Mega Bloks were awesome enough to send along a couple of samples from Toy Fair – Trigger Happy’s Blaster and Ignitor’s Flame Sword.

Trigger Happy’s Dart Blaster

Ignitor’s Flame Sword (size comparison to a Nerf Marauder)

What wonderful intellectual property are these devices for destruction from?  The Skylanders Giants game, where a player uses a figure on a platform to connect to the video gaming device of their choice and play that character IN THE GAME.

Now, my past experience with licensed blasters is not very positive.  At all.  The Jango Fett blasters I have weren’t anything special, nor were the clone trooper dart blasters I picked up.  On top of that, this is Mega Bloks’s first foray into making roleplay toys, so I was a little curious how these would stack up against past experience.

Thankfully, the stats spoke for themselves:

STATS:

Price:  Approx. $14.99 depending on the store
Range:  Anywhere from 30′-40′ (with darts NOT the ones included.  The darts it comes with decreased the range to about just under 30′)
Ammo:  Foam darts with a hard plastic, thin tip
Ammo Capacity:  6 darts before reloading

Darts that come with the blaster

Versus Nerf Elite Streamlines and current Dart Tag darts

Shot of the chamber

Air restrictors inside (and no, the cylinder does not pop out to reload.)

 Annnnd the video:

So how did I like it?  Sure, it was similar to Nerf Maverick but in a case like this it’s the aesthetics that are important because of the licensing.  Folks who love the game (or have kids who love the game) are going to like this, as well as anyone (like me) who likes a gold-colored blaster (I played A LOT of Goldeneye on the N64).  The cylinder not popping out was a surprise, but the side divots are nice touch to get around that.  As you can see in the video, the divots don’t line up with the chambers on the cylinder.  It would be nice if the holes had lined up WITH The divots, instead of trying to load the darts in on an angle, but the blaster would look a little odd and a little less symmetrical.  I get that.  The lack of a trigger guard bothers the showman in me as I can’t spin the blaster on a finger.  But, that’s a nitpick.

Unfortunately, the included darts don’t do the blaster any justice.  They drop the range and the heads are unforgiving if they did hit their target.  Granted, a toy like this isn’t INTENDED to be shot at others, but things happen and I would have liked to see suction cups or something softer at the heads of the darts, if anything so the blaster would hit the ranges it does with regular Nerf ammo.

And the ranges are THE most surprising thing about this blaster.  Once I loaded proper darts it got comparable range and performance to any Maverick I had (Strongarm doesn’t count, it’s internals are ahead of the Maverick curve but I had to include it for argument’s sake.)  I was pleasantly surprised to say the least!

After being burned so much with licensed blasters in the past, I would take this into any stock blaster game as a good sidearm confidently.  Per the usual rules around here, I won’t be modding this so I won’t write about possibilities.

Ultimately, I think it works as a sidearm if you’re into stock blaster games and the golden aesthetics remind me of sneaking around in my video game days.  It’s not exactly the Golden Gun, but it’s closest I’ve gotten 🙂  Skylanders fans might get a kick out of the blaster as well, as the license is HUGE and the game is really popular.  Trigger Happy looks like a fun character to play as well (judging from the videos, maybe an actual Skylanders player can sound off on him) so if you’re hurting for a unique looking sidearm or want to live the adventure with Spyro and friends, pick this up.   

These are only the beginning too, at Toy Fair there was plenty more on the way, as shown below:

’til next time, chummers!  Got a question?  Post below.