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.
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 🙂
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.
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 🙂
“Rail Strike” (powered shot) – 8 shots, disables enemy in 4 hits, slower reload than other modes, slow RoF (Rate of Fire)
“Sonic Strike” (powered shots) – 6 shots – disables enemy in 3 hits – slower reload and RoF
Attachments:
Rapid Fire Striker – Significantly more shots than normal “Laser Strike” mode, and in full-auto so impossible to really count amount of shots – disables enemy in 8 hits, slow reload, HIGH RoF
Enemy Scanner –
Detects enemy strikers in the surrounding area, aesthetically functions like a sonar, beeping in the direction players on other teams can be found, also increases damage from built-in weapons
Thanks to the fine folks at Light Strike, they sent along the above items for me to take a look. All I can say is, “Impressive, most impressive.”
First up, your basic Striker. It’s a pistol, with four buttons on top and the power switch. Volume, shield, team select, and four weapon settings: Laser, stealth, pulse, and sonic. It’s missing the “Rail Strike” the Assault model has, but you don’t have to hit a reload button. Thematically, it’s as if the blaster “overheats” and needs to cool down. The Striker also has a flip-up sight which is a nice touch, a jack for headphones. It feels really good in-hand, the handles are a good size and fit both kids and adults (my 9 year old nephew had no trouble using it).
Next, there’s the Assault Striker, a rifle unit. In addition to to the same buttons the Striker has (but integrated into the body of the tagger, as opposed to the four buttons on top) It has the same weapon settings as the pistol, with the addition of the “Rail Strike” setting. There’s also an additional “fingerprint scanner” that players must use to activate the blaster before it can be fired and a semi-auto (three round burst) mode, and single shot mode. The bread and butter of the Assault model is it’s modular capability. You buy an attachment like the rapid fire system, refractor cannon, scope, or enemy scanner and it changes the functionality of the striker. So IN ADDITION to the settings it came with you now can expand your repertoire and play style depending on what attachments you’re using. Attachments, that ACTUALLY do something! And good range, reliability, and utility right out of the box.
The strikers themselves overall have a nice weight, easy trigger action and just holding the trigger sends out a constant stream of shots. And just because Wowwee makes “Paper Jamz” that doesn’t mean these strikers are paper. It’s a robust plastic! The strikers also come with an additional target that changes color based on your team selection, both for practice and if you want to add a layer of challenge to your traditional gametypes.
The strikers have their target on the front of the blaster. This positioning leaves it easy to take some liberties, through testing we found hiding the blaster behind your back makes it easy to hide the sensor. With the targeting vest this isn’t possible, as the sensors are out in the open, and maybe going prone is the only way to block the sensor after this. Also, with more than 2 players putting the blaster behind one’s back won’t work with proper tactics. One other thing is that when you play with just the blasters, a player can switch teams at any time. It would be easy to switch teams without the vest, either on accident or if you were trying to cheat. Also, respawning is done by just turning the striker on and off, so less scrupulous individuals might exploit this as well.
Now nevermind the strikers already get pretty much 50’ out of the box, but you’re also getting a multitude of different strikers in each unit, balanced out in power vs. rate of fire vs. reload time. Throw in the attachments, the vests, the added factors of the ITS (Intelligent Targeting System) and you’ve got the makings for some pretty intense games in an immersive experience not really shown by anything else out there yet. You heal, respawn, set timers, sentries, medic stations, and there are some serious pieces here for a grand game time puzzle. The trick is just getting through that initial investment of all the pieces being sold separately, plus batteries. Have no fear though, the attachments don’t require batteries. Just the strikers, ITS, vests, and targets. Each piece adds to the gameplay – vests make players able to heal each other, and the ITS has a number of different functions. If you’re willing to make the investment you really wouldn’t regret it, there is definitely some serious potential for you and your friends depending on what you devise. Light Strike provides the items, but the replayability and variety is definitely on the part of the play
A pretty serious oversight though has to be on the visibility of the lights on the strikers outdoors. IN bright light, it’s near impossible to read any of the light displays on the strikers. In the video below, you might be able to see what I’m talking to about. Bright sunlight just washes out the colors under the frosted plastic sections of the strikers.
Here’s how a little play went:
Pros:
No clean up
Big ranges out of the box – 50’+, under 100 w/Scope attachment
Different play styles – high RoF./quick reload vs. high-power
Easy to track hits
Easy to pick teams
Out of the box, ready to go.
Reloading at the press of a button
Expand game play w/ other purchases, ITS and chest, targets – initial expense can be a hit, but really adds to the gameplay
Customizable experience
Lights are fun and bright, exciting to watch and fun to hear
Accuracy seems pretty spot-on
Negative:
Expensive to get started, must remember you get multiple blasters with each toy.
Lights difficult to see in bright outdoor light
Easy to cheat
Respawning is too easy – easy to refill health and reset without anyone noticing
Easy to switch teams after a game has started
There is the chance this might add to gameplay as well (find the spy) but very easy to swap colors if players want to screw up a game type (this might happen on accident as well
Some weapons might be broken – the Scope outranges AND has a high RoF with the Stealth Shot. Might need regulation on the part of the players, or it might not be as bad with more players.
“HasbroToyShop.com wanted to give the Foam From Above fan community a heads-up on a limited opportunity to obtain the Nerf N-Strike Barricade RV-10 Special Edition Transformers Bumblebee blaster, which appeared at New York Comic Con earlier this month. Hasbro will be posting this item to www.HasbroToyShop.com for sale on the morning of October 19th, after 10am EST and we wanted to provide you with as much notice as possible! Please keep in mind, remaining inventory is limited since the item was a hot commodity at the convention, but we’re glad we are able to make these remaining blasters available online.”
So to sum up: Go to the hasbro toy shop starting tomorrow, and keep an eye out on theNerf Facebook page to see when the news goes live there, and you too can own your own Nerf N-Strike Bumblebee Edition barricade! Pair it up if you own the Optimus Prime Barricade, or mix and match if you own either the original, Sonic, or Gear Up editions! Great collectors, intended for kids, loved by completionists. Transform, and Roll Out!
Foam From Above 
