Oh!pEnions: New NERF on the block

New NERF on the block

Its been quite some time since I have gone to Toys r Us and when I did today, I was quite surprised. NERF has another competitor, which, instead of shooting water balls, it shoots... wait for it.... spitballs.

OK, that was gross but it was what came to my mind when I saw it. I mean, what else would you call a bullet made of paper, which needs to be pre-soaked before firing?

So, before this was the Xploderz, which again, you need to pre-soak the bullets/beads for three hours to fully grow them. Which is quite nice because its like playing with paintballs except that there's no ink but just pure exploding ammo bliss. The good thing is, you do not need to look for your darts after every battle. The bad part? You need to BUY more ammo and they don't keep once grown. But it makes you think, "What if I used paintball ammo..."

And now, its Max Force Toys's turn, with their spit... er, soft splat bullets. Again, you need to soak them (10 seconds) and load them into the ammo clips. And just like Xploderz, you need to BUY more bullets and they don't keep either. But it also makes you think, "What if I ran out of water... ooh, here's a salivating dog...."

But seriously, folks, the design of these guns
are worth considering, especially the Shadow
Hawk (above) and the Crossbow (bottom). But
where's the trigger?

But this one is, well, you know what they
say, "If you have nothing nice to say..."

Oh, man. Now, this is really spitball tech we're
looking at here. So, I can imgine the sound effects,
instead of the 'ptoo.. ptoo.. ptoo..', it might very
well be 'ptui.. ptui.. ptui".

And there you have it, the Max ammo. All you have
to do is to put some ammo into the box, then pour
some water into it and let it drain out from the other
end of the box. Yes, its a sieve, so you'd have to do
this over a sink and not on your lap.

Seriously, it reminds me of those bedak sejuk, which
makes a girl's face go white in the night. (hey, rhymes)

NERF Vortex
The Vortex series are the latest products from Hasbro's NERF range. What is so different about them is they now fire rubber discs instead of foam darts. Green rubber discs that looks more like ice hockey pucks for midgets. What I like most was actually the designs on their gun grips as they look very comfortable. Sure, the guns look nice from the side but one you view it up front its very bulky due to the diameter of the discs. All these Vortex series has a lot of safety features and will not fire if you don't have the disc, or no ammo clip, or maybe a gun license....

First one is the 'smallest' of the lot, which is the
Vortex Proton. Its a single-shot where you have
to load the discs one by one from the back. Great
ambidextrous weapon.

What you need to do is to pull the green loading
tray out, slot in the disc, use your thumb to flick
the orange lever to slide the tray and you're now
ready for your shot. That is, if you can do this in
less than 2 seconds or risk getting shot. Equivalent
to Nitefinder?

OK, this is slightly bigger but holds more ammo.
This Vigilon is quite chunky. Although the trapdoor
slide is on the left, its still great for right handers

Slide the trapdoor open, bung in 5 discs, use your
thumb to close it, and pull the upper slider to cock
the gun. Its 5 shots, and equivalent to Maverick?
Grip design is so-so. Looks more like a futuristic
industrial air freshener.

I think this Praxis is a pump and run gun. Takes in 10
disc and has a removable ammo clip. The pump is
not those air pump type but very nice sliding clicks

NERF equivalent is, well, Raider? Reminds me of the
Appleseed Gong gun. Nice.

This is battery operated, has a nice scope and eats
2x AAA & 6 "C" cell batteries. Just pull the trigger
and the 20 discs shoots out automatically. But
calling it a Nitron?

Takes in 20 discs, Nerf equivalent of Stampede but
with slower firing rate.

Next one up are the repainted NERFs. Not sure
if there are any improvements to the firing range.
So far, I have seen the Maverick in Blue, Yellow,
Clear, Clear Green and now Orange. I think there
was a white one in the Whiteout series but I am
not so sure.