Desert Eagle of NERF? MEGA Magnus Un-boxing

Hey Warriors! Here is yet another unboxing for you. The NERF N-Strike Elite MEGA Magnus has been showing up in stores like Target and Walmart. In fact, I saw Walmart with an entire shelf of them mixed with Strongarms at the front of the store last night. In the video, I said we picked this one up at Target, but it was actually Walmart too.

Like many of the new NERF sidearms, the MEGA Magus is suggested to retail at $14.99. Certainly a far cry from the $50 MSRP they want you to spend of the MEGA Centurion. Of course, several of the retailers dropped that to about $40 recently too.
(UPC Pic after the jump)

NERF in the News!

I just happened across two examples of NERF in pop culture and news last night and had to share. It's not uncommon to see these products show up in skits and sketches and the such, but it is fun to see!

First, I was in the newsroom at work and looked up to see a NERF Retaliator show up in one of the news stories. This one is about a town giving people licenses to shoot down government drones. Deer Trail, Colorado has been making the news a lot because of it. I'm not sure why he had a NERF blaster when there were plenty of real guns around, but it was cute and all. KDVR in Denver has a story about it. I'll let you make your own judgement on the actual story, but I thought it was funny that this guy was using a blaster to get his point across.

(More NERF in the news after the jump.)

Sidestrike is Here! Zombie Strike 2014 Coming Out NOW!

Not surprising that some of the Zombie Strike blasters that were announced for early 2014 have made it in time for Christmas. I saw the Sidestrike on Toys R Us shelves. Of course, they were charging $17.99 for the privilege of waiting for over an hour in line to purchase it. The MSRP is $14.99 and it is already listed on Amazon. Needless to say, I decided to wait on that one. . . but then I went back and got it when the lines subsided.

Vulcan is Back? Why?

Well Warriors, you may have seen from some of our fellow bloggers that Argos in the UK has listed a new NERF Elite Vulcan for upcoming sale. They actually call it the "NERF N-Strike Elite Havoc Vulcan". Though the color scheme that Argos pictures is much more akin to the Whiteout Series that NERF released ahead of the new Elite blasters. On second thought, the color looks almost exactly like those Max Force spit-wad blasters that came out a couple of seasons ago.

I really want to see how this Elite version of the Vulcan will behave when matched up against the N-Strike Elite Rapidstrike. One would have to assume that the speed and accuracy will be updated, but will even an updated Vulcan have a chance against the speed of the Rapidstrike? In an old head-to-head video, we actually awarded the win to the Vulcan over the Stampede because of weight and versatility among other things. I'm not so sure that the fight would come out the same way with these Elite blasters.

Now, I'm not saying that I have no interest in the new Vulcan. Come on now, the idea of a belt-fed blaster is just too cool to stay away from. Maybe we will finally have a realistic turret weapon to use if it's fast enough.

Also, NERF has done a fairly good job of getting the prices of even their premiere blasters to an acceptable level. So even the average player may be able to get in on this.

Thoughts? ~Chris

Christmas Deal Alert: Strongarms at Target!

Hey Warriors!


I just needed to give you a heads up about a NERF sale I happened upon. If you were watching twitter, you may have already seen this. Target's whole NERF stock was "Buy One, Get One 50% Off", but the Strongarms were even better. They dropped their Strongarms to eight (8) bucks and still let the BOGO at 1/2 price work. Picked me up another bunch of Strongarms for cheap!

A friend tells me that even though the sale was only listed through 12/14, some of the Targets are still doing it through the weekend! Worth a shot. This works out to getting two Strongarms for less than the price of one. I'm not usually a Target customer, but it was great to walk in see awesome deals. I am more and more impressed by them. Not to always harp on Toys R Us, but please check your other retailers before spending any money there. Deals like these are going on based on fair original prices. TRU had a sale too, but it was "Buy One, Get One 40% Off" on their blasters -most of which are marked up at least 10%.


What other good deals are you warriors seeing out there? ~Chris

Random note: Target still calls it the Strong Arm while nerf.com calls it the Strongarm. Interesting difference when you try web searches both ways.

Ultimate NERF Blaster Book - Unexpectedly Awesome Christmas Gift

You know what, Warriors? When I first saw the press release about a new NERF encyclopedia or dictionary, I wasn't sure what to think. I wasn't expecting much from the item. It seemed gimmicky to me.

My opinion about The Ultimate NERF Blaster Book changed from about 5 minutes after I picked it up and looked at the book in Walmart the other day. I realized that any NERF enthusiast could really enjoy having it on his or her shelf, desk, coffee table -or in their armory. There is a pretty good collection of information in there. It was compiled by Nathaniel Marunas. He really knew what to do here. It's like a cross between an actually interesting text book and a weapon recognition encyclopedia.

A couple of things made it into the book that may be considered errata in the long run. For example, the book has pictures of the "Javelin" with elite colors on its feature page about the development of the MEGA line. Of course, the same blaster was eventually released as the MEGA Centurion. I don't consider this a bad thing. In fact it will be neat to go back and read about this blaster and see that it was in development as something else.

Now, we can't avoid mentioning the exclusive N-Strike Elite darts that come with the book. Personally, I'm inclined to leave them in the book rather than to leave a hole in the front cover. The patch and chevron design would be nice to have in action though. Maybe they could release 30 rounds of special edition ammo in the same packaging they use for zombie strike darts?

Do you think you'll pick it up or stay focused more on collecting the blasters themselves? ~Chris

Product Placement As An Equality Argument? WTH?

Fair warning, Warriors: This is going to be a rant in response to a series of straw-man arguments that complain about gender inequality in the marketing of NERF products.

I just happened upon a tumblr blog from marzgurl about gender inequality in NERF. Actually I was directed there by the writer herself who promoted her argument on the NERF facebook page. Rather than being that increasingly stale argument about how girls don't need a new line and pink is a sexist color, this blog complains that Rebelle is a segregated line from everything else NERF and that the people marketing the product are to blame. People really should stop throwing words like equality around. Well, it worked. I linked to her blog too . . .

Did You Pick Up the Best New Sidearm Yet?

Hey Warriors! In case you missed it, there is a great new sidearm available. This is probably one of the best new releases I've seen in quite a while. The Hammershot has been taking the NERF community by storm recently and there are some good reasons why. Check out the double review of the NERF Zombie Strike Hammershot and NERF Rebelle Sweet Revenge.

This opens up a lot possibilities for one-handed nerfing or getting one shot off on the fly! Do you have another sidearm you like better? Why?

Feel free to comment! ~Chris

Fun Foam Moments - "Call me Katniss Everdeen!"

Sometimes you just get a chance to catch those really cute and fun moments in nerfdom. I have been taking foam weaponry into my place of work more and more often recently. One one recent trip (I think this one was Thanksgiving), one of my reporters got a hold of the Zing Zombie Slayerz bow and showed my friend, photographer Dennison Howard what it was like to get hit by one of these arrows.

I consistently watch these Zing bows impress the heck out of everyone I let pick them up. They are simple, fun and effective. If you don't have one, this should be on your Christmas list.

Zing was awesome enough to send us an Air Storm Z-Curve to try as well. I got a chance to try it out with some family members (also over the Thanksgiving holiday) and I have to say that each iteration of their box continues to impress me. As they keep coming out with versions, I want to pick on them for a repeat product, but honestly, I like them too much! Why not keep coming out with a great thing. If you buy several, there are more for your friends to join you!

A full review will be coming shortly. I've just been having way to much fun using these!!! ~Chris