Sweet Revenge- Five bucks goes a long way...

I'm sure by now you've seen and heard all about the new NERF Zombie Strike Hammershot and the Rebelle Sweet Revenge, right? Yeah, me too. But that doesn't stop me from talking about them!

The Hammershot and Sweet Revenge are really just the same blaster in two comparable shells. The Sweet Revenge is smaller, possibly to specifically cater to the awesome holster they designed for it. Otherwise, these are pretty much the same blaster.

The joy of this system is that you can now fire a NERF sidearm completely one-handed. This is the first NERF pistol to mimic a single-action revolver like those made famous in the Wild West. The hammer can be cocked back with the thumb of the same hand you will fire with. This means a plethora of options has opened up. You don't necessarily need to drop your primary blaster to wield a sidearm anymore. You can dual-wield a blaster without the vacuum-like noise of a flywheel system. You can also make your weapon "safe" as a one-handed instead of firing it, should you change your mind.

Sadly the Sweet Revenge gets a much better set-up than the Hammershot. You can get the Hammershot exclusively at Target in the US for $14.99. You can get the Sweet Revenge Kit pretty much anywhere for $19.99. Why is it a better value to spend five more dollars? Stylin' eye protection and that holster. I personally think that the Hammershot by itself is worth the $14.99 price tag. You could look at it like Sweet Revenge accessories are just $2.50 a piece. Or you could break it down to about $6.67 a piece between the blaster, the eye-wear and the holster. It does make me wonder why the Hammershot hits that $14.99 mark, but I figure that they were making a break on the Sweet Revenge (since it's part of a new line) rather than marking up the Hammershot.

I'm still not sure which blaster I like better. I was getting used to the size of the Hammershot. Then I put the Sweet Revenge in my hands. I personally don't need to use the holster with my current load-out, but the grip may actually be better for comfort. I'll decide on that before the upcoming review.

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