The return of an icon!

This past week there's been tons of talk surrounding Nerf's new "elite" blasters, and their de-tuning for certain countries, one of which being Australia, and also about a video of a leaked version of the unofficially announced Vortex Pyragon (re-uploaded by Basic Nerf here). But that news didn't have me anywhere near as interested as this morning's return of the extremely popular Australian blog Urban Taggers after a month of hammering from Hasbro's lawyers about their sources of early release blasters and information. It seems Hasbro has failed after blog owner Pocket pointed out that all of his sources were readily accessible by anyone with the internet access.

What Hasbro has done is absolutely horrible, and has done nothing more than tarnish their own name. I for one, have definitely reconsidered future purchases of Hasbro products, and also whether or not I want my own blog to be supporting a company who would do this to a fellow blog owner. After all this, I wouldn't be surprised if Pocket decided to no longer post anything to do with Nerf on his blog which no doubt will have a notable negative impact upon Nerf's image and sales.

The full story, recounted by Pocket is available for all to see on his blog in this post and is by far, a must read. I am astounded by the poor show of a company that was named one of Ethisphere's most ethical companies and this whole deal has me wondering whether Street Tag Warfare will continue to post anything to do with Nerf or not.

Max Force Maximizer 60 review

The Max Force line of paper pellet blasters has seemingly stopped dead in it's tracks, even a decent launch the line never really sold all that well. It's a shame really, I love the Shadow Hawk 100 I was sent. However, many of these blasters are now discounted, if you can find them. So now is the time to pick one up if you were a bit unsure in the beginning. I picked up this Maximizer 60 for a mere $9.50, down from $20 just because the scope was missing.

Out of the box, you get the blaster, an 8 shot clip, 102 paper pellets with a container, safety glasses and usually a scope (mine was missing, hence the bargain). The build quality feels fantastic. There's no loose, extremely flexible or creaking parts. The overall look of the blaster is different but very nice. It's a bullpup pull and release style pistol with a side port clip feed, with the spring powered piston located under the barrel. It features a rail on top to accept the scope, but nothing else. There is also a loop at the top side of the barrel tip to accept a strap clip but it is very small.

Strap hook, scope rail and loading port

Loading is much the same as the Shadow Hawk, put the pellets in the clip, soak in water and insert the clip in to the port. The clip automatically advances when the rear priming handle is pulled back, and fires out the pellet when you let the handle go. Simple!

Performance is as it states on the box, max range of 60 feet and great accuracy. I was easily able to get consistently accurate shots without a scope at all at a range of 40 or 50 feet flat. fast follow up shots may not be on par with a slam-fire, semi auto or full auto Nerf blaster but with definitely blow away a mildly modified Nitefinder in re-fire rate, and will out-last a Maverick due to the extra 2 shots per clip and quick reloading if you have a second clip. As a side arm or pistol style blaster, the Maximizer 60 is a seriously great blaster.

So what mods could I recommend? Normally, this is one I'd say to leave alone but the decreasing availability of Max Force blasters and ammo leads me to believe that a conversion to Nerf dart ammo with an intergrated RSCB clip would be beneficial and probably yield some great ranges. Overall, this is a great blaster that's going for a decent price at the moment, so pick one up if you were undecided on the Max Force line beforehand, even if it is to turn it in to a dart blaster. 8/10.

Nerf Rampage teaser

Another week, another teaser from Nerf up on their facebook page. This time it's the Rampage on show, but yet again there's two videos with conflicting range claims, one claims 15m, the other claims 75 feet. So after the confirmation of 75ft ranges on Nerf Mods and Reviews, one would now have to assume that their marketing department really has now clue of how to convert measurements from imperial to metric. I have to wonder how such a ridiculous mistake has made it this far. Perhaps Hasbro is too concerned with unleashing legal dramas upon the Urban Taggers blog to fix blatant mistakes..

but that's not the only conflict, in previous images we've seen of the rampage, we've seen it both with and without the mysterious shield, most recently WITH the shield but now it's gone again. I have no idea what's going on now. Both videos below for your analysis, leave a comment behind to tell me what you think.

New N-strike Elite photos!

Head on over to Nerf Mods and Reviews for some great new pics of 4 of the upcoming Nerf N-Strike Elite blasters due to be released later this year. Wait, four?! That's right, there's now one more that doesn't have a name yet, but resembles a Nerf Barricade with a new stock that can hold 10 darts.

Image courtesy of Nerf Mods and Reviews

I think I'm now most excited to see this Elite Barricade in action, and to get my hands on one. I always thought the original Barricade lacked a stock and dart storage, so I guess now I might have to consider using this at wars when it comes out. I do wonder, however, how Nerf can get a Barricade to fire these "elite" ranges of up to 75 feet?

I won't post the rest of the pics here, but I will direct your attention to Nerf Mods and Reviews for more investigation, and also if you'd like to join the discussion about these blasters, head on over to the Oznerf forums.

Nerf Retaliator teaser

Today the Nerf facebook page finally released an official teaser video for one of the blasters in the N-Strike Elite line, the Retaliator, which looks like a re-done Recon. To be honest, I think it looks like fantastic upgrade from the Recon. I predict that loads of people will buy it just for that stock

Original claimed ranges for the Elite blasters was 75 feet, but now I'm not so sure what they're claiming. The reason being, is that the video they released on facebook stated ranges of 15 metres (just under 50 feet), but then, they released another video to their youtube account with the same title but with "(75ft)" tacked on the end...

Sooo, what's the deal? are the claimed ranges supposed to me 15 metres? or did they get the conversion from feet to metres wrong and the claimed ranges are 75 feet still? I'd like to see the feedback on this one, so have a look at both videos below and tell me what you think: