to what happens to you if you fuck about with people paying good money for a good time, then it has all just been for nothing and a waste of time and effort.

[Loki7491]

Were there absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever?

 

I only ask as I followed the FB thing with the video and off the back of it this review is ALL negative. I have been playing for nearly 20 years and now am involved with a retail shop and site. I too have visited some horrific places, but in all honesty, did they have some redeeming features???

 

I am just saying this review my be a little clouded.

[Rock-climby-Dave]

Cerberus do tend to have good food.

 

but that's preetty much it, and as stated by Ed, it's just bought from the local morrisons bakery on the day

[Airsoft-Ed]

Only things I liked were the fps limit of 370 (not that they actually bothered to chrono a single person) and breakfast and lunch included in the price.

Everything else was beyond reprieve imo.