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| Photo from MyLastDart |
It's essentially the .50 Cal sniper rifle of the Nerf Elite series, with bigger darts, killer range, a bipod for the N-Strike tactical rail, and a fun bolt-action design. The new darts look to be considerably bigger in diameter and length; a departure from the normal Elite Dart/Streamline/Whistler design. They come in new MCS-6 round magazines (likely "Mega Clip System").
At first I was psyched about this blaster. It's a big bad rifle with incredible distance. However, the second I learned that it had different darts for it, considerably different darts, my skepticism surfaced. One of the big things I liked about the N-Strike Elite lineup was their move to a "Universal Dart". The Elite Dart was designed to work in everything... every Elite blaster and every older N-Strike blaster. Unifying the lineup with one kind of dart made games that I have for Nerf that much easier. No more searching the play area for the "right kind" of darts to use. Nothing was specialized, it was all good to use with anything. Even Vortex managed to make a universal disk design that worked in every blaster, which actually made my N-Strike vs Vortex game quite interesting in terms of ammo usage.
We're just ahead of a year knowing about the N-Strike Elite lineup (debuted at ToyFair 2012) and now Nerf has suddenly switched from a Universal Dart design and has gone back to specialized ammo. New blasters are cool... but now all those folks (myself included) who sought to unify their collection have a blaster with super fancy special darts that only it can use. I would've been much happier with an N-Strike Elite Centurion that made use of the Elite Darts instead of these big "mega" darts. It doesn't mean I can't go through the work to convert the Centurion over to being an Elite Dart blasting machine... but I'd rather not want to do an overhaul like that on a brand new blaster.
To top it all off, the blaster is red. RED! Nerf just spent a year releasing N-Strike Elite blasters in blue (my favorite color) and now it's the "Lets change up colors again" issue just like the N-Strike lineup had. Yellow blasters! Yellow Blasters! Oh wait... let's change to blue. Blue and yellow! Blue and yellow! No... wait. We need some Green blasters that light up. Blue, yellow, and gree-wait. Scratch all that. Let's just make a whole new lineup that'll unify the look of Nerf. Elite! Yes! It's all blue! It's all blue! It's... naw let's make a red one. A red one with different darts! GAH!
I'll have to wait and see, but initially I'm just beating my head over the fact that we just saw Nerf make everything the same... but it didn't even last them a year. So, for now, I'm bummed.
That pretty much summed up all of my thoughts, sir. The size and range are ideas I like a lot, but the fact that it's not using the "universal" dart bothers me. One of my favorite tactical aspects of Nerf is the fact that your ammo may very well be slung right back at you in a war, meaning going trigger happy might not be the best idea for prolonged battle situations. This... Changes that.
ReplyDeletePersonally, though, I'm okay with the red color. ;0)
If we're lucky, CPVC or 17/32 brass will nest inside the breach. Also, has anyone noticed the position of the hands on the blaster? Specifically the hand holding the handle. It's angled too far for it to be a normal handle. It almost looks like it's going to be a pistol grip.
ReplyDeleteThe original source of this (MyLastDart) said that the stock is like the Rayven, so I think the grip is like it too, with the heavily angled grip and strut behind it.
DeleteI think color should be slightly less flamboyant still every thing u said is on the mark as far as i can tell
ReplyDeleteAppreciate if you can give credit to me as the source :)
ReplyDeleteTo answer your main qualms about the Centurion, the current Elite, Streamline, Whistler rounds cannot handle efficiently ranges further than 75 feet. That's why most modders use Stefans - even then modded Stefans. These darts cannot maintain velocity, range or accuracey at 100ft as the Centurion can.
The MCS rounds are scaled to meet 100ft ranges maintaining that accuracy, velocity and range. Also they are within safety realms of the Elite sting. Elite darts in this blaster would actually bruise or actually break skin and draw blood.
You can't expect a universal dart in a blaster range such as this.
"MyLastDart" is already on the image and cited as the image's caption. I don't expect folks will still manage to miss that, plus the fact that "MyLastDart" is cited everywhere else on the 'net about it.
DeleteAs for the Centurion, I understand why the dart has been designed this way very well. I don't understand the need to create such a thing in the first place if Hasbro's focus for the Elite Dart about a year ago was a Universal Dart Design. If you need to create an entirely new dart just to achieve ranges that no-one was really expecting anyways, why bother?
Woah put them pistols down Stinky Pete - Buzz Lightyear comes in peace. lol. I simply asked that you link to the source as others have kindly done. As a Blogger I think you can appreciate that. No biggy :)
DeleteIt's kinda easy to answer that, with other Toy makers stepping up with ranges, Hasbro have to meet them and then some. For them to safely achieve this, they need something KED compliant.
Most companies are popping out Pballs or elastic band rounds. Not particukarly safe, and eye protection is ever paramount. Nerf needs it too, but these are a step over the carefree safety.
Elites et al cannot achieve this requirement at these ranges, safely or effectively. So no brainer? :)
Same issue when Elites came out, everyone was up in arms about Elite darts. No one is forcing you to buy it or the rounds :) Hasbro have no plans to ditch Elite it's going to be the new N-Strike.
The mega darts are bigger and heavier than the elite ones, this implie two things, megas have more effort to gain speed, but are harder to curve and lose speed, like the diference between a basket and a bowling ball. And, if a wider tip it hurts less, but if you don't care about mutilating your friends, modding it to fire elites (or stefans) and all the stuff (like the longshot mods), i hope you can easily acheive 200ft.
DeleteYes Mylast Dart, we all saw the watermark... I did a Now please sit down. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThis makes NoM's Nerf Lesson #8 seem invalid when THIS beast comes out.
ReplyDeleteNahh, Longshot forever. Universal ammo, comfort, and power make it one of the best blasters ever released. Besides, 100 feet is nothing compared to some of the modifications to the Longshot I've seen.
DeleteAs noted on NerfHaven, Nerf should probably call this new round the "mongo" round, because, traditionally, megas has been 5/8" thick and mongos have 1" thick. This new naming system will totally confuse the current terminology.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the specialized ammo, but i think that it will be useful for snipers since, they don't shoot a lot of ammo and so they can carry enough mongo darts for a battle. And I personally do not like the red color. I don't mind them switching up colors again, but I do if it's red.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Baz. I totally disagree. I'm so happy by this release, I just peed a little. Seriously, though, business-wise, in the past Nerf seemed to be about trendy design & subtle innovations (i.e. "Action Blasters", AT, "SuperMAXX, "Hyper Sight", "Max Force" 1 & 2). But then they seemed to streamline the product line, no pun intended (seriously, I hate puns) with N-Strike. After retooling, they began to branch out in the area of consumer-base need instead of kitsch design. Nerf appealed to a safer tournament crowd with DT, developed an indoor melee line with N-Force, bought SuperSoaker, reached out to the modder community (after inadvertently alienating UT cohorts) by increasing ranges for indoor wars with Elite, are attempting to broaden the consumer base to include girls with the Rebelle line, and now are hitting the outdoor enthusiasts and trying to more amply compete with even the airsoft/paintball crowd with the Mega Series. {{{SIDE NOTE...WHY HASN'T THERE BEEN THAT MUCH CONVERSATION FROM MLD'S BOX ART PICK THAT EVIDENTLY AN ENTIRE SERIES IS BEING RELEASED?!?!? See "Series" in the lower right corner by MLD's credit.}}} These developments are far more that aesthetic re-shells of a traditional toy. Over the past decade, they seem to be retooling their entire business philosophy and are cranking out awesome needs-based product and product lines. To that, I say, "AMEN!" And, in the event that I happen to pop around the corner of an indoor hallway and pop my buddy in the backside with a centurion from 15' away...so be it. ;)
ReplyDeleteI think the red is to distinguish the mega from non-mega dart blasters. i.e. Red darts with red blasters; blue darts with blue blasters. The same way how vortex was a different color then n-strike.
ReplyDeleteBlazing bow is the first in the series. I picked up on 'mega' subtitle after the toy Fair info was released. Mega blazing bow, mega centurion... Looking forward to see what's next.
ReplyDeleteThe darts need to be bigger so they don't injure your face if your closer than 100ft! Red orange medium. Prefer black and orange like the Gear Up series - now that looked fing cool.
ReplyDeleteHave you though that this mega Barett-esque rifle may cost more than an Stampede right?
ReplyDeletehaha, I totally get the frustration of the quick change from uniform gun's to unique again, however...did you consider that it possesses the ability to shoot these unique dart's from the clips aswell as the standard issue universal nerf clips n bullets. I mean they've proven quite good at thinking about universal compatibility. That said, history has proven when company's get big, they get greedy ....so it might start going downhill from here. None-the less I am totally gunna enjoy me excitement for these bad-ass new looking guns.
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