Vapor Atlas 250: more info

Right, I'm back in action again. Acer kindly replaced my faulty hard drive under warranty free of charge, so needless to say I'm happy again. A while ago I spotted something on the Foam From Above blog about a new blaster being produced by Razor, known as the Atlas 250, released under the brand name "Vapor". There still hasn't been much info on this but I decided to do some digging myself.

What I have found, is that it is a pistol type blaster that fires water based gel balls around about 50 feet. I haven't found anything on other blasters in the Vapor line, but I did find a Facebook page, and at the time of posting it only has 50 likes. I would say this will be the best source of info on these blasters at the moment. There is also a video showcasing the blasters in action, the description is concise and to the point:

"The Vapor Atlas 250 is the next evolution play battles. Using a gel pellet that is 98% water, it simply evaporates after hitting your target. So there's no mess and no cleanup. The Vapor Atlas 250 holds up to 50 pellets at a time, so you can longer without reloading and it can shoot up to 50 feet. Check it out."

To me, It looks like a cool blaster that might function fairly well, and fortunately it has a trigger and cocking mechanism, unlike other gel ball blasters like Xploders (BIG plus). But  there doesn't seem to be a big push of advertising or information, nor even other blasters in the line-up like what happened with Max Force blasters. So at this stage, I'm still holding out for more info and I will keep updating this blog as I find out more.

Downtime update

Unfortunately I am still limited to blogging on my iPod touch, which is incredibly frustrating however Acer has informed me that the repairs on my laptop are done, and I should have it back within 48 hours. Then comes the fun task of reinstalling everything, and processing the 8gb of photos that I haven't been able to do, but then, after all that, I'm back in action. I've got a few interesting findings to post so keep watching!

Down but not out

This is an update I unfortunately have to make, I wish I didn't have to but it's bad luck I guess. Last night, my hard drive decided to start giving up so I backed everything up, but after that it became apparent that my laptop is now pretty much useless with the state of the hard drive being that it's reading incredibly slowly and I doubt it wpould last more than a couple of days. Therefore, my blogging is limited to what an iPod touch can do, until my laptop is repaired. Good news is, it's covered by warranty so I hopefully won't be out for too long

Foam From Above: New challenger?

Over the last few days, I've spotted a couple of interesting posts pop up on the Foam From Above blog, something about a new contender in the backyard blaster game. well, all will soon be revealed, as a picture popped up late last night (my time) of a blaster made by Razor. They make scooters, remember?

Image courtesy of Foam From Above

Now, from the looks of this picture, I can see the words "Atlas 250" and "Vapor". I can also see what looks like a tactical rail similar to Nerf's rails. I also see little yellow balls. Oh, and a TRIGGER. So what does the "250" stand for? feet as in the range is 250 feet? probably not, that's a bit hardcore. Maybe it's ammo capacity? What are those yellow balls made of? How does it work? Well, Foam From Above has got this one, so I'll be watching that space!

Nerf Reactor still sells?

I wasn't aware of this until I stumbled across this find for $16.99 AU in Toyworld Capalaba, but apparently you can still occasionally find the 2004 version of the Nerf Reactor pump action ball blaster if you look hard enough, or are lucky as hell. This is the first time I've ever actually seen the Reactor for sale in a store.

It comes with the blaster and 4 foam balls. I didn't pick this pack up since I was already donated a pair of them some time ago. I haven't done a review on one yet, but they are a pretty fun little blaster, and if you apply some potato cannon theory, they can be modded to fire the balls with a sweet *BANG!* (link here). So yeah, they do still exist for sale here in Australia, you just have to have a keen eye to find them! Good luck!

Still no bullpup?

Call this post a rant, if you want, but something that seems to bother me more and more these days, is the absence of bullpup style Nerf guns. Well, actually, there's no bullpup foam dart gun of ANY brand that comes to my mind, nor in the range of any other form of popular street tagger... I suppose I should explain what the term "bullpup" means for some who aren't familiar with it. Bullpup basically means that the magazine is behind the trigger, and therefore the loading mechanism and clip receiver are built in to the stock, meaning the overall length is much shorter, making for a more agile setup. (think: FAMAS from Call of Duty Black Ops or the type 88 sniper)

So what's the deal? Nerf's ever popular N-Strike range has been around for a fairly long time, and as part of that line there's slamfire "shotguns", revolvers, assault rifle style blasters, snipers, even fully automatic machine gun style blasters, but not one single blaster in the line is a bullpup blaster? surely the popularity of the FAMAS in a few popular FPS games would have sparked the urge to come up with an interesting design for a bullpup Nerf blaster amongst the design team at Nerf, right? Nope. In fact, the closest thing to a bullpup Nerf blaster is the Nerf Firefly, which isn't really bullpup anyway, It's just a mediocre revolver with the rotating turret placed above the trigger handle.

Of course, there is always going to be design challenges involved. the barrel would have to be of larger aperture and not excessively long, and of course the internals may need some redesigning to incorporate a large bore, short stroke piston to be able to generate enough force to fire the dart far enough. But seriously, if someone such as myself, a self-taught AutoCAD tinkerer can design piston valve potato cannons and high end BMX parts in mere spare time, I'm sure the design team could overcome such challenges easily to create a bullpup dart banger. I mean, seriously, you should see the bullpup pneumatic potato cannons people have managed to build over on the spudfiles forums...

...I hope you're listening Nerf!

Review: Nerf Furyfire

Here we have the Nerf Furyfire, part of the now older Dart Tag line. These are a little hard to find, here in Australia. You might find the odd 2 player pack pop up from time to time, usually around the time of the big toy sales, otherwise, much like the new Dart Tag blasters by Nerf, they are very very scarce.

Availability aside, The Furyfire isn't too bad of a blaster, this green one and it's 10 green darts came as part pf the 2 player set, which also includes an orange blaster with orange darts, 2 vests and 2 pairs of glasses. It looks kind of like a Maverick on steroids, with a shotgun-like pump action priming handle instead of a top slide, chunky aesthetic, and a 10 dart rotating barrel instead of the Maverick's 6. It also features an N-Strike rail on top for attachments, though nothing would really be that useful, other than the ammo holder from the Nerf Barrel Break, due to the manual loading. Unlike the Maverick, the barrel doesn't pop out, so you have to rotate it by hand or by pulling the trigger to advance it to load more darts. read on below...