No, Nerf ULTRA isn't "just a cash grab".

EDIT; Important note: a big thanks to Foam From Above for providing the sample for me to use in Colorado!!

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I'm using the #nerf #ultra one and there's nothing you sissies can do about it! Thanks to @foamfromabove for the hookup at CU HVZ! #hvz

A post shared by Click Click BAMF (@clickclickbamf) on Nov 22, 2019 at 10:58pm PST

Yes, that's right. I ran the new Nerf Ultra One in an HvZ lock-in scenario and I couldn't have been more pleased for the first time out. The ultra darts hit nice and hard and the distance was super-consistent, just not 120-feet consistent. Please realize that the claims made on the box are generally pulled from the most "favorable" conditions. This has been true since before N-Strike was even a thing. Don't buy the rhetoric from those that would have you believe there is something new or nefarious about the marketing tactics.

A friend should be hooking me up with some secondary footage soon and I hope to bring you a little video of the HvZ experience we had. Before then, I had some thoughts on the reaction to the Nerf Ultra One and some of the misplaced vitriol running around online.

Warriors, don't be misled. Ultra is not the evil thing that some Youtubers and loudmouths in the nerf "community" would have you think. Nerf has been and will continue to be putting out new lines of blasters and attempt to move the market in their favor. This means trying new things, building in new proprietary tech, ammo and accessories, as well as marketing the most extreme claims they can on performance.

Also, Hasbro will pass on some costs for development in their initial designs. It's always a question of what price the market will bear. Yes, the ultra on should cost the same amount at a Rapidstrike did. Hmmm, The Nerf N-Strike Elite Rapidstrike MSRP was $39.99 a few years ago. Let's start there, adjust for inflation and a trade war, then add in costs for proprietary development. Seems like that gets us to at least; FIFTY BUCKS!?

Loads of opinions are out there, but a lot of them are really just echoes. You might expect a "thought leaders" or influencers in the community to take more responsibility and do actual testing before panning any product, but such is our day and age. My advice to any nerfer is to get your hands on this before making a decision.  Maybe go in with friends or buddies to grab one or find an arena that might grab one for their stock.

Game On!

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)

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.)

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

Price Drop on Rapidstrike - Get 'em while they're hot!

A quick heads up, Warriors! As I was looking for new product in local stores, I came upon a better price for the NERF Rapidstrike. The MSRP is at $39.99, but the price is currently lower than that!

 


Even those crooks at Toys R Us got in on the action, lowering their price to $34.99. But, of course, the best deal I found in the Colorado Springs are was at Wally World. $29.88 sings for this blaster. As promised, the Rapidstrike review is in our line-up for the near future. We aren't experiencing jamming or rate of fire issues that some of the other bloggers seem to be talking about. This should be a great assaulter or defender piece if you use it right. More to come on that.

So now you can go spend $30 instead of $40, or spend $40 to get even more NERF! ~Chris

Rapidstrike Stands Still - Write-up On Flywheel Activator Problem

So I ran into a little problem the other day at work. I took the Rapidstrike, among other blasters, to our company picnic. A lot of the folks got a kick out of them, but somewhere along the line, the Rapidstrike quit working. Sad day!

Found a fix though: Turns out there's a little tab inside where the magazine (what NERF calls a clip) feeds in. That tab is meant to be depressed by the magazine when its inserted into the blaster so that the circuit is closed and the Rapidstrike flywheel activator will work. I'm sure that those of you who love to take the blasters apart will already know that part.

It took me a bit to figure this one out, mostly because I was busy with work, etc. First I just dumped in for more batteries, just to see. But that didn't get me anywhere except poorer. The jam access door was closed, the magazine was seated in the blaster and there were no darts stuck on the flywheel -check, check and check. This may not be a common problem, but it turns out that if you slam the magazine into my blaster, that tab I mentioned will get shoved behind its plastic housing and the blaster will not work.

I took the smallest precision flathead screwdriver I have and wedged the tab out from behind the housing again. Luckily, there is no damage from that operation. I was able to recreate the problem by slamming the magazine in or pushing the tab in manually. I also took a phillips-head precision driver and made sure all of the screws in that area of the housing were tight. They are.

NERF is awesome to send us these products to test out early. We'll probably be grabbing another one on our own to see if we can recreate some problems with it too. If this turns out to be a repeat problem, it may be one of the few downsides I have found for this particular model.

After this fix, there haven't been any other problems! ~Chris

Sighting Report - Centurion, Rapidstrike Hit Store Shelves in Michigan

So Warriors, I didn't see any of the newer blasters hit store shelves in Colorado this past week, but I did make a sighting in Lansing, Michigan. The Meijer stores there beat any of my local stock in the Mountain Division of Click Click BAMF. Hopefully we'll see them on shelves closer to home soon.

Also, the price tag for the N-Strike Elite Rapidstrike was up. So, Michiganders will be seeing that beast soon too. The Rapidstrike is part of the recent package that NERF sent us, so that review will be on the way shortly as well! I must say that the blaster has impressed me greatly. This will be a game changer for some warriors. It cetainly is an improvement over the Stampede in many ways.

 

 

 

We've been getting a lot of your requests for specific reviews and we'll see about getting some of those done ASAP. I wish we could get to some of them sooner, but you know how the demands of life can be!

SledgeFire, Rapidstrike and Revonix in the House!

NERF was so kind as to send us most of their final releases of the 2013.  As you can see in the Vine post below, we now have the Vortex Revonix 360, N-Strike Elite Rapidstrike and the Zombie Stirke SledgeFire to check out! . . . I already broke the Revonix, so we'll see what to do about that one.



So we were able to do an unboxing of the NERF Zombie Strike SledgeFire. This has some potential in Humans versus Zombies. Some say they wish the grouping was a little more spread out on the blaster. As I've said before, it really depends on if you use an optional rule for what effect multiple darts have on a zombie in the game. Think about it for stopping power rather than for spread and perhaps it will appeal to you more. Or not :)

I'm still really looking forward to getting my hands on the Zombie Strike Hammershot as well, so we'll get a sighting report up on the new pistol as soon as we see it. August 1st is coming up in a couple of days, after all. ~Chris

Closer Look at Fall Releases

In case you missed our recent NERF videos, we have some closer looks at a couple of the Fall releases up now.

The Rapidstrike is certainly going to be the flagship blaster for this season of releases. It seems to take some of the best things from the Elite line and the N-Strike Stampede along with it's new qualities to make a formidable assault blaster.

The NERF Rebelle line actually holds a lot more promise than I expected. I am especially interested in the crossbow. We're not completely sure what to think of the drawstring on the Heartbreaker. It seems like that will be the easiest component to break that we've seen out of NERF in a while. But hey, it held up for dozens of people at the Summer Bash press party, so we'll hold off judgment for now.

 

So -Which fall blasters are you most excited for? ~Chris