Si5 Spy Missions Review: As a Team

When watching a spy movie we’ve all wanted to be the main character, running through obstacles, narrowly dodging detection, and just being an all around cool action hero. Well with a new Si5 Spy Missions facility opened in Nottingham you and your friends or family now can be.

The mission, if you choose to accept it, deploys you to a state of the art battle cruiser, the UNS Steadfast. You and your team must complete a set of challenges to get through the cruiser and prevent the launch of a nuke on board. The overall concept and individual objectives you must complete have a surprising amount of background to them, which is delivered through the opening brief or throughout the mission by your teams helpful guide, making the whole experience feel even more involved and authentic.

Within the mission there are a great variety of objectives to do from solving puzzles either hacking based or connecting/retrieving physical objects in the appropriately dimmed rooms with only a pulsating red light and a torch to guide you, effectively connoting the imminent danger around every corner, to the physical obstacle oriented sections, such as trying to get through a room crowded with lasers which I definitely found the most fun, making you feel like your in the middle of a scene from a Mission Impossible movie.

All the tasks test and stretch your abilities physically and mentally. The challenge of the course is achieved through the inclusion of literally having a ticking clock drive you through each objective giving a real sense of imminence and importance to each objective and making you really rely on the team work that is needed to complete the mission. Thankfully there is a scaling difficulty from easy to hard that you can choose before embarking on the spy mission leaving this adventure open to all ages and levels of ability but still keeping a fun sense of challenge that gives you and you team a great feeling of gratification after overcoming the hurdle in your way. But in the event you and your comrades do get stuck on an objective the trustworthy guide will be there to help you through the objective or propel you onto the next section before detection.

Another aspect that impressed me was the branching nature of the mission. In the facility there are 16 rooms over 2 levels and in each mission you will encounter up to 5 of the innovatively designed rooms. Meaning no visit should ever be the same between groups or if you go multiple times, there will always be a new action movie to play the leading roles in. This gives a unique feel to the establishment and a new sense of excitement every time you enter.

Another aspect that surprised me was how immersive the whole experience was. This was greatly down to the excellent design of the building, never breaking character from the state of the art cruiser it was promising to be. Each room that I encountered not only kept the continuity of the vessel we believed to be in but felt like they actually would be in a cruiser. This is also achieved by the impressive level of scope and innovation on show; a personal stand out, without giving too much away, was a boat section and the technology involved that really made you feel like you were actually embarking onto the open ocean, however depending on your driver not always smoothly.

But sadly there were a very small number of glitches and technical hiccups in the system, such as the boats steering, that only stopped the pace momentarily but was always picked back up by our always informative and helpful guide. However this is to be expected in a completely new facility that over time I’m sure will perfect and refine any issues that are at launch.

After your mission is complete and you have saved the world, hopefully, the experience isn’t over. Before entering and after leaving the mission you can sit, relax and re-call stories of your last dangerous mission in an appropriately themed canteen/bar area that even has a section for birthday parties. This accompanied by the friendly and welcoming staff creates a great atmosphere for the place and actually left me wanting to go through the whole experience again after it was over. Also after the treacherous mission is complete you can also receive an equally appropriately themed goody bag and if you did well on the mission even a medal celebrating your achievements.

Overall Si5 Spy Missions is a blast and incredible amount of fun for any and all ages willing to dive head first into the fantasy of becoming a real life action hero; all facilitated by the impressive and surprisingly innovative high tech rooms that can offer a real challenge to any team wishing to undertake this dangerous mission.

Si5 Spy Missions = 8/10

 

You can also see this review in this months edition of the NG5 Magazine.