New Products Stateside

A trip to one of the Target stores near me revealed the first I've seen of Max Force on local shelves.  They had the Blowgun, Shadow Hawk, Crossbow, and Maximizer, as well as extra ammo, all in stock.  From what I could tell, they had literally just been put there, as it looked like someone was restocking shelves.  Prices for Max Force that I observed were the following:

• Blowgun: 9.99 USD
• Ammo:  9.99 USD
• Maximizer: 19.99 USD
• Crossbow: 24.99 USD
• Shadow Hawk:  34.99 USD

These are pretty pricey for plastic spitwad guns if you ask me, but when I went to pick up the box containing the Shadow Hawk, it at least had some noticeable heft to it.  There are dozens of good reviews out there for these, so if you want to form your own opinion on whether the pricetag is worth it, check them out.  In my opinion, Urban Taggers has the most complete reviews I've seen around of these.  

From what I can tell, the Crossbow is just an aesthetically altered Maximizer.  It has the same blaster design as it if you ignore the crossbow parts.  There's even a little hook on the end of the Maximizer handle that looks like it accepts the red rubber band that would make it a Crossbow.  The Crossbow is also, mind you, a Target Exclusive.  It does claim to get 5 more feet of range over the Maximizer though, so perhaps the performance increase of that rubber band is actually worth something.  

I did not spot a Terrornator in my searches.  I was tempted to check out the Shadow Hawk had it not been for the pricetag.  The jury is still out on these for me, personally.

Next to the Max Force stuff, I spotted pricetags and empty shelf space for Light Strike.  I waited a bit to see if they would get stocked but alas, no luck.  I did record the prices I observed there, which look to be much more reasonable than Toys R Us' prices that I listed in an earlier post.

• Assault Strikers:  39.99 USD
• Strikers:  29.99 USD
• Sensor Vests:  24.99 USD
• Refractor Launcher:  12.99 USD
• Scope:  9.99 USD
• Target:  9.99 USD

I was surprised that they had Scopes ready for the shelf, since I have yet to see these Stateside.  I also expected them to be the same price as the Refractor Launchers, which is also a nice surprise.  Maybe these will sell at the lower price, as I still have noticed NONE of the Light Strike sets have sold at Toys R Us (they've been there for at LEAST a week now!)

And lastly, a bit of a neat Nerf Sighting.  While at Target, I couldn't help but notice that the Whistler Dart ammo pack that comes with the N-Strike embroidered patch was in stock.  I had thought this to be a Toys R Us Exclusive until now.  Oddly enough, Drac at Nerf Mods & Reviews found an Element EX-3 Mission Kit at a Target store as well with no "Toys R Us Exclusive" logo on it.  Perhaps we might start to see these exclusive sets at normal retailers soon?  Drac also finally located the Yellow 2-pack Scout IX-3 sets at K-Mart, which I am tempted to check out myself.

All in all, while summer is wrapping up, there's still plenty of neat stuff hitting the shelves.  It's been neat to see these new lines showing up and I might try them out at some point.  I've been hesitant to go for them though, as I'm still not sold on the financial contribution needed to pick these up.  Maybe once prices go down a bit from the initial launch I'll go for 'em.