Review: X-Shot Stealth- Water + Foam at the same time?!

X-Shot Stealth.. Nothing stealthy about bright green...

 I've been reading up more on these new X-Shot dual ammo dart and water blasters by Zuru and while I don't normally like to mix my foam and water, I do have to admit they look pretty cool aesthetically. Anyway a trip to my local Kmart (Belconnen) had several shelves of them- the Stealth and the Thundershot. As I wasn't convinced these were worth getting just yet, I opted for the cheaper of the two, and so it's the Stealth I'll be talking about today:)

Back of the box

The X-Shot Stealth is a good looking piece; it's a single shot dart blaster and primes much like the Nerf N-Strike Nitefinder EX-3 with a looped arm at the back. What makes these X-Shot blasters different is their ability to shoot water as well, which while novel, is kinda an odd concept. Especially with the Stealth- it uses the same trigger to fire both water and darts.. and if you have them both loaded, you'll be firing them both simultaneously..

 Back of the box shows the two other models- The rifle style Thundershot and the mini gun (?) style Sidewinder. I didn't see the Sidewinder on the shelf though, and one of our Facebook readers already panned the Thundershot so I gave it a miss for now.

 Inside the box, you get the Stealth, 6 sucker darts and a water clip. Yup, water is stored in the yellow banana clip.

 Sizewise, it's very similar to a Nitefinder. The waterclip snaps in easily, and can be quickly released by the switch on the left side of the blaster. The dumb thing is though is the water clip is only used in the Stealth-in the Thundershot it looks like the water is stored in the stock and the banana clip is for darts. I think a bit of consistency across the blasters would have been much cooler.

Oooh.. what could clip onto these in the future?

 It looks like these X-Shots may have their own style of tactical rails- although m'fraid they're not compatible with Nerf accessories:P

 Priming, is just pulling the yellow arm at the back of the Stealth back till it locks in place. It's a much shorter pull than with the Nitefinder. The blaster itself is quite sturdy and well made, even if it is a cheapish looking green:) Slide the provided dart into the barrel and you're ready to go.

 The front of the Stealth has provisions for spare darts.

 Under the dart barrel is the eyelet/aperture for the water to shoot out. The Stealth's trigger activates both at the same time, thus you can use them for either ammo, or load both for simultaneous fun:)

 The water clip is similar to the Saturators, with a hole for the water to be sucked up, and another to fill. It's a pretty small clip, so you won't get a whole lot of soakage out of this blaster. The other thing is the Stealth delivers its water pretty much like an old school traditional "squirt" pistol; no pumping, just point and squirt. Performance isn't as bad as I thought it'd be, but it's DEFINITELY no Super Soaker:)

 The provided darts are basically suckers, and are surprisingly pretty decent. They stick quite well to smooth surfaces and stay "stuck" for quite a while.The Stealth is of course compatible with the full variety of Nerf darts as well.

 Sooo.. here's what matters the most- how does it perform? As a dart gun, it's pretty decent to be honest. Our experiences have ranges aren't that far off a Nitefinder and it's got a decent punch to it; accuracy is pretty nice as well. As a water pistol, it's nothing to write home about because it's basically just a squirt gun. The weird thing I find though is the simultaneous firing action; there aren't a WHOLE lot of times where you'd need to shoot a dart AND squirt someone with water at the same time. I actually find it kind of a dumb idea. I'd probably just stick to it being a foam dart blaster, and at 12 bucks AUS, it's pretty much on par with a Nitefinder..

X-Shot Stealth Compared to a Maverick

Would we recommend it? Look, it's not often we go for non-Nerf blasters, but the Stealth actually did much better than we thought it would. The main thing is the bang for your buck- and as a single shot blaster that happens to have an inbuilt (if not slightly ordinary) water blaster- I think we'd probably suggest you give it a go if you're interested in trying out something different.

12 bucks AUS from Kmart. Not too shabby for a non Nerf:)

Usability: 7/10
Out of the box performance: 7.5/10
Cool factor: 7/10
Price point: 9/10