Max Force: Terrornator 85

We've been showcasing the Max Force range from Jakks Pacific for a few weeks now; for those of you who're new to the game, Max Force is a line of toy blasters that shoot a disposable, biodegradable paper pellet that you soak with water before firing. For those of you who've said "spit wads", I guess you're not that far off the truth. Still, this is a far cry from the old biro pen casings of primary school- recently the Shadow Hawk, Maximizer and the Blow gun have made it to Australian store shelves but we've been lucky to acquire the much coveted Terrornator; a belt fed rapid fire unit.

Toy blasters to rival Nerf have come and gone, so how good are these glorified spit wad shooters, really?

The Max Force Terrornator Box

The Terrornator is shorter than the Shadowhawk in physical size, but comes in a larger box. Box art features the Masterchief looking character on the front wielding the blaster. It's good looking packaging with interesting corners cut off, similar to the Nerf Dart Tag range.

The Max Force Terrornator Box- back

Some info on the ammo.

Inside the box..

Once opening the box, they've done a good job packaging the blaster with no annoying plastic/wire ties- everything is just held in place with cardboard, so it's secure, yet comes out easy. Environmental thumbs up.

What's in the box...

 What you get, is an impressive amount of kit- the Terrornator itself, an ammunition belt, detachable scope, detachable stock, some cartridge guides, a whole lot of ammo and the ammo holder. Interestingly, the scope uses rails that are very similar to Nerf's tactical rails and are actually interchangeable with Nerf attachments which is pretty cool. (Personally we found they slid on the Maverick with ease, but were somewhat tight on a Deploy and AT). Max Force blasters are very good looking kit- the designers have done very well with them. The Terrornator is well built and solid, with nice grey and orange accents on a white base. The blaster itself is designed to be able to be submerged in water which is impressive.

Close up of the front of the Terrornator- the grip and muzzle

 The Terrornator is the rapidfire unit of the Max Force line- it reminds me quite a bit of the Nerf N-Strike Raider CS-35 in slam fire mode. Max Force blasters do not have triggers- in the Terrornator's case, it fires by pumping the front grip back and forth.

The Terrornator stock

The stock uses a twist and lock mechanism to keep it in place. It's quite solid and sturdy, and interestingly has a tactical rail on the top of it. Unfortunately the stock is not interchangeable with Nerf products, or even the Max Force Shadowhawk- I think that would have added another element of coolness to it. As it is, this is a very good looking stock though.

As you can see- no trigger.

 The Terrornator has a trigger guard, but no actual operational trigger so it is for show only; this is perhaps the biggest disappointment of the Max Force line as straight away it reduces playability and accuracy.

The detachable scope

 All of the attachments are all very cool looking and make the blaster look pretty damn impressive. The scope has no magnification but just features plastic cross hairs inside the barrel.

The ammo belt. Can be as long as you want. Cool.

 The ammo belt is made of a translucent plastic which holds the splat pellets securely. The belt uses clips to attach each round to form a belt- you can add or remove as many as you'd like (though as always, the longer the belt, the more likely you'll experience jams) and you can link them to form a continuous belt which is a very cool idea.

The links for the ammo belt

Inserting the ammo pellets

The pellets before wet

 The pellets are a dry compressed paper and are shaped into a small cone line shape. They're quite firm to touch but cannot be fired until they are wet. In fact most jams you'll get with the Max Force range will come from insufficient soaking of your pellets. We've experimented with reusing the pellets or making our own from paper wads with pretty dismal success- you'll have to buy the ammo and accept the fact it is disposable and only can be used once. On the plus side it is biodegradable so you can shoot it outside and not worry about it.

Soaking the pellets for 10 seconds

 You can opt to soak your pellets first and then insert into the ammo belt, or put them into the belt and then soak afterwards. Either way works. I found the ammo to be a little fiddly to arm; it's good that you can load up a lot of ammo at a time because it gets a tad tedious having to reload each time.

The belt, fed through the Terrornator and over the blaster

 Once you've soaked your ammo, you're ready to fire. Clipping the belt into the blaster is easy, just push it in till you hear a firm click. Then it's just positioning the belt over the Terrornator so it doesn't get in the way when you start firing like a crazy person:)

Firing the Terrornator is as easy as pulling the front grip back all the way, and then forward all the way. With every pump, a round will fire, thus with a bit of practice, you can end up with some very quick fire action occurring. The distances of the Terrornator are true- pellets shoot very far and very fast, and while I wouldn't say they hurt, at close range you DO feel the 'splat' of the pellet against skin. Definitely avoid head shots if the opponent isn't wearing eye protection as it could do damage to the eyes. 

Terrornator in hand

SO how do we find it? Look, everything the Max Force Terrornator says it does, it does and does well. It's rapid fire is as fast as you can pump, and so long as you've loaded your pellets correctly and soaked them enough, you shouldn't have a whole lot of jams.

The distances are easily 30metres plus and therefore out of the box out fires any foam blaster easy.

The blaster looks fantastic both in design and colour scheme, and comes with a decent amount of gear- it's solid,good looking and very well made and feels great in the hand.

The ability to accept N-Strike tactical rail attachments is a great bonus. I love the customisable belt to be as long as you want and there is something very satisfying about seeing your pellet splat on the wall at the other side of the room.

Thru the scope

The wet pellet, against my kitchen cupboard

 What don't we like about it? The lack of trigger is a real bummer for us; without a trigger, the blaster loses considerable amounts of accuracy when firing.

The ammo system itself, while definitely fun, is just a tad too fiddly for quick "pick up and shoot" play, especially detracting from casual use for those who aren't as into toy blasters as we are. The necessary nature of wetting the pellets means it's pretty much required to be wet and fired then and there so you couldn't have the blaster sitting on your desk at work ready to fire any time during the week. 

And the big issue will be whether Max Force takes off enough to ensure the blasters are supported by the availability of more ammo- a foam dart is something to be used and where possible kept- whereas there's no way these wet pellets can be saved and used again! The pellets definitely "splat" and leave quite a fair amount of residue, and even though it can be easily wiped off, I'm not seeing many parents liking their house being covered in wet paper..

All round, we had a lot of fun with the Terrornator, even if we did make a right old mess in my apartment's living and kitchen areas:P I think outdoors, these blasters definitely hold their own and are a lot of fun. They look fantastic and they've definitely transformed the humble spitwad into a viable long range ammo for toy blaster warfare. We just hope they are successful enough to keep making the splat pellets, but even if they don't, the Terrornator is just a mad looking gun to role play with. 

Compared to other Non-Nerf blasters, these Max Force guns definitely hold their own and it'll be great to see them gain in popularity. Lets hope that happens!

Pellets mashed against the target..

Although accuracy was a lil tough:P

Much thanks to Jakks Pacific for supplying us with our Terrornator test unit.