Alright, Nerf’ put some fine pics on their facebook page regarding the new Nerf “Gear Up” series of repaints. Let’s take a quick look down memory lane to back in February when I got a close look at the blasters. The new series is just a repaint, nothing new or revolutionary has been done on the blasters, they’re just a snazzy new orange and black tigerstripe paintscheme.
So there you go – a brand spanking new Raider, Recon, Barricade and Maverick for the completionist in all of you! Ready to be unleashed around August 1 at major retailers! This line isn’t supposed to be a store-exclusive like the Sonic Series, so keep your eyes peeled!
Heads up! The Nerf Facebook page has released a third video, and this time it clearly the depicts the Vortex blasters in all their resplendent youtube glory.
The names are official – Proton, Vigilon, Praxis, and Nitron – nothing new there. The video gives a 360 of each blaster though, and I am particularly intrigued at the way the muzzles look to accomodate the new disc ammo. Below are some screen shots:
Aw Yeah, the Family Portrait!
The blaster with the internal clip – the Vigilon! Looks to me the size will be pretty close to a recon.
Self-explanatory! Man, look at the size of that magazine.
The blaster we saw in the first video – The Praxis! Oddly enough, no magazine is pictured with it. Pump-action, and judging from that first video pretty awesome range.
The Proton, the pistol entry of the line. As shown in another preview video, this blaster has a slide that pulls out, providing the spot where the disc loads and primes the blaster.
A quick Nerf “how-to” video on playing Nerf Dart Tag. Make sure you’ve got your equipment, and you’ve got your friends! Sounds like the scoring might be different (no points per tag on opposing team members are mentioned) but maybe getting to the tournament proper will change that. In any event, game on!
Nerf released another look at its upcoming Vortex line this past Monday! The video above is what we saw on facebook. The highlights on this vid were: another look at the “Gear Up” N-Strike repaints, another look at some of the Nerf Vortex blasters proper, and highlights the single-shot pistol entry of the Vortex line.
Urban Taggers already has a pretty good writeup up of the video, for anyone curious. I’ll put up a few of the screen caps I’ve grabbed as well though.
You can see what might be the Nitron, the Praxis, and one other blaster. The Nitron name was revealed the last video, and the Praxis is pretty much the blaster that was test-fired the last video as well. The blaster at the top has the integrated clip, while the other two blasters (one of which is at least pump-action) use a removable clip system for discs. Note, the stock!
Also, it’s a little fuzzy but Nerf’s confirmed on their facebook page that the Vortex line will indeed have tac-rails and can accomodate your favorite scopes/sights/lights.
Annnnnd the test-fire! Here’s the pistol, which could be the Proton or the Vigilon but it hasn’t officially been announced yet which blasters are which. The video starts like this:
and you can spot the discs, and the muzzle of blasters. As expected, the muzzle of the blasters is going to be flat to accomodate the discs. How this might affect handling ergonomics and holstering, it’s simply too early to tell without having one in-hand.
Here we see the priming mech/loading slide for the pistol. What I like about the vortex line so far is the release switch being situated near the thumb. To me I can see that being a lost faster mechanically to hit that, reload, and resume firing. That’s pure speculation, but we’ll see. The priming arm takes out the slot where you load the disc, primes the blaster, and hitting the switch returns the assembly back into position.
Foam From Above 