Humans vs Zombies: Zombie Fighter 8 Shot

Humans vs Zombies has come a long way. From being a modified game of tag to be played on university campuses, it's grown all over the world as a brand in itself and now, they've released their own line of blasters. Thanks to Jerm from Nerf Mods + Reviews, we picked up a new HVZ branded 'Zombie Fighter 8 shot' from the US to have some fun with...

The Zombie Fighter 8 Shot is a rather compact nuggety almost 'cute' looking blaster with an 8 round capacity via a revolving barrel; it comes in an open box packaging with the blaster and 8 red and yellow suction cap darts. While suckers just makes sense for this sort of blaster, I wonder if suckers are the dart of choice in HVZ games and if so.. why would they be?

 The blaster is a blueish grey colour with orange accents and some HVZ printed graphics. It's pretty solidly built for a non Nerf branded blaster and looks pretty sweet too although it's a lot smaller than I thought it'd be.

 The Zombie Fighter 8 has a very short stature, with a really small grip that is admittedly a little uncomfortable for larger hands. I've actually got very small girly hands, and even I found it felt a little too short for my liking. The blaster uses a spring loaded priming mechanism on the top rear of the blaster similar to a Nerf Maverick REV-6.  It's quite stiff to pull back and needs the user to have a good grip on it.

The darts are inserted into the barrel much like a Nerf Dart Tag Hyperfire. They slide in pretty easily, although I personally preferred using Nerf whistlers or Dart Tag velcro tips as the enclosed darts aren't the best.

Nice graphics:)

 One very cool feature about the Zombie Fighter 8 is they have Nerf N-Strike attachment compatible tactical rails on both the top and the bottom of the blaster. Admittedly, the form factor of this blaster means you're probably not going to really bother with a scope, but a Barrel Break dart holder would probably be useful:)

Top of the blaster tactical rails

Bottom of the blaster tactical rails

 The bottom tactical rails is a cool idea, but it does get in the way of the short hand grip of the blaster. Good idea, relatively poor in practice.

As far as performance is concerned: rangewise it's pretty decent, meeting the standard out of the box standard ranges of 10-12 metres with little effort. It performs better with Nerf darts and is pretty accurate. As far as an all round performer though, the shortness of the hand grip and stiffness of the priming mechanism makes it difficult to rapid fire during games. HVZ is also normally played with older teens/grown ups so the short grip seemed like a weird choice.

We liked the Zombie Fighter 8 from the perspective of it being new, novel and different; the aesthetics were appealing and its ranges were surprisingly decent, but it is rather small (alas not small enough to fit in your pocket or anything as it's rather chunky). The idea of it is supposed to be for HVZ games but it's probably not the best blaster for that purpose, and you'd probably do better with a Nerf Dart Tag Hyperfire if you're liking this style of blaster. I'd recommend it if it was cheap and you're just looking for something for funsies, but as far as this ever being someone's primary, secondary, tertiary or even ON them during a game, I'd have to say it's not the most practical blaster around.

For now, I THINK this is a Toys R Us US exclusive.. can't be sure if it'll make it to Australian shores.