Max Force: Shadow Hawk 100 Trigger Mod.. Ubercool!

Max Force is awesome; we at UT love the gear. It just lacks.. a trigger. So check this out from one of our readers..a vid on a very cool trigger mod, right down to specs on how he did it. I'm suitably impressed:)

Nerf Vortex: Test fire and Range tests vids

So we did our best to do some range test vids for y'all in a very short period of time. Neil and I hit my apartment block's underground carpark and measured out 60 ft- The full length of the tape measure we used was just over 26 feet. Sooo.. to the last/furthest witches hat cone was 60 ft. Given it's an underground carpark, there's next to no wind making it down there, and from what I could tell, Neil was shooting pretty much straight on (he's a lot taller than I!)  

Basically, all of the four Vortex blasters made the 60ft range, some even exceeding. That being said, accuracy goes down pretty much after you pass the 40ft mark, so with the vids where I'm standing at the 60ft mark, I don't think Neil hit me once (and it's not because he's a bad shot or anything!)

Neil got so excited he dropped his load

We plan to do more in future, but I alas had some serious deadlines to hit for my day job that I had to get back to, and I am flying out of the country over the weekend, so we did do our best for now:) Videos after the jump.

Nerf Vortex: Let's do this.

10th of September 2011... while it sounds like any other date to us Australians, it does mark the official worldwide launch of the new Nerf Vortex line. In US date annotation, that's 9-10-11; the date where not just one, but FOUR new blasters are being released with a brand new firing mechanism and the new XLR disc ammunition that apparently shoots further with more accuracy. And more importantly.. they're predominantly green...

Tall calls, but one tends to put a lot of faith in dem smart peeps at Nerf releasing high grade kit. Anyway you've seen the previews and the pics, read the press releases, so really there's not much else left than to get stuck into the new Vortex line and see what all the fuss is about first hand... and so we did:) Nitron, Praxis, Vigilon + Proton? Damn Skippy!

No doubt over the following weeks you're going to be flooded with new Nerf Vortex posts on all the blogs.. it's Vortex-a-rama time peeps:)

Nerf Mods & Reviews: Tron themed Nerf rip offs:)

A big fan of Tron: Legacy are we, so we got really excited when we saw these on Nerf Mods & Reviews and thought these Tron themed blasters were absolutely trick. They're also Nerf gun knock offs, and actually now that I think about it, there weren't blasters in the film..

Still.. I'm likin' them anyway. Over to you Jerm for more info:)

Nerf Mods & Reviews: More Generic Dart Blasters

Basic Nerf Unboxing Nerf Vortex Vigilon

Our pals at Basic Nerf was uber lucky enough to get his hands on a Vigilon from dem good peeps at Nerf (and their PR company!).. Vortex.. it's coming... :)

Foam from Above also have a comprehensive amount of info on the Vigilon and also were lucky receivers of the blaster. Ahh Litsky Public Relations, where's the love?!:P

Scout IX3s spotted in.. West Virginia...

Image courtesy of reader..but we enhanced it a lil:)

Whenever we get intel about blasters in the US, it generally comes from the big three- Target, Walmart and Toys R Us. Today we got some pretty sweet intel from a reader known as a 'Gray House'

"Wanted to send along word that several of the Scout 2-packs are suddenly available for $19.99 US at the Huntington, West Virginia Big K (or Big K-Mart, or whatever it is) in a dumpy, ramshackle back room devoted to toys. It was surreal to find them there, in this Island of Misfit Toys with no air conditioning."


So there you have it folks... cool stuff is everywhere..if you're willing to look for it!

Light Strike: More on the ITS

More videos sent to us from Joel of the Light Strike ITS motorised target. First vids here are the ITS in Sentry mode.

And here's one which I think is Bomb mode:

And finally a video of the ITS in Medic mode.

As I said, I haven't seen these in Australia yet but I'll make it my mission to see if I can pick one up on my US trip. From these vids anyway, I think it'll definitely add another layer of playability to the Light Strike like. Thanks again Joel for the vids!

Max Force Crossbow 65: Packs a punch..if you can hit them:P

We picked up a Max Force Crossbow 65 during the Target big toy sale; I've been toying (haha) with the idea for a while, and the savings were worth the purchase. the Crossbow basically looks like a beefed up version of the Max Force Maximizer; basically the same other than the crossbow bar attachment which gives it more stretch at thus gives it the proposed 65feet distances (vs the Maximizer's 60). I don't actually own a Maximizer, but from using a friend's, I'd suggest the main unit is pretty much identical.  (I never was a fan of the name 'Maximizer'.. it makes me think of weird pumping devices..!!!) 

It's got some serious punch on it, and I'm loving the ranges.. I just have trouble actually HITTING my target..

Light Strike: ITS

One of our readers has picked up the Light Strike I.T.S- it's an advanced motorised target that offers a bootload of advanced features like remote bomb, medic mode and sentry targets. I've yet to personally see them in Australia so I can't comment other than what I've read, but we've also been sent a few videos so hopefully that should help fill in the gaps. Thanks a ton Joel!

eBay: Nerf Vortex 'Tech Kit' clip refills

 

As brought to our attention by Jared from Nerf Blaster Reviews, here's a seller on eBay who's listing the "Tech Kit" clip refill for the Praxis + Nitron. This one's a 10 round clip..seller asking for 20 bucks for it. Not sure if anyone'll bite.. but given the increase in premature availability.. maybe:)

NERF Vortex Praxis & Nitron dart gun Refill discs &clip | eBay

Nerf Vortex Photos at Comic Con 2011 (Photos) « Basic Nerfing

More Nerf Vortex pics- this time from Comic Con 201. More pics on Basic Nerf.

Nerf Vortex Photos at Comic Con 2011 (Photos) « Basic Nerfing

Aidan Wolf Nerf: Where the cool kids hang out

Ok so you don't see this very often.. checking the intel we received from Shadow Wolf of Aidan Wolf Nerf,  we ended up having our first group convo with amongst other fine peeps.. the admins of Foam from Above and Basic Nerf.. Group hugs for Nerf lovers I tell ya:P

Nerf Vortex spotted @ US Toys R Us: Guess they didn't get the memo..

Me thinks Toys R Us didn't break into factories for their early releases... :P

In very interesting news brought to our attention from the blog Aidan Wolf Nerf, it would appear at least one Toys R Us store in the US have already started to stack their shelves with the upcoming Nerf Vortex line. Prices are apparently pretty exi by US standards although no doubt they'll be quite a bit more here in Australia when they eventually come out. 

If anyone else has spotted them at their stores prematurely, I'd be very interested to hear about it. :) You just gotta laugh.. 9-10-11 Vortex has to be the most botched up PR campaign ever for generating hype ever..

See more pics at AidanWolf Nerf.

Litzky Public Relations Holiday Catalog 2011: Page 57

Litzy Public Relations is Hasbro's PR company; they've put together a holiday gift catalogue which happens to feature the new Nerf Vortex gear on page 57:) Was quite a nice catalogue till I got to page 64 and realised they're down with Time to Play.. and you know how we at UT feel about Time to Play..:)

Litzky Public Relations Holiday Catalog 2011

Basic Nerf: Unboxing Gear Up Package from Nerf (Video)

Oooh goodies! Our friends at Basic Nerf were sent a sweet box-o-joy from Hasbro's PR team with the Nerf Gear Up N-Strike blasters to check out. Ours must have been lost in the mail. (or so we keep telling ourselves!!)

Unboxing Gear Up Package from Nerf (Video) « Basic Nerfing
Nerf Vortex Disk Test & Material Overview (Video) « Basic Nerfing

Note: Foam from Above also scored the a Gear Up Package- they've got some pretty solid coverage on their blog.

Nerf Vortex: Hasbro's PR guys have been busy

We're starting to get more Nerf Vortex news appearing in our newsfeeds; as the official launch date of September 10 2011 draws closer I guess it makes sense for Hasbro to want to hype up the new gear to lead up to the release, so they are obviously pumping out a lot of press releases to the mainstream media. 

Check out the links below for more, but admittedly it's mostly the same PR press release stuff that we sort of already know. 

Nerf Vortex ready to heat up your summer via Ubergizmo
NERF: N-Strike or Vortex? via Gunaxin
Nerf Gears Up For N-Strike Vs. Vertex - David M. Ewalt - Metagamer via Forbes

Nerf Vortex disc blasters hands-on - Pocket-lint

Oooh. Optimus prime cyber blaster in the background...

UK Gadget blog Pocket-Lint have posted some very schmick hands-on photos of the new upcoming Nerf Vortex range. Excited yet?

(thanks to Jason for the heads up)

Nerf Vortex disc blasters hands-on - Pocket-lint

Light Strike: Dual Wielding.. it's possible! (sort of)

We've been puzzling over the idea of dual wielding Light Strike blasters for a few days now; and after some advice from some smart cookies in the know and lots of trial and error, I think we've got it covered.

Firstly, you need to understand that if you're using your Light Strike tagger by itself without the vest, the inbuilt sensors record your health status. If however you pair the blaster with a target vest, the health sensor ability is 'transferred' to the vest and the blaster no longer manages that aspect. If you're firing at your opponent wearing a paired target vest, there's no point aiming at their gun; sure it'll register that you are hitting it with lights and sounds, but your opponent's health will not change at all. 

Recap- shoot gun if there's no vest, don't shoot gun if there IS a paired vest. Shoot the vest.

So....to dual wield...

Light Strike: A pistol you say?

After our pretty lengthy review on the Light Strike system, you'd think you now know everything there is to know about these new laser tag blasters from Wow Wee. Well there's just a little bit more; we picked up a pistol today (the yellow SP 144 that basically matches my fav rifle) and we've now learnt just that little bit more about the new laser tag system on the block... :)

Light Strike: All about the weapons + attachments

We've punched out a few quick demo videos of the weapon customisation of the assault strikers, both with the inbuilt weapons and the attachments. You'll see some of the weapons are pretty damn powerful and it definitely now makes sense to use the shields when you're going up against an opponent with a one shot one kill attachment... Vids after the jump.

Light Strike: The full review.

Light Strike is Wow Wee’s much anticipated new home/backyard laser tag system that we have been fortunate to get our hands on after months of speculating and waiting. Home laser tag has always been rather lacking in Australia, even during the glory days of the 80s so it’s been exciting times for us to hear the Light Strike line would not only make it to our shores, but in a timely manner.

After a while weekend on the job, we've finally gotten around to writing our review; it IS as comprehensive as we believe the system deserves, and realise we're not just reviewing a new single toy blaster but actually a whole new system of game play. Needless to say, this is a very loooong post so apologies if you've got slow net connections:(

We also envisage this post to evolve and change as we play more rather than starting new blog posts, so if you do see it bumped to the top again, you'll understand why. I've got more videos to upload and actual range tests so watch this space:)

Anyway.. get comfy because without further delay, here's our review. With so much functionality, a decent variety of launch products to buy and possible customisation, there’s a lot going for Wow Wee’s laser tag line.. on “paper” at least..

Light Strike: Weapon of choice?

An interesting move by WowWee's Light Strike laser tag line was to release three different "Assault Strikers" that featured the same functionality but distinctly different designs (as well as a unique voice feedback for each blaster- choose between 80's robot voice, admiral ackbar, or female cafeteria manager;P..). I assume these designs will be tied into the upcoming "Light Strike Arena" show, but given the blasters do the same thing, from a consumer point of view it's going to be all down to personal choice. For me, the yellow SR-143 is my "Striker" of choice. What's yours? (or what will be yours?)

Gear Up N-Strike Series: Pic Spam

Gear up for.. tidying my living room. What a mess!

Nerf's upcoming Vortex line of disc shooters have prompted a new.. 'Gear Up' paint scheme for existing N-Strike blasters. Not sure what orange, black and light grey ave to do with gearing up, but I admit in person they are kind of pretty. There's not much I can really say about repaints of old blasters, so I'll just let the pic spam do the talking. Images after the jump.

Rant: X-Ploderz in Australia: Have they missed the boat?

The new Xploderz XGround Poun...meh who cares?!

A friend of mine finally got his hands on one of the "new" X-ploderz blasters for me to look at; we've been getting various reports over the last month that the line of wet ball projectile blasters from the Maya group have been finally making their way to Australian shelves.

While this is good and well, I really wonder if there are that many people in Australia that actually really care. To be honest, I can't help think that the Maya Group may have missed the boat in bringing them here to a market that may have already moved on.

Nerf Scout IX-3- now in N-Strike colours

One of the most popular single shot blasters has to be the Nerf Scout IX-3. It comes with the Titan + the Hornet in the Unity Power System in the dark red and grey schemes, but it's been a rare thing to be able to get them on their own (at least in Australia I've never seen them sold seperately) Availability is still uncertain at this stage, but given this pic sent to me is it in a box, I'd say it should be available.. States side soon? (When it comes to THIS sorta thing, US always gets it first.)

This looks pretty good though.. what do you think folks.. does the N-Strike yellow do the Scout justice?

Orange Mod Works: Alpha Trooper Unleashed Stage 1 Kit available now

As I make abundantly clear, I'm not a modder, nor do I participate in organised Nerf wars so really, stock out of the box blasters are fine for my purposes. Still, I've been following these guys progress for a while; Orange Mod Works are some clever boys hailing from the US who have worked out how to "mass" (well small runs) produce what backyard modders have been doing for ages,allowing those new to modding to be able to get very impressive results. Talk about finding a demand in a market and working it! (I especially like the packaging!)

The Alpha Trooper CS-18 is pretty much my favourite Nerf blaster of choice so I thought I'd buy a couple of these new AT Unleashed Stage One kits for a rainy day.  Price is very decent as is shipping to Australia, and the first 300 are in the limited stainless steel kit.

Given I'm pretty much a goober at this sort of thing, I may need to ask the lovely fiance to do it for me:)

Order yours here :)

Light Strike: GAR-023 + more initial thoughts

The GAR 023. Brown + Orange..

We had a bit more of a play with the Light Strike assault blasters in the office today, adding a new 'GAR-023' Assault Striker to the mix (the 3rd design along with the yellow SR-143 and the red DCR-012). This one is probably going to be the favourite for most players- it has that Stampede look about it, it's quite comfortable to hold and the reload switch is in the most acessible intuitive position compared to the other two. It is a kind of cherry/brown coloured plastic with orange accents which isn't exactly pretty, but of course the nature of how the blasters are made makes repaints a lil fiddly. More after the jump.

Light Strike: Our initial response

I only just got back from the girl's family birthday dinner so I haven't had a WHOLE lot of time to really give these new Light Strike blasters a proper run, but I thought I'd 1) upload a quick pic spam and 2) offer my initial reactions to this new system and at least put to rest some speculation on them.

On the whole, I like them, and I believe they're worth investing in more time and money to get more but whether they're BETTER than our beloved Phoenix LTX's? Well we're just gonna have to see over the weekend.  Initial thoughts after the jump.

Light Strike: We finally got some:)

Even the boss said he wanted a set...

After months of waiting, my local Target has finally brought out the much anticipated Light Strike laser tag taggers..which gives me a happy. The big Target sale is actually next week and these will be cheaper, so i did end up paying more for my impatience, but I got two assault rifles and a target vest for testing. Accompanied by the attachments I picked up last week, and I am thinking we're in for some interesting fun over the next few days while we rigerously test the hell out of them:) 

Initial responses (we tried culling the batteries out of the optical mice on our desks, but we couldn't find a screw driver!!) from just appearances alone are that they do look somewhat tacky.. but not nearly as bad as I thought from the photos I'd seen. The printed detail on the side of the blasters is on a shiny plastic, so the fear of sweaty hands wearing through the paper is at least not going to be a problem.

Every feature on the taggers uses touch sensitive tabs rather than physical buttons and dials, which is sorta cool but not at the same time. The different designs definitely feel different in hand and will be up to user personal preference- so far I'm prefering the orange SR-143 over the red DCR 012 and have still yet to try the GAR 023.

They're very light weight and actually quite well built, if not somewhat.. flat. Looking forward to getting home tonight, I can tell you! (though it's the girl's family birthday dinner tonight.. might not be wise to rush her to come home!!)

Watch this space over the next few days.

Rant: Longshots.. Where are they?!:P

Longshots. As hard to find as Wally/Waldo?!:P

I just got a pretty interesting comment on a post back in March regarding the rumours of the Longshot being discontinued. Sooo.. since the comment was by an "Anonymous" reader- here it is:

"Pocket: you need to stop getting people's hopes up high about the Nerf Longshot. It is OFFICIAL that the blaster has been discontinued. It happened last year in the States and other countries will follow suit. The stock you Ozzies have is old stock, probably from china and once it's gone, it'll be gone just like it is here. I like your blog but i'm sick of hearing about how the Longshot is available because one day you will go to your stores and realise its gone and wish you did buy up when you could"


Oooh, I sense it's RANT time! More after the jump:)

Whiteout + Super Soaker: Sorta works

Since the Whiteout series was announced, there's been much speculation about how cool it'd be to mix and match the attachments from the Whiteout blasters with the new 2011 Super Soaker line. We've been lucky enough to have the full suite of both lines, and were looking forward to doing a whole lot of mix n matching.. right? 

Well.. sort of. Firstly, although both blasters are predominantly white, they do use different colour palates- mainly the navy blue with the Super Soakers vs the grey and black of the Whiteout series. The attachments don't clash, but they're not an ideal match either. Secondly, Nerf's choice of blasters for the Whiteout series looked awesome in the scheme, but aren't really compatible with the Super Soakers. None of the Whiteout blasters accommodate the regular Raider/Recon stock- Longstrike and Deploy have their own unique stocks, and the Maverick and Nitefinder don't have the attachment. In turn, none of the Super Soakers can accommodate the barrel attachment of the Longstrike... so really, all we're really left with.. is the Longstrike sight.. and the Shot Blast scope:( Still.. we made do with what we had.. more pics after the jump:)

Max Force Shadowhawk: But does it go with my heels?

As posted on our Facebook page. I'm thinkin' pretty schmick.... This would have been a pain to do given they're rather.. not fun to pull apart:)

YouTube - ‪Nerf Stampede Ammo Counter‬‏

I assume it's set for 18 rounds, but it'd be very interesting if you could set it to 6, 18 or 35 rounds.... :)

YouTube - ‪Nerf Stampede Ammo Counter‬‏

Nerf Meets Optimus Prime for Comic-Con | GeekDad | Wired.com

Here's a repaint that came out of nowhere:) Barricade RV-10.. Optimus Prime edition:) Apparently only for Comic-Con for now.

GeekDad Exclusive: Nerf Meets Optimus Prime for Comic-Con | GeekDad | Wired.com

Light Strike: Demo of the System

Other than all the hopping around Pakour style.. it does still look pretty good:)

Light Strike: Demo on the vest

Here's a video regarding the up coming Light Strike vests and how it adds to the system's playability. I like how you don't NEED the vest.. but it makes it more fun, and it's more than just extra targets to make you fodder for your opponents:) 

Nerf Vortex Nitron- presenting.. a video:)

We featured this on our official Facebook page yesterday;it's almost impossible for anyone to be able to enter Urban Taggers base camp with anything toy blaster related and leave..with it:) I admit I'm pretty relentless when it comes to getting intel. I think it's a generation thing:P

Review: Lazer Tag Phoenix LTX (revised)

(this was one of my first posts this time last year, but I decided to give it a bit more oomph, so here it is again.. but revised!)
Laser Tag in the home arena hasn't REALLY been able to regain its popularity in the domestic backyard market since its glory days of the mid 80's. In Australia, it's been pretty woeful; a handful of Toy Box Laser Challenge blasters dribbled in and out of stores and the dominance of Nerf foam blasters meant the new generation were disinterested and on a whole unaware of how cool laser tag really could be.

States-side, they had moderate success with the Lazer Tag brand being re-released with the LTTO line and then their successors, the very cool Phoenix LTX series of taggers. They were unfortunately never released in Australia, but that's nothing questionable decision making at 3AM in the morning and an open eBay window couldn't fix, so we managed to import several of them and to date are still, in our opinion, the best home tagging system around. Here's why:)

Light Strike: it's here! Well.. sort of. Attachments pics

 A stroll down my local Target had a dude stocking the shelves with the new Light Strike gear, ready for the upcoming toy sale for the 22nd. No blasters it seems which I thought was kinda dumb, although they HAVE been spotted in other Targets around the country (one of our readers even picked up a set- his initial responses here) but what's good to see is it sounds like the FULL kit is being released; the rifles AND pistols including all variants, all attachments and the vests and targets. To be honest I'll probably take a hit and purchase a few blasters at full price the moment they're available just so I can review them for you all, but otherwise it's worth waiting for a few weeks and getting them for cheaper...

This isn't like Nerf folks, sales are gonna be your friend if Light Strike is your bliss. If you think about it this way- a pistol rifle full price will be 79, each attachment goes for around 19 (so chances are you'll probably want at LEAST one, but probably all four), a vest (which is more than just more targets to shoot but a shield as well) is full price at 39.. Then you have batteries as well, you probably will want to pick up pistols too, and extra targets to set up a home arena experience. Realistically speaking, just for a ONE player kit, you're budgeting around 200 bucks.. Now you need a second set for when friends come around. And if you want real fun.. you'll want a team.. also not assuming you're a collector and need all three variants..

WowWee may be thinking they're pretty damn clever coming up with so much kit, but the big question is going to be whether our home market is really ripe to pay those sorts of prices for that kind of kit.  (you can get change from a hundred for two Longshots and a box of darts)


Anyway, enough about the costs! That's why I have a day job! More attachments pics after the jump.

YouTube - Gunfight in Austin, TX

Awesome:)

Nerf Whiteout Series: It's official...

"Official photos of the Nerf Whiteout series have now been posted. Keep checking this page for updates on international availability."

Yup, there you have it folks. Today Nerf finally released "official" photos of their Whiteout series on their Facebook page.

Hundreds of msgs and emails I've encountered from readers since JANUARY this year calling my images "fake" and "that's so obviously painted" can now.. well.. change their screen names or pretend their youTube accounts got 'hacked' by trollz:P

That being said.. it's interesting the 'tone' Nerf have used with their announcement...it's almost like reluctance more than anything else? Maybe their PR person is sick today..

Pocket Lint: Light Strike from WowWee: Laser Quest returns

Pocket Lint have a nice post today on the upcoming Lightstrike laser tag system; granted it's mostly rehash intel based around a PR release that you'll probably already know, BUT the post has some nice photos and does finally reveal the idea behind the design variants:

"The concept is simple. Three races represented by six guns with bolt on accessories to keep kids wanting to come back for more."


Light Strike from WowWee Laser Quest returns via Pocket Lint

Max Force Vigilante justice?:)

We've been receiving quite a number of emails lately from parents; thank you so much to our readers for taking the time to let us know your thoughts on the toy blaster world and how much you're liking our blog. A few days ago we received one that had me very very amused and I just had to share it with you; this one came from a mother who from our review had bought the Max Force Shadow Hawk for her son...

Dear Pocket and the Urban Taggers clan,

I wanted to write you letting you know I have been a very big fan of your blog for many months, and have taken much of your recommendations and advice on new "blasters" on the market for my kids. They are religious fans of Nerf, while my husband the big kid himself is always going on about the old super soakers he had as a teenager so it is a topic that brings us all together.

Something that I thought was very amusing happened to us last week and I thought I would share it with you even though I normally would not condone this type of behaviour! Suffice to say we've had no retaliation or repeat offences thus far so fingers crossed!

For months, our street has been experiencing considerable amounts of vandalism and graffiti between the walkway outside our house from neighbour hood drunk teen pranksters. It has been difficult to catch them in the act, but the other night we were so lucky as to spot two teenaged boys sitting by the side fence breaking glass bottles and "tagging" the electrical box. Joshua, my 13 year old son was the first to spot them and alerted my other boy Nick who is 16, and my husband Dan.

Now...Dan and I had just given Joshua a new Max Force Shadow Hawk based on your Urban Taggers review, for having fantastic grades at school.

Of course boys being boys Joshua originally went about using it to deal with our pigeon problem in our upstairs balcony but this time around, he decided with his brother and my husband that he would use it for something else. Apparently the vandal and his friend were making quite the ruckus and had been there for a good 5 minutes. Nick and my husband went on to lean out Joshua's bedroom window balcony and under the cover of darkness, proceeded to shoot the vandals (and the fence) with quite a degree of accuracy with the spitwad gun!!

My husband pointed out that due to the Max Force's high velocity firing functionality, the spit wads would just explode on impact but it made it very difficult for the vandals to know where the shots were coming from, let alone in the dark. Unlike Nerf darts, the ammunition was wet and could not be easily identified especially under darkness, and because the bullets were completely disposable so there was no need to retrieve anything afterwards. While it was completely harmless, there was enough of splat on impact to scare the bajeezus out of those ratbags.

My husband and boys came back down stairs quite satisfied with themselves and could not stop talking about it to me all evening. They have gone on to buy more clips and another Shadow Hawk and are interested in other guns in the Max Force line too. As long as it's not in the house, I don't mind!

Sincerely

Sarah J

Gear Up Raider CS-35..a real..box.

It's not that different from any other Raider box other than the obvious paint job. Main things here are the stuff on the right hand side- Gear up streamlines, and a bonus "kinda useless other than evoking interest" XLR disc for the new Vortex line:)

I know. We try to post as regularly as we can, but sometimes.. it's a slow week:)

YouTube: Light Strike Official ad

I'm liking it. I especially love the association advertising has with toy blasters and Parkour:)

Marketing 101: what's in a name..

"Light Strikes"? WowWee's official page

"Light Strikers" Target toy sale catalogue early lay by

One thing that has been bothering my marketing bone since Light Strike was announced is the inconsistencies shown with the actual brand NAME. The importance of branding is to establish recognition with your audience so consistency with something as fundamental as a product name should be pretty rudimentary.

I personally have been referring to the line as 'Light Strike" which seemed pretty official from the logo and press releases, but since then I've also seen the brand referred to as "Lightstrike", "Light Strikers" and "Lightstrikes" and not just in the blog world; this sort of inconsistency has been on official catalogues, price lists and even on the official Wow Wee page.  Seems like sloppy marketing. Guess it could have been worse. "Light Stroke" perhaps?:P

Light Strike official website. More intel awaits!

Oooh.. customise my blaster.. 

WowWee have finally launched the official website for their upcoming Light Strike laser tag system. The site looks good but is unfortunately at this stage full of broken links (when I checked there was no actual videos to link to or full listing of products available) and a few typos (One of the blasters is called a "DCR D23" but occasionally changes to "DCP D23" when you're customising the rifles on the cool flash demo thingy) but no doubt that'll be rectified in the following days. We've done a quick summary of intel from the site- more after the jump.

*note- videos seem to be up now, and content looks more or less complete!

Light Strike: A 'blink and you'll miss it' video feature

Target's upcoming mid year toy sale will be the last of the big retailers to do their rendition of "Australia's biggest toy sale". On the whole, it's similar to the other sales as far as Nerf and Max Force is concerned other than the variances in price, but the thing we're most interested in is they seem to (at least for the time being) have the exclusive rights to the new WowWee Light Strike laser tag line.

So far we've seen the dorky official promo vid, and we've seen various promo pics, but this "sneak preview"  from the Target VIP mail out shows just that little bit more; have to admit the blasters DO look better than I thought admittedly. As always I'm not particularly impressed by the 'enthusiasm' from the video hosts- nor do I really understand why Light Strike should interact at all with the world of Light Sprite fairies.. but hey.. any intel is.. intel:) 0:56 is where it all happens.. or watch the whole thing and feel suitably..dumber for it:)

Johnson Arms - The best looking Stampede ECS.. ever.

Oh if Nerf only had this as a new colour release..

We absolutely LOVE Johnson Arms' work. For those of you who aren't familiar with the farkin' genius of Brian Johnson, this gentleman takes something normal.. and turns it into a movie prop quality masterpiece. Today he posted an image of a Mass Effect inspired Stampede ECS.. and it deserved a post all on it's own.

Johnson Arms - Customized NERF + More

Nerf Whiteout Series: A Picture essay:P

Rainbow 6 also performed in the 90's as the Backstreet Boys..

 As you can see from my Rainbow 6 squad here, I finally picked up the last of the Whiteout series I was needing to do the full sweep. I've already done pic spams for most of them already.. but now that they're all together, I thought I'd get a lil arty and just take some pics of the best looking Nerf colour scheme to date; it's gratuitous, but then, so is having 5 varieties of Nitefinder:P Actual pics after the jump:)

Nerf Vortex Nitron. Yup. It CAN be fully auto..

Just to let you all know- I can now safely confirm that the Nerf Vortex Nitron IS fully auto. Well.. you still need to keep your finger firmly on the accelerator switch on the grip under the trigger to keep the flywheels going, but keeping the trigger itself pulled constantly will launch the XLR ammo discs one at a time in full auto glory.

There's about the same delay as an out of the box Stampede in rounds if you were wondering about the rate of fire.