Stryfe has Landed!

Basic Nerf has gotten their hands on the Stryfe, the latest N-Strike Elite blaster to hit shelves, and has plenty of pictures with different accessories equipped on it.  If these are starting to show up on store shelves in the US, these will likely see a full domestic release within the month or so.  4 AA batteries slinging darts at Hailfire ranges in a nifty clip-fed design with options for accessories on top, bottom, front, and back should have fans running to stores to see if their shelves are stocked with the new Stryfe.  Price has been reported at $24.99 USD.

What accessory combinations are you looking forward to most on the Stryfe?

Internals! Rough Cut 2x4

My "Big 3" Nerf Blogs have been VERY good to me the past couple of days or so.  SG Nerf has internal pictures as well as a comical, yet kind of uninformative unboxing and test fire.  The test fire was disappointing to me since the darts kind of flopped out.  I just didn't feel like I got a good idea of how it worked.

Kind of reminded me of the first video we got of the Pyragon in spring of 2012 from the kid who's dad "worked at Hasbro".  It was great to see it in action, but the reviewer gave so little useful information that it was more annoying to watch a novice attempt to explain something a lot of fans would've wanted more detailed information on at the time.  Oh well!

Thank heavens we got this image, a shot of the Rough Cut 2x4's Instruction manual!  It's got a multi-stage firing system, much like the Barrel Break had.  I'm still trying to figure out how the air gets directed to all 8 barrels from the two plungers on top, but a closer inspection of it's internals will reveal that.

SG Nerf's Rough Cut info

iMod: xRaider

I wish more folks would do this with homemade blasters.  Last night I read a post on iModifyNerfs, a blog belonging to one of my readers.  It's a clever integration of the cool looking N-Strike shells we've come to expect from Hasbro along with the power and ingenuity of an NIC-style homemade blaster.  While he's still working on it, this picture really just caught my eye and illustrated the main problem I have with most homemade blasters: their lack of interesting aesthetics.

A lot of homemade blasters just look like a pipe dream, nothing I tend to dream about.  While they have excellent ranges and performance, I just think they look lame.

I've seen a few other folks attempt integrating homemade internals into Nerf blasters and I ALWAYS enjoy the end result much more.  iMod has really been doing a great job integrating the awesome power of homemade internals with the admittedly cooler looking N-Strike shell from a Raider CS-35.
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Do me a favor, folks.  Hook me up with more creations like iModify's xRaider that he's working on.  I really enjoy finding creations by modders who seem to appreciate aesthetics as much as they do power.   In the meantime, I'll be keeping an eye on iMod's progress on the xRaider.

Multishot Madness

Urban Taggers and Nerf Mods & Reviews have done it again... they've got me talking, speculating, and drooling all over new Nerf-ness.  Maybe Nerf-ness isn't the word, as they've been using "Multishot Madness" as a hook for the Rough Cut 2x4 and the Vortex Diatron.  Both are among a slew of new images that came in off of Amazon's UK site.  They both feature simultaneous firing blasters, two Elite Darts or two XLR Disks, as their main gimmick.  The Rough Cut looks like a longer blaster based on the box shape and the two-handed nature of this shotgun-inspired blaster.

Let's take a closer look at these two new blasters, shall we?

Elite: Odd Release Schedule

So a friend pointed out something obvious that I overlooked and didn't really get a chance to try to figure it out.  Simply put, the observation is how the N-Strike Elite lineup has been released.  We started off with the Rampage and Retaliator, two revamped N-Strike designs of the Raider and Recon.  Then we had the flagship release of the Hailfire.  The Stockade got a UK release too.  Those were all released around the same time... all big blasters.

Now we've got news of the Firestrike, Strongarm, Triad, and a repainted Jolt.  All small blasters suited well as a sidearm.  While it's surely a good thing to have some balance of blasters to choose from (instead of only having larger blasters with the initial release), it just seems like it would've been better to space out the different blasters.  Release the Retaliator and Hailfire alongside the Triad.  Release the Rampage alongside the Firestrike.  Have a mix of blasters so that way fans could've outfitted themselves with the whole lineup with each release instead of choosing which large blaster to get and then choosing which small one to get later once they came out.

It just seems odd to me.  Maybe there's some marketing scheme that I've missed, but there's clearly a pattern here with this flurry of smaller blasters being released in the near future.

Happy Thanksgiving!

To my readers in the United States, Happy Thanksgiving!  To my international readers, I'm thankful to have your support and encouragement that keeps me going!  Wherever you are in the world, there's something we can all appreciate!  What are you thankful for today?

Firestrike is smaller?

While watching the trickle of Elite news roll in, I couldn't help but notice that folks have been noting the size of the Firestrike is smaller than the NiteFinder.  I personally thought that the NiteFinder's size was just fine and worried that if the Firestrike were, in fact, smaller... that it'd be an issue.

Instead of AA batteries, there are AAA batteries.  This seems to further suggest that the blaster did indeed shrink a little more than I had anticipated.  Initially I was concerned about the size of the grip on this blaster but quickly realized that while Nerf had indeed sized down the Firestrike, they added a design element to remedy a potential problem for big hand users such as myself.  There's a bit of a "hook" in the lower grip design that extends down a little further, making room for folks with larger hands, while still keeping the basic size of the blaster slightly smaller.  It's an interesting way to make a smaller design still accommodate larger hands.  Just another reason why I'm personally psyched for the Firestrike's release.