Monday, November 21, 2011

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?:)

26 comments:

  1. Excellent write-up, as usual! I hope they don't overprice these hoping to cash in on the Nerf fans who will obviously want it for the stock. I suppose the shield is more useful than the Stampede's shield since its wider and transparent. I am a bit surprised that you didn't showcase any Urban Tagg- um ... I mean... Whiteout blasters with the shield. And if Hasbro would just release that Whiteout Spectre, we'd have a great platform for it.

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  2. So because I have to ask - that shield looks very similar to a Stampede shield. Do you have one to compare it with by chance? Just curious if they truly created a transparent shield for it (not that I have any use for it other then tacticoolness, but still).

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  3. That is... really disappointing. The accessories are pretty sweet, but the fact that they re-used the Thunderstorm is a huge let down.

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  4. probably only gonna get it for the attachments and to review it.

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  5. That stock is sweet! The blaster sucks though D:

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  6. It looks like they tried to copy Brink with the water drum magazine...

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  7. The Thunderstorm was such a lame "super-soaker" (it doesn't really deserve that title in my opinion and I even tried 2 at once.) I think the stock looks pretty sweet but the Longstrike one is still better; it holds clips. :P
    Definitely going to pass on this. I didn't like the clip super-soakers. Bazookafied has a nice, fun mod for them on his youtube channel though...

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  8. Overall i like to looks of this blaster also since we have the sonic stampede and on the stampede the sheild was not transparent you can take this sheild paint tge white part green and u can use it on the stampede!

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  9. Great! The same piss weak performance (literally)! Fully automatic battery water guns aren't even worth it with the kind of water output of these blasters

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  10. This would look way better with the non-reversed colorsheme. Care to assemble a Thunderstorm with the Lightning attachements?

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  11. wow that sucks but i really want that stock for my spectre! -Delta Five Seven

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  12. Could you post some more images of the stock on different guns? Spectre and Recon are what I want to see in particular. Really thinking the stock itself makes it worth buying.

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  13. Crack the thunderstorm and lightningstorm open and check their internals. I'll accept the Recon reshells, but when you recolor a blaster, add a new shiny thing, and call it a brand new blaster, that's just... no... Don't do that.

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  14. Why are people more pissed about the fact that they renamed and repainted a blaster than the fact that it, along with most of the rest of the SS line, is pretty much useless?

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  15. stocks make no sense on nerf guns or airsoft guns for that matter every nerf gun should be cut down as much as possible the biggest thing nerf guns need is the ablity to be holstered with ease straps get in the way.

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  16. looks like i now have the perfect stock for my whiteou.... oh... yeah.. :(

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  17. is it the same gun...

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  18. Any idea when this coming out? I can't find this anywhere?

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  19. wow, this is dumb, nerf is totally running out of ideas. the super soaker line was a fail to begin with, and now they're are just copying old designs! just like buzz bee. if they dont have any ideas then they might as well hold a contest for nerfers to submit blaster designs and how it would work. and then choose a couple that were good enough. who else agrees

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    Replies
    1. Super soaker was good before Nerf got to it, and now it is a fail. Incidentally, the supersoaker i got (the vaporizer) i cant seem to find on the wiki with all the other super soakers... Anyway, the older ones (flash flood, secret strike, etc) were awesome and i spent the pre-christmas period drooling over them every time we went to k-mart.

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  20. Actually no, Nerfer 101. The Super Soaker line was a very successful line, much older than the Nerf gun line. If you had seen blasters like the CP 200/2500, then you wouldn't be saying that. I should know, as I happen to own a 2500. Still, this is somewhat dissappointing. I think of it to be the Raider of the Super Soaker line: reshelled gun, original drum.

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  21. The stock makes it look like a UMP

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  22. i got one of these guns

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  23. this is great. i must have this. i wanted a thunderstorm but i needed to have a stock as it looks so cool.i didnt want to get yet another shotblast just for a matching stock. this soaker comes with a stock and a drum style mag. it is rad. cant wait.

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