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Nerf Pop Up tents, Blockade line

Worlds Apart extends deal with Hasbro | Toy Industry | News by ToyNews

Some pics of these were circulated a couple of months ago, clicking the link will bring you to the full article.  To paraphrase, Hasbro and Nerf inked a deal to bring out a series of three pop up tents/obstacles with view holes and targets for kids, enhancing the make-believe element of the Nerf brand.  Looks eurocentric in availability, but I will see if I can get any solid info.

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REVIEW: Quickfire 12 – Prime Time Toys!

The Quickfire 12 is one offering from Prime Time Toys.  I first found out about Prime Time at New York Toy Fair (last year, finding out these were the folks behind a number of Air Zone Toys R Us blasters like the “Punisher” and “Powerstrike 48.”  
The Quickfire 12 is a revolver-style six shot blaster.  It comes with twelve darts and two revolver clips, 6 chambers each.  Similar in function to a Nerf Maverick, but with one radical twist.  Press a button on top of the blaster and the front-end of the blaster flips down, allowing a user to quickly swap a full clip for an empty one.  It primes by pulling back the grey slide on the top-back of the blaster, and fires by trigger pull.  

Range wise, you can expect 20’-30’, as with most other foam blasters.  The second clip secures to the underside of the blaster, and it is a relatively easy matter to pull it off the holder when it is time to reload.  The holder under the blaster won’t easily drop the clip, no matter how much your shake or run with it.  
It is an interesting design, for sure!  I like a speedloader, but the advantage is only temporary, unless you have multiple Quickfire revolver clips.  The clips are not sold separately, so unless you buy multiple Quickfire 12s you only have one fast reload before you reload the blaster chamber by chamber, like other revolvers out there now.



Using this blaster during dart tag games, you have to be careful of the release on the top.  If you’re using two blasters at once you might trip the button and release your clip prematurely.  If you’re just packing the Quickfire on its own, this isn’t an issue.  It fired reliably though, and it would take all kinds of ammo, not just necessarily the Prime Time only ammo.  The handguard makes the blaster a bit tricky to holster, but it’s easy enough to handle on its own, say during a pistols-only round or something like that.  Worth a shot?  I think so.  If you can get your hands on’em they’re worth a look if you’re in the market for a pistol you can reload faster than most other types out there.

COMING UP: Where it all started – Chicago Toy And Game Fair!

So, this is pretty much where my journey began, even with Nerf experience and all that, I needed to make a jump to a proper toy industry event to cut my journalistic(heh) teeth.  The Chicago Toy and Game Fair – Hasbro was there, Razor, and a whole bunch of other great companies.  It is also one of, and I think the only place where toy industry people make themselves available to the public in a focus group/market testing kinda format.  You can try before you buy, and meet a whole bunch of great people and game inventors.  Seriously, you should check it out.

THAT BEING SAID, this week I’ll give away a FREE family pass to The Chicago Toy and Game Fair!  Just shoot me  an email: foamfromabove at g m a i l . c o m and I’ll randomly select a winner a week until the event, the weekend of NOVEMBER 19 AND 20.

Come on and check it out, you’ll have fun and be glad you did 🙂

Nerf Vortex Nitron value pack – WalMart exclusive!

Found for $38.99 (as opposed to the regular $44), Nerf Vortex Nitron value pack.  What is the value?  An extra 20 round disc magazine and 20 more vortex discs to put in it!  The Vortex Nitron was not my fave blaster of the line (The Praxis took that honor) but I dug the automatic capability, good for anybody who likes to lay down that much foam. 

If you were on the fence about the Nitron, this pack is worth a look in both pricing and the extra clip.  Far as I can tell, the only separate disc mags available are the ten round magazines, and an extra 20 might just be the difference between a miss and a tag.  Choose wisely, chummer.

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HUMANS VS ZOMBIES – NERF BLASTERS, FOAM, OTHER BLASTERS OH MY!

Just a quick shot from the Humans Vs. Zombies game at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, thanks to Random Fun Events , where folks from the Chicagoland Dart Society and Wisconsin Parkour also made grand appearances as fantastic mods and kickin’ Original Zombies, respectively.  It was the first time I’ve played HvZ proper, and it was definitely a good time meeting everyone, flinging some foam, and seeing some wicked stunts.  I’ll have a more proper writeup soon, once I’m done going through the grand ol’ POV footage 🙂