Blaster of the Year, 2013

So yes, warriors. It's getting into the second week in January, but we figured we'd better close out 2013 properly. Props goes to Melvern Soelaiman for asking for thoughts on the NERF blaster of the year on the NERF facebook page just ahead of the New Year. Several of our fellow bloggers in the NIC have been thinking the same thing. Coop and I realized we would be remiss as we look ahead if we didn't award blaster/foam weapon of the year as well.  Several toys from several makers had us talking.

For a yearly award, you've got to figure that this blaster would be something that could make it through our five categories relatively unscathed (Speed, Range, Accuracy, Appearance and Value). It should probably be a blaster that brought something innovative to the table. Also, the toy would need to have received good user reaction in general.

We've narrowed the candidates down to 5: The NERF N-Strike Elite Rapidstrike, The NERF Zombie Strike Hammershot, The Zing Zombie Slayerz Z-Tek Bow, The Buzz Bee Air Warriors Extreme Range Master and The Tek Recon Havok. Several others were proposed, but you have to draw the line somewhere!

(See which one wins after the jump)

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

Zombie Strike 2013 Officially Revealed!

Good news, warriors!

Hasbro and NERF have seen fit to officially announce the new Zombie Strike line for 2013 and 2014! In the official release it is "Zombie Strike" rather than "ZombieStrike" like you might think from looking on the boxes.

If you've been paying attention, you've already seen some information on the 2013 blasters - Sledgefire and Hammershot. Both are supposed to be available August 1st exclusively from Target along with a 30-dart refill package we showed you before. Read on for some thoughts on those or click here for the newly announced Zombie Strike blasters of 2014.

With the Sledgefire they say: "A new triple dart shell-system allows for simultaneous multi-shot blasting and quick dart reloads on the run while extra storage space for darts keeps zombie invasions at bay." It's official retail is listed at $27.99, but whereas Toys'R'Us upcharges, Target seems to beat their own prices. So, we may see that price a couple of bucks lower.

The Hammershot is still the most interesting release in my book because of the "unique pull-back hammer mechanism". The chance of this blaster becoming a go-to sidearm for many warriors is high. Can't wait to get out hands on it for a good set of tests.

I'm still not so excited about the Zombie-specific line. The blasters, yes. However, Zombie Strike branding won't turn me off of the line either. I;m just saying it's not actually necessary when you already have great products. ~Chris

Rotator X-8 Revolver - Air Zone Answer to NERF Hammershot?

When I first walked up to this blaster in the local Toys 'R' Us, I thought I had found a promising answer to the "rumored" NERF ZombieStrike Hammershot we'd been reading and hearing about. Could it be that Air Zone had brought something that would compete?

If you look at the hammer on the upper left, you'll see that there is plastic molding covering it so that you can't cock the hammer back yourself. For just a moment, I wondered if this thing would have a double-action trigger (meaning you can just keep pulling the trigger to fire) and beat the Hammershot, but no. Even the marketing folks tried to hide the priming rod that is placed under the handle by placing their cardboard logo over it. For ten bucks, we decided to grab this and see how it would do.


At this point, I think the X-8 was almost a great blaster. That's not to say it isn't a good blaster. But I'd probably still recommend buying the Strongarm for a couple of bucks more. The X-8 uses unique ammo that doesn't even seem to work with other Air Zone blasters. The Strongarm will give you elite darts that work with many other blasters you are likely to encounter in a war. That means you can pick up other ammo for a return fire as well. A detailed review to come in the future. ~Chris

Zombie Strike - Coming to a Target Near You!

Heads Up, Warriors!

It's now circulating around the internet that the new NERF ZombieStrike line is officially coming to Target stores (see some of our fellow bloggers for the first posts). Well, it certainly is as official as you can get without a full press release. The things are now listed at target.com. So, you may be able to find these before they officially hit shelves. HINT: The DCPI numbers (store stock numbers) are listed in the 'other information' section on the product pages.

So far, the Hammershot, Sledgefire and a ZombieStrike dart refill pack have been listed. All are marked with an 'only at Target' logo. Between the EAT (Elite Alpha Trooper) and this line, Target looks to be winning out in the exclusives war with other major stores.

Really, the newest thing about the ZombieStrike line in the NIC is the dart. I'm not so sure about the color of the darts. They come off to me as a puss-like green color -You may recall our complaints about the coloring on Vortex blasters being similar. But Urban Taggers is calling them yellow, so perhaps I am just not seeing them in the right light.  Other than that, these look to be the same as the elite darts - or at least the N-strike streamlines (clip system darts). 

My one other question is could these glow in the dark? Every time I see bright zombie projectiles like this, I just think they should glow. Granted, I'm sure there is no built-in mechanism to charge the things on the blasters. It just seems like the natural progression to have HvZ-specific merchandise glow for trackability. Just sayin'.

So, to the Hammershot. It's a 5-shot, single-action blaster. This means that you just cock the hammer back and you are primed to fire. Many other NERF pistols are single-action, but are designed so that you have to use your other hand, your toe or maybe your teeth to prime the thing. Thanks to the Hammershot design, you might happily replace side-arm choices if you currently use another single-action blaster like the Firestrike or Strongarm, etc.

Some complain about the five-shot capacity and it not being a six-shooter. I tend to agree on the surface. After all there are songs, stories and more about the famous six-guns in the Wild West. Yet, five will be fun too and shoult still be widely effective.

The next in line is the Sledgefire. Meet NERF's newest approach to a shotgun design. You probably could have guessed that would be the theme in a blaster with the word 'sledge' in the name. They seem to have incorporated a shotgun shell design for the ammo on this one. That's a bit of a surprise considering how much the community has disliked ammo shells in the past.

They look to load three at a time and may fire that way as well. They probably will work well with elite darts too if the Hammershot does as seen in a recent leak video. I'm holding out hope that this will be the first truly successful foam shotgun. With the attention to quality that Hasbro puts into these products, we may finally have a winner in this category. Granted, the Roughcut does a good job, but it is still an amped-up front-loader in the long run.

As you may have seen, the news on this blaster has been leaked out for a little while. It's not something we support at Click Click BAMF, because someone essentially stole Hasbro's property and then showed it off on the interwebs. If it gets into a store, great! For example, some folks got recent confirmation from Hasbro in other countries on the names and then these blasters popped up on target.com, so here we are! Now we're not condemning other blogs for covering this. After all, news is news. It's an editing choice here.

Keep an eye out. We'll have at least an initial write up on Air Zone's answer to the Hammershot a little later. ~Chris

Zombie Outfitters: Any Need for Zombie-specific Marketing?

Recent rumors and news got me thinking: Do we really need to have zombie-specific merchandise? There are now at least three blaster companies reported to be involved with making zombie-hunting blasters. Let's take a look at the notable releases.

Toys R Us sells HvZ blasters -well, one HvZ blaster. They're really Air Zone blasters with a paint job. I was a bit annoyed by this. Air Zone is generally a miss for quality blasters. It's not like that should come as a surprise. So when Gnarwhal studios (the original HvZ folks from Goucher College) went with Geoffrey to do their official blaster line . . . it was sad. Doesn't seem they were so successful either. If you look at this as a way to support the original guys that started Humans vs. Zombies, I guess that might be something. But you'd think people who are trying to make a business would go with more quality.

Rumors with pic spam have started circulating about a "Zombiestrike" blaster. A user called yayaccav, posted pictures and then a video. The "Hammershot" has been attributed to NERF and has the logo on it. Doesn't look like a mod or hack. Actually, it looks like an alternate version of one of the new Rebelle blasters they are releasing (marketed to girls). The Baidu pics and video have since been removed. Some of my fellow NIC bloggers found a state-side video too, if you care to look.  Nothing has been confirmed. Please keep in mind that this is still unofficial. I would not recommend promising money for this blaster to any retailer or third party seller yet.

If this blaster is confirmed, this will be one of the coolest sidearms. Looks like it will operate much like a wild west six-shooter, or . . . five-shooter. Even if it is a NERF Rebelle repaint, I don't mind if they release it within the season as an alternated for those who don't necessarily want pink.

Zing Toys seems to recycle their famous Z-Curve bow with other branding like Air Huntress (a pink version) and now Zombie Slayerz. I don't necessarily take issue with that. Especially when they say they are working on a glowing version! A consistent and quality product that can hit 125 foot ranges can re-release as many copies as they want! Keep in mind that HvZ Goucher-style (original+) rules specify that a hit shouldn't hurt. Be careful using the bow, if the moderators allow it. I'd like to see a Hawkeye look-alike picking off zombies with a bow! That just sounds fun.

One of our contributors won the recent Zing Toys contest, so we'll be looking at this beast soon.

So out of these, it looks like NERF might be the first company coming out with a zombie-specific release -at least at the same time the blaster comes out in another color scheme. It seems to be more than an afterthought. Zing has a quality product now marketing for zombie-hunting too. My question is do we really need anything marketed specifically for an HvZ game? Are you going to be more inclined to but something because it is zombie branded? ~Chris