Nerf Dart Tag Stinger Duel Kit

Well that was quick. Reported to us by Nerf2me2 are the new Nerf Stinger blasters which are the new single shot blaster in the Dart Tag range and apparently are essentially reshelled Jolts; he's picked them up from his local Toys R Us in two different packs. 

The one detailed in the UK Argos catalogue is the 'Target Tag' kit which comes with a blue cased Stinger and a plastic target.

There's also a two player 'Dart Duel' pack which is similar to the 2 player Sharp Shot kit, coming with two blasters in red and green, six darts (with unique coloured tips matching the blasters), protective eyewear (with matching colour lenses) and the velcro jersey smocks.

The blasters themselves come with two dart holder holes on top which is a slight improvement on the Jolt, and they do look pretty cool, though Nerf2me2 suggests it's essentially just a glorified Jolt. Which, if you like the Jolt, will be just fine:)

Thanks Dustin for the heads up!

UK Nerf: Elite Alpha Trooper - It's Real!

Well slap me down next time I prematurely am sceptical of a rumour in the Nerf world, because all that talk of an Elite Alpha Trooper a few weeks ago has now been all but confirmed by UK retailer Argos in their catalogue. 

From the pic it looks like they'll be replacing the 18 round drum with a 12 round clip, but otherwise everything else looks pretty much Alpha Trooper goodness.. only with an Elite makeover:)

The catalogue also has a pic of what looks like another single shot with a similar priming mechanism to the Jolt/Triad. What's interesting though is it looks like its provided with a target and the darts stick to it (and given its pictured next to a Sharp Shot) suggests its part of the Dart Tag line. New colours for Dart Tag? Same darts or updated darts do you think?

Cheers Ray for the heads up and UK Nerf for the intel.

UK Nerf: Elite Alpha Trooper - It's Real!:

Nerf N-Strike Elite Stryfe: says no to Firefly..

 

One of the 'features' of the Nerf N-Strike Elite Stryfe is it's 'intelligent' sensor bars inside the magazine well that detects if there's a clip fed with darts in there or not. Basically if it can't detect a clip, it won't allow you to activate the flywheels, and if the clip is detected as empty, the trigger will lock up. I'm assuming it's a safety thing, but it seems to be independent to just the Stryfe (do correct me if I'm wrong here)

It's a feature that can be kinda annoying for anyone who wants to use a non-Elite clip with their Stryfe (including the larger capacity drums) as they seem to be weaker in how they push the dart into position to fire, rendering the Stryfe to 'think' the clip is empty. I personally haven't used a non-Elite clip with the Stryfe to date so it wasn't really an issue that affected me- till today:P More after the jump...

Nerf N-Strike Elite Firestrike: just a few things..

Sure enough, I picked up the US spec'd N-Strike Elite Firestrike and it's significantly more powerful than our domestic detuned grey trigger units. It's all in the spring so modders won't really care, but whereas the grey trigger model feels even at times weaker than a traditional Nitefinder, the orange trigger unit packs some significant punch; very cool.

A few other things I just wanted to say about the Firestrike. Firstly- brought to my attention from our friends at My Last Dart, the rumoured N-Strike Elite 'Incinerator' is just the Firestrike lost in translation:)

Secondly, I noticed the Firestrike is completely void of any digital camo etching as with many of the other Elite blasters. Wonder why?

Thirdly- I don't think it's just me, but the Firestrike's plastic looks to be slightly different to other Elite blasters and somewhat shinier. It's also therefore looking darker and almost purple; I can't depict it accurately in photos, but for those of you who have one already, you'll know what I mean. There's rumours the Elite Rayven is a darker blue/purple, but I haven't really found that to be the case in real life, but the Firestrike definitely looks different.

That's all:D

Nerf N-Strike Elite Rayven CS-18:PIC SPAM

The N-Strike Rayven CS-18 was one of the last of the new N-Strike blasters to be released before we started to move on to the all new N-Strike Elite series. It was (and we'd like to take credit for this a lil!) well received by fans and Nerf probably felt it needed more air time than to be slowly phased out with the other N-Strike gear, so in an interesting move, Nerf have re-released the Rayven as an N-Strike Elite blaster. 

Unlike the Retaliator (which was a souped up and renamed Recon with a different stock and a grip attachment)  or the Rampage (a souped up and renamed Raider without stock and a smaller capacity drum), the Rayven still kept its name and status as a Firefly clip blaster, only now it sports the new Elite colours (albeit the original Rayven never sported the N-Strike colours anyway!) and a souped up motor (similar to the Stryfe and Hailfire I'm guessing). It also comes equipped with new Elite glow in the dark darts. 

Otherwise.. everything else is pretty much the same, so rather than being a 'review' per se, most of this will just be a big ol' pic spam:) I do make a few comments, but otherwise, enjoy the pics after the jump:)

Nerf Vortex Diatron: Just for something different..

While I'm not quite convinced the Vortex line has been as successful as Nerf would have liked it to be, I myself am still a fan, mainly because of the futuristic styling of the blasters themselves. Since the original green lineup of Vortex blasters, it had been pretty quiet till out of the blue last year the Pyragon just showed up out of nowhere and very quickly became a real fan favourite (the Pyragon is my personal blaster of choice now). 

Nerf may be trying to replicate this in 2013- again out of the blue a new Vortex blaster shows up and screams to be heard. This time, while sporting the popular white, red and black colour scheme of it's older brother, the new Vortex Diatron is something completely new and brings some quirky new things to the table. More after the jump.

Nerf N-Strike Elite Strongarm: Nice shootin' Tex!

The N-Strike Maverick REV-6 was the poster child for Nerf for ages; it was the blaster that got many of us into the world of multi shot foam dart goodness as it was the ultimate 'bridge' blaster from a basic single shot to taking things just a little bit more seriously. With the new Elite series, it made sense that there needed to be a successor to it, and rather than just a repaint/reshell (and gawd knows we didn't need ANOTHER Maverick repaint) dem good fellas at Nerf have released the Elite Strongarm; sort of the love child of the Maverick and Spectre, with influences from Uncle Raider thrown in:D 

8-1-13: Apologies for the minimal info on the Strongarm, I don't actually own one yet nor have I seen them released here for now. Neil of the Canberra and Southern NSW Dart Tag crew offered me his Strongarm to quickly write up so these are my initial thoughts but I generally don't get too stuck into a blaster for testing if it's not mine. (I'm mindful of wear and tear and if I bust it, I can't easily replace it) As with most of my posts, they often evolve and are updated as I have more time with the gear.(especially once I get one for myself)

Nerf N-Strike Elite Roughcut 2x4: Fun but flawed

Of all the all new N-Strike Elite series of blasters, the new Roughcut 2x4 has been the one blaster I’ve been waiting for since the 2nd round of Elite gear was announced/leaked; it sounded the most interesting and I liked its general design. 

Given its form factor, it’s a suitable successor to the old N-Strike barrel Break IX-2 being a shot gun styled unit complete with the simultaneous dual round functionality but also holds 8 rounds with an added bonus of slam fire. Sounds cool? It is. Sorta..

Although not due for domestic release till mid 2013, we still got our hands on one (Thanks to Neil from the Canberra and Southern NSW Dart Tag crew) to have a bit of a play.

Nerf Jolt: Elite colours.. sans Elite performance

So much buzz over these lil "noisy crickets"- the Jolt was the blaster that came out of nowhere and very quickly captured the hearts of Nerfers all over with their direct plunger-in-the-palm-of-your-hand design and impressive performances for such a cheap and small lil thing. When the Elite series was announced, a few pics surfaced to suggest the Jolt would get the Elite treatment; then there was the confusing release of the Triad EX-3 which followed very similar design aesthetics albeit a 3 round shooter. 

Well, yes, the iddy biddy Jolt HAS been given a BIT of a workover with its aesthetics, but it's still considered to be an N-Strike blaster both with it's branding/badge and performances. Sure it's got the blue and orange and white colour schemes, an updated muzzle and hell even a grey trigger (WTF?) but as far as performances go, it's the same as the orange Jolts we know already. Not much else I can really say about them, but several more pics after the jump:)

Nerf N-Strike Elite Firestrike

The Nerf N-Strike Elite Firestrike is a single shot blaster seen to be the successor to the much loved N-Strike Nitefinder EX-3. It bares similar traits to it's older brother with the ring pull priming arm and red dot targeting light but in a more refined, compact styled form. Naturally the domestic model bares the grey trigger aesthetics and the de-tuned performances but we still found it ok to use. More after the jump.

Rumours: More on the Elite Alpha Trooper..

Ok, so something brought to our attention by one of our readers 'Iamiamomo' has me thinking twice about my previous post. Firstly, zooming in to the name plaque of the blaster shows not 'CS-18' but "CS-12"..

 Secondly, scrolling down the Baidu post allegedly shows some internals of this "pre-production" Alpha Trooper. I'm not into opening blasters myself, but apparently, it's actually NOT the same as what the traditional Alpha Trooper CS-18 has. Here's an internals pic of the AT from SGNerf:

The back blaster is a Raider- disegard that:P

Thoughts?

Rumours: Elite Alpha Trooper? Nahhh..

It was spotted on Chinese site Baidu and we've received several emails regarding it: it's touted as a "pre production release Elite Alpha Trooper" and while the idea is appealing, I'm just not convinced. I normally like to just post this info and leave the readers to decide, but for the want of NOT looking like a gullible idiot..

From this image, you can see it's brandishing the original 'N-Strike' logo- something that we now know doesn't occur on Elite blasters (The Jolt and Reflex are featuring repaints, but aren't presented as Elite gear).

The orange on the rear of the blaster looks like it's been painted over a darker colour- grey perhaps?:)

It's still called an "Alpha Trooper CS-18". Other than the Rayven (which is still pretty recent in release, as opposed to the AT which has been around for 2 years) you'll notice every other Elite version has been renamed.

I do love the idea of my all time fav blaster being released in Elite colours and performance; I just don't think this is it. Thanks for all the emails regarding it though- everyone loves a good rumour:)

Rumours: Stampede 50 round drum?? AGAIN?

If you've been following us since the early days of UT, you'll remember the original talk regarding the release of the Nerf N-Strike "Stampede ECS-50"- some people even had original Stampedes with the "ECS-50" name plate on the side, though the '50' never actually made any sense. It started to of course, with some strange box art that emerged (as seen above) and we wrote about it way back in December, 2010. To date, it's one of the only rumours we've covered that never came to fruition, even despite it popping up again in March 2011 and even January 2012. Many sources (even official ones!) revealed it was just an idea that wasn't meant to be...

 So why mention it again you ask? Well! What seems to be circulating like wildfire (though I attribute it to our pals at the Canberra and Southern NSW Dart Tag crew's Facebook page) is the patent doco regarding what looks like a Stampede with.. yup you guessed it, a FIFTY ROUND DRUM. Some pretty detailed pics of it, in a patent that was filed back in 2010, but seems to have only recently been approved...

More pics after the jump, or check out the actual patent doco here.