Vapor Atlas 250: Razor rocks the squishy ballz

Popular kick scooter manufacturer Razor have turned their efforts towards the popular toy blaster market and are to be releasing their new "Vapor" line of projectile weapons very soon (though yet to have word of Australian availability) . These blasters appear to fire similar ammunition to the X-Ploderz line of blaster in the squishy "water balls"  and appears to be similar to that often found in flower displays and table decorations at weddings; difference being the balls come ready for firing rather than requiring you to "grow" them as with the X-Ploderz. The other massive advantage to the X-Ploderz line is these Vapor blasters come with a trigger; me thinks Razor are definitely fingers on the pulse on that one:)

For now there seems to only be an Atlas 250 model which boasts 50 rounds with "no reload". The blaster itself looks decent and hopefully would be decently built coming from the Razor stable. That being said, a toy blaster and a kick scooter is kinda chalk and cheese so it's hard to know if the designers of either toy even talk to one another:)

Our friends from Foam from Above have gotten their hands on one, so do check their blog out for further info. Otherwise check the official Vapor Blaster Facebook page if you're interested.

Vapor official site
Vapor Blaster via Facebook
Razor steps into the ring - their new toy blaster, the Vapor Atlas 250! via Foam From Above

Dart Zone Quickfire 12/ Airzone Double Barrel Shooter

The Dart Zone Quick Fire 12 is a rather novel handheld blaster that utilises a 6 round revolving barrel, much like the Nerf N-Strike Maverick REV-6. What makes it that little bit more interesting is the fact it comes with an additional barrel that can be interchanged (hence the '12' in the blaster's name). 

I picked up one of these early in my trip to the US for some novel fun to muck about with on my travels, as it hadn't made it to Australian shores at the time. Ironically, while I was away The Quick Fire 12  WAS actually released in Australia, albeit rebranded as the "Air Zone Double Barrel Shooter" and hence found at Toys R US. For the sake of this post, I'll keep calling it the Quick Fire 12 though:)

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

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

Max Force Shadowhawk

The Shadow Hawk is the bees knees of the Max Force line up, boasting impressive 100 feet distances in a very schmick looking package. They've become quite readily available in Australian toy stores nationwide- we take one out for some testing and I can safely say you've never seen a spit wad go so far..

X-Shot: Turbofire

We got ourselves the much anticipated X-Shot Turbofire; this is a blaster from the second release of blasters from relatively unknown toy manufacturer Zuru. They seem to have ditched the dual ammo of foam and water and just concentrated on releasing a blaster that shoots just foam darts. 20 of them, to be exact, with a pump action cocking mechanism under the muzzle, and an inbuilt  ammo drum. X-Shot blasters have been touch and go- we had the surprisingly awesome Stealth, followed by the absolute rubbish that was the Thundershot. So how does this one go? More pics and info after the jump.

Max Force: Terrornator 85

We've been showcasing the Max Force range from Jakks Pacific for a few weeks now; for those of you who're new to the game, Max Force is a line of toy blasters that shoot a disposable, biodegradable paper pellet that you soak with water before firing. For those of you who've said "spit wads", I guess you're not that far off the truth. Still, this is a far cry from the old biro pen casings of primary school- recently the Shadow Hawk, Maximizer and the Blow gun have made it to Australian store shelves but we've been lucky to acquire the much coveted Terrornator; a belt fed rapid fire unit.

Toy blasters to rival Nerf have come and gone, so how good are these glorified spit wad shooters, really?

"Arsenal Toys"- not just a Nerf knock off

This Machine Pistol takes it's cues from the Barricade- and then.. mashes them up:)

I stumbled across this interesting (albeit rather ugly) line of blasters while taking Jerm from Nerf Mods + Reviews's lead and had a browse on the internet for some alternative toy blasters perhaps not seen in the western world:) Now, it's pretty common to see a knock of Nitefinder or Maverick, but I have to admit these pieces from "Arsenal Toys" were unique enough to catch my eye. 

They seem to be using originally designed shells and a more innovative thought process in the design than the standard knock off. Have a look at the images after the jump.

Max Force: Official Site

Jakks Pacific's Max Force line of blasters has started to make it into the hands of fellow blaster affectionatos- they've finally  made live their official website with all the info of the new range. I found a few broken links, but on the whole it's got all the info you need about them.

From what I can tell, the Crossbow and Maximizer are very much identical other than the extra tension in the crossbow string which apparently gives it the extra 5ft kick.

Max Force Toys official website

Max Force Shadowhawk: OzNerf Forums

Featured on the Oz Nerf Forums, "Oxymoron" picked himself up a Max Force Shadow Hawk and has given a pretty indepth review of the blaster, right down to the internals. He's given it a pretty decent rap- check out all the images and his thoughts after the jump.

YouTube - More random vids

Ahh so much crazy stuff on youTube. Cardboard warfare? Or perhaps..

Light Warefare:)

Max Force: hits Australian stores

Max Force Soft Splat Ammo packs

We're starting to see Jakks Pacific's Max Force line of blasters make it into our stores here in Australia- first spotted in Toyworld's then Target's and now almost the full lineup has made it to large department store chain Myer. As always, Myer tends to jack their prices up to higher than normal, but the big thing is if a product makes it to Myer.. its mainstream.

What's good to see is the fact they're stocking ammo refills.. which is kind of important given the nature of the Max Force disposable 'spit wad' projectiles:)

Max Force Maximizer

Max Force Shadow Hawk

Max Force Blaster Manuals

The Max Force Shadowhawk manual

We got our hands on some scans of the official manuals of the new Jakks Pacific Max Force blasters. They do a pretty good job with their art departments; packaging looks sweet and the artwork of their manuals are pretty schmick. Reports so far are these blasters definitely hit their distances, if not sometimes prone to misfires (mainly due to lacking in soaking the pellets first). More manuals after the jump.

Max Force: Official Commercial

Check out the latest Max Force official commercial...lookin' pretty sweet.

Review: Max Force Blowgun 35

 

 We've been watching the Jakks Pacific Max Force line quite eagerly- I know the concept of "spitwads" seems a little odd to some, but the design of these blasters do look sweet and I admit I'm actually quite intrigued with the ammo. We're still waiting on a shipment to arrive, but curiosity got the better of me and I picked up the "Blowgun 35" today from Toyworld for just under 18 bucks. If you're going to be talking spitwads, might as well compare apples with apples, so I thought I'd give it a go...

WIld Planet Spy Gear: Innovative in a dorky kinda way

I love the Wild Planet Spy Gear line. It's so cheesy, but their stuff at least is innovative and different to most toy blaster lines out there and combines electronics for some pretty cool designs. I'm not sure how practical any of this stuff would be in any real battles (why alert your enemies with an alarm to let them know you're ABOUT to shoot them when you've gone to the trouble of hiding and shooting remotely?!), but I like 'em anyway.

This one just cracks me up:) I still want one though:)

Max Force Shadowhawk spotted: Target Chadstone VIC

Max Force Shadowhawk: Image courtesy of CPT-Blackridge via deviantART

Kyle, One of our readers has picked himself up the new Jakks Pacific Max Force Shadowhawk today at Target, Chadstone in Victoria, Australia. It's looking pretty trick- and his initial opinions:

"Okay, overall build is pretty good, bipod a tad flimsy, Pump is the firing mechanism, pull back to prime, release to fire, MASSIVE spring, bolt action to load next shot. Overall a very impressive piece of kit, will get it out to do some firing tomorrow"


Update 1-6-11 Kyle tests the performance: "did a proper test fire of the Shadowhawk 100, range isn't an issue, the projectiles can definitely make the distance. The issue is that it's susceptible to misfires and accuracy varies on whether or not the wad actually stays together or whether to force of the oversized plunger shreds it in the barrel. Will run more tests and keep you posted"


Update 3-6-11 Kyle's indepth tests:  "Okay i finally did a more comprehensive shoot with the Max Force Shadowhawk 100, range is as they say, accuracy varies, don't try to use the sight but with a little practice hitting a man sized target is no problem, even at ranges far beyond the capacity of a nerf blaster. Jamming affects it if you don't fire correctly, or don't properly soak projectiles. But as for the boast that they're harmless... i shot my friend in the bare stomach with this thing and it left a welt the size of a five cent coin for a few hours WEAR THE PROTECTIVE EYE GEAR"

Interesting to see how it fares. Thanks for the intel Kyle!

Max Force blasters spotted: Toyworld Fyshwick (AUS)

We've been getting word on the new Max Force range of blasters have made it to Australia early- original press releases said they'd be in the latter half of the year but it looks like they've made it to our shores much much sooner. First word was that they were spotted in Tasmania; now our boys from the Canberra and Southern NSW Dart Tag crew have spotted the Blow Gun at Toyworld, Fyshwick in Canberra (my town!).

They're going for around 18bucks AUS (which is almost double the US prices!!). More information about US releases after the jump.

YouTube-Sean Long:Captain America disc shooting shield

A review of the Captain America Disc Shooting Shield from Sean Long. Didn't get a very good review:P

Green Lantern goodies- disc shooters and..fist.

Sean Long vids crack me up- he doesn't take himself seriously and while does go on a bit, the reviews are pretty detailed and give you a good understanding of the toys.

He's reviewing the Green Lantern stuff in these vids- Mattel are doing some pretty interesting stuff with their Green Lantern movie tie-in gear although there DOES seem to be a lot of emphasis on..fists:)

Disc shooters.. seems to be a trend going around... :P