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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Rant: Offence is the best defence: whatever happened to the shields?

Browsing through the German website Soundmedia.ch, I was once again looking at the image of the Nerf N-Strike Elite Rampage; it was an old early image of the blaster that was to come with a detachable shield (and a Retaliator stock?!). It really is a shame that Nerf decided to leave the shield out of the final release, as personally I found the Rampage in box to be a tad underwhelming- it provided LESS than the original Raider kit, and the shield just made a whole lot of sense. 

The thing is, shields HAVE existed on other blasters, so what makes them decide to include them on some production models and not others?



Shields seem to make the cut when it comes to the Super Soaker range. We saw the unusually mounted side shield on the Super Soaker Hydro Cannon..


And then another new shield designed for the Super soaker Lightning Storm (which was just a Thunderstorm with new attachments)

Shields were also really made popular with the release of the N-Strike Stampede, even though most people actually take it off. Funnily enough, new Stampedes are reported to be shipping without the much loved bipod attachment, but the shield remains. I guess SOMEONE in Nerf land sees the value of the shield, even if the fans don't.


 Another much anticipated shield attachment was the one that was to come with a "new" Nitron, that had been spotted and discussed earlier this year. Nerf was allegedly going to replace the Nitron's snazzy-but-with-no-added-benefit scope with a shield looking attachment instead. We saw the pics.. it caught our interest and then... nothing:P


Admittedly on the whole, in battle the shields don't really serve THAT much of a benefit, but in some instances they just look cool, and for some, that's important. Given it WAS essentially a Raider, the Rampage was therefore in my opinion the BEST blaster of the N-Strike Elite first wave but it was quite quickly overlooked because it didn't really bring a whole lot more to the table (maybe the 25 round drum?) 

I guess I was just really looking forward to that shield:)
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6 comments:

  1. harpuiaNovember 28, 2012 at 11:27 AM

    I saw that a shield version is being released next year on one of these sites.

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  2. ReverendNovember 28, 2012 at 11:32 AM

    Hey Pocket! I've been wondering the same thing. Awhile ago I wrote an article on Tactical Tag that at least explains a possible theory of what might have happened with the shield based on observations about the Rampage's box size. Give it a read!

    http://bazookafied.blogspot.com/2012/05/no-top-rail-elite-accessories.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. KronosNovember 28, 2012 at 1:45 PM

    This is like the whiteout spectre which never came out. They release cool concept art, and box art, then never release it. Strange...

    ReplyDelete
  4. ZandorNovember 28, 2012 at 2:00 PM

    One thing I like to do with the battle shields in certain types of Game Modes is if people get tagged on the blaster, it counts as the player getting hit. However if they have a shield mounted, it nullifies that effect.

    However as far as the actual practical use of the shields go, they only seem to work when you are crouching behind a wall and trying not to get hit in the head... which usually happens anyways xD

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousDecember 4, 2012 at 1:50 PM

    I think shields are best when you're at the end of a hallway, kneeling. When my sister Katie, and I are having a Nerf war, one of the rules is thatr when you are out of ammo, don't use youre gun as a shield. Shields are kind of an unfair advantage but whatever Bazookafied has to say is probably right.

    ReplyDelete