How was your Halloween? As you hopefully spent it in costume, let’s look at a toy out there for the costuming/role play/imagination bunch, Skylanders Giants Tree Rex Smash Hands from Mega Bloks!
Based on this guy:
Come these hands (sample provided by Mega Bloks) intended to protect the world.
Approx. $24.99 (based on the availability) Range: Uhm… what? Comfy: Totally. Though obviously built for a kid, these will fit on adult hands too.
Thanks for the sample, Mega Bloks!
Image originally from Megabloks.com
You use them as such:
and first things first, they protect your hands! Dress like Tree Rex, minus a lot more external bark on you.
The foam of the hands is thickest and at least a couple of inches thick at the knuckles, so while I don’t recommend using these as boxing gloves or striking people, animals, household plants, or sparring in a mixed martial arts class, they are pretty soft. There is a small strap on the inside to hold onto while wearing the fists. The box is open, so when you see these on shelves you can check for yourself just how soft these hands are.
Skylanders Giants and Mega Bloks offer up a way for youngsters to role play as Trigger Happy and now Tree Rex, taking the action from the video game/construction sets to getting up and imagining themselves as their fave characters. Maybe a play group out there utilizes a melee weapon ruleset, and need something past the Hulk hands of the past. Either way, I do like the look of these toys and hopefully we’ll see more of Skylanders Giants and their role play toys as the franchise continues.
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.
Spotted these at Meijer, saw them first at Toy Fair, and now they’re out! Fresh from Skylanders (and Mega Bloks) – roleplay items! Trigger Happy’s Blaster and Ignitor’s sword. No sign of anything else yet, but you can see the photos 🙂
Going to hopefully have some samples in, and will let you know how these are! There were some claws, and at least one more blaster expected from this line. And kids love Skylanders. The sword is foam, and it was confirmed the darts are compatible with Nerf darts when I was at Toy Fair. Of course, I will REconfirm this when they come in. Thanks!
Foam From Above 