Super Soaker Lightning Storm: this looks familiar..

The Super Soaker Lightning Storm is a fully motorised water blaster from Hasbro and under the Nerf banner. It's big selling point is it is the "largest capacity Super Soaker" although this is against the current line rather than any past/vintage models of old; it comes with a large water drum that uses the same fitting as the water clips of the Tornado Strike and Thunderstorm so is compatible, only allowing for more water storage. 

Wait, did I just say Thunderstorm? Hmm.. doesn't this Lightning Storm seem awfully familiar now..

Thunderstorm vs Lightning Storm... riiiight.

When Nerf repaints their blasters, they still call them the same name- a Recon clear or a Recon Gear-Up is STILL called a Recon. However, straight off the bat, I'm just going to come out and say this- the "new" Super Soaker Lightning Storm.. IS a  Super Soaker Thunderstorm. They've just reversed the paint scheme. It's the same mould and I'd suggest the internals are identical because the performance is the same. Soo.. there's no point really going into detail about how well the blaster itself performs, because it's a Thunderstorm so if you've read that review I did in the past, or you've got one yourself- that's what the Lightning Storm is. I know. Weird.

Lightning Storm with a standard water clip.

So the real reason why you'd buy the Lightning Storm is for the attachments it comes with. And admittedly, I thought they WERE pretty cool.

The Lightning Storm comes with the large capacity drum, a newly designed shield that is similar to that of the Hydro Cannon but fits over the blaster, and of course, the much anticipated stock.

The Lightning Storm with all attachments looks rather.. unusual. The big drum sort of reminds me more of a drink canteen, and it all sticks out in weird directions that just make it a bizarre looking piece of kit.

With stock removed

This new water drum stores more water than the standard water clip and is.. well, white and orange. It fits all water clip compatible Super Soakers- ie the Thunderstorm(obviously) and the Tornado Strike. It is as simple of unscrewing the lid and filling it up- it's weighty when full, but not as bad as I thought it'd be.

We've become very familiar with the standard Recon Stock, The Raider stock (and the very similar Shotblast variant) and the Spectre Stock but here we've got a totally new design here with the Lightning Storm Stock, or just the "Lightning Stock" which I'd guess will be its name in future. It attaches to all blasters that can take a stock in the Nerf N-Strike and Super Soaker line, and is very comfortable to use.

I'm not sure how I feel about the slightly "shazam" look of the lightning bolt and I'm going to take a guess that aesthetic modders will probably attempt to remove it (with a saw) but the overall stock design is very cool. The thing is the lightning bolt motif does suggest limited options for Hasbro to sell it with other blasters other than the Super Soaker line. It won't be like it could be released in yellow and sold with a Barricade for instance:)

The stock does have a button slide on both sides of the stock .

Attached to a Super Soaker Shotblast

The blast shield is probably more for show more than anything else, as it probably won't shield you a whole lot, but it's still kinda cool. It clips on using the blaster's tactical rails, which means it will fit most blasters that have them.

The nature of the shield however does mean it wraps around the blaster rather than the Hydro Cannon's which sort of jutted out to the side. It means it does struggle with the more wide load blasters:)

The shield on a Shot Blast.

The shield does work on MOST Nerf blasters though, though the white part that attaches to the shield sort of reminds me of icing on a gingerbread house so it's not particularly.. pleasing to the eye:P

On the Rayven CS-18

And while it JUST fit, it did struggle on fatter blasters like the Vortex series Praxis.

The Lightning Storm itself is just a Thunder Storm and that was disappointing- however the attachments that it comes with in contrast are rather innovative and quite cool indeed. The stock especially will be the win for most fans, but the shield isn't bad and may be useful for some. If you were a fan of the Thunder Storm and want to get one or even another, I'd suggest this is the kit to get, just for those accessories. Otherwise, I'm NOT sure it'll be worth it to pick up just for the stock- but if it's priced right- why not?:)