Captain

I kind of like these. I wanted to buy another Nitefinder anyway, so this is an option. I'm sad that my clear NF didn't come with red darts though, I wanted some.

Excitement aside, this really is just another color gimmick to sell more blasters. I feel like Hasbro should just put more effort into coloring them to begin with rather than changing it (but of course they probably just care about sales, so the more the merrier for them). I do agree that a color other than green would be cooler. Transparent red would be sweet.

I gotta say, what nerf is putting out now is a mixed bag for me. The stampede is cool, but not having something as simple as a manual fire mode (like the vulcan) just killed it for me. The Barrel Break is a lot of fun and I enjoy it, and I'd like to get a Spectre. I like that it's less chunky than the maverick, and that it fixes the maverick's issues (putting the rail ahead of the slide instead of on it, cylinder rotation on priming rather than on trigger pull).

Ultimately, I think they need to focus their efforts on blaster performance. My Alpha trooper's stock range is pitiful. The recon and raider also sucked out of the box. The deploy seems to be a bit more capable, but the reverse plunger is so underpowered. I got a clear nitefinder and it's stock range is excellent. I want to see more of that.

durka durka, on Sep 16 2010, 10:11 PM, said:

Does anyone else notice the recent battery power trend?

Yes, and I don't like it. The Vulcan was fine, because it had a manual fire mode. You didn't need the batteries if you didn't want them. But the barricade and stampede both require batteries to work at all. What good is that? Obviously the barricade is a flywheel gun and wouldn't work otherwise, but I see no reason why the Stampede shouldn't have had a bolt for single shots.

I don't want to have to use batteries in these new blasters. One of the selling points of the supersoaker and Nerf lines were that they didn't require batteries. Give me an air pump over a power switch any day, I don't want a blaster that operates exclusively on batteries. The vulcan had a manual fire option at least. The stampede should have had that too.

SgNerf, on Aug 7 2010, 12:25 AM, said:

guess i'll just leave that to all the nerf youtubers who will be making their 10 minute long speeches while wearing their tactical vests.

Don't even joke like that.

If there's one thing I hate, it's clicking on a review video hoping to get some bits of information, only to find that it's in the range of 10 minutes long. Who would sit through that?