Centurion Unveiled!

Big surprise, but Hasbro has officially unveiled the N-Strike Elite MEGA Centurion!  Popular Science has a "360 degree view" of the blaster, as well as some other pictures of firing demonstrations and such.

From PS: "Sniping our fellow editors is a much-beloved and long-standing tradition here at Popular ScienceHQ. Trouble is: our long hallways put us at an uncomfortably close range to our all too well-armed victims. That won’t be the case for much longer. We got a sneak peek at the longest-range Nerf gun in history, the 100-foot-firing N-Strike Elite Centurion.

The Centurion is the first in a new line of Nerf guns that use MEGA darts. The darts are about twice the size of typical Nerf darts, which engineers say helps them get the momentum they need to fly further. The also whistle, an oddly satisfying addition to long-range shootouts  To get the velocity necessary (nearly 55 mph) to catapult ammo one-third of a football field, the designers had to supersize the typical Nerf launch mechanism. With a dart-filled magazine in place, you pull back on a loading handle to allow the top dart to pop into the firing chamber. Pushing the same handle forward sets the firing mechanism in place, and pulling the trigger releases a spring-loaded piston that launches the dart.  As for the gun itself, we’ll be blunt: this thing is freaking huge. It spans 40.7 inches from nose to heel, and at least 2/3 of that length is barrel. As with any gun, the longer the barrel, the straighter – and hopefully the farther – shots will soar.

The Centurion will go on sale this fall for $49.99."

Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of "new" information here, although at this point... if you've been following Nerf blogs, you pretty much know all you need to except for how much it'll cost and when it's release date will fall.  Looks like we should expect this fella on one of Nerf's usual "09-09-09" dates or something like that. Seems to have been a popular trend for them to use. Expect this to start hitting shelves late summer for those retailers that generally jump the gun (Target, Wal-Mart, etc).