If you haven't held a Nerf blaster since the days of the Bow 'n' Arrow or the Blast-o-Matic, then you're going to be blown away by the latest selection of Nerf products. Needless to say, things have changed a lot since the '90, and Nerf is no exception. In the early 2000s, a Dart Tag line was launched that included velcro-tipped darts and scoring vests, establishing Dart Tag as an activity that lies somewhere between laser tag and paintball. These Dart Tag blasters have come a long way from their roots as well, so today we'll be taking a look at newest blasters in the Dart Tag 2011 line.
As someone who grew up dodging foam darts, and then later playing with at-home laser tag kits that never seemed to work properly, I was very interested to see whether Nerf Dart Tag could deliver on its promises. The short answer is that it does. Over the past few weeks, my living room and yard have been turned into a war zone.
These blasters have been a hit primarily because of their Velcro darts that stick to just about any piece of clothing. Yes, there is an official Nerf Dart Tag jersey with patches of matching fuzzy Velcro fabric for formal play, but more often than not, our Nerf wars have been spontaneous outbreaks. The only feeling that tops the joy of launching 16 darts at a friend is the laughter from seeing more than half of them stuck to their clothing like some strange breed of foam porcupine.
Looking more closely at the blasters in Nerf's Dart Tag 2011 line, we used the Sharp Shot, Swarmfire, Speedload 6, and Quick 16. Fellow GeekDad John Baichtal gave his impressions on the Swarmfire already, so I'll be focusing on my favorite blaster of the bunch, the Quick 16. After an extremely unscientific test that involved unloading several clips worth of darts at unwilling targets, it can be noted that the Quick 16 fired approximately 2 darts per second. It also fired with impressive range, reaching an average of 30 feet with all darts falling within 2 feet of that mark.
The Quick 16 is something of a bigger brother to the Speedload 6, a blaster that packs almost identical features into a smaller package. Both blasters share the two features that allow them to live up to their speedy names: pump-action loading and push-down slot reloading. Darts are fed into the chamber with a pump handle on the Quick 16 or a pull-back of the slide atop the Speedload 6, and both blasters have a jam clearing door in case you should accidentally begin to load a second dart before firing the first (this did happen a few times). At any point during play, additional darts can be fed into the reloading slot without any need to open up the blaster or disconnect an ammo clip. In fact, you can probably feed these darts back into the blaster without even looking.
The Speedload 6 and Quick 16 sell for $12.99 and $19.99 respectively, and unlike some of the other Nerf blasters I've tried out recently, do not require any batteries. As the weather warms up and the days of outdoor play grow longer, these two blasters will give you the best value for your dollar.
Disclaimer: GeekDad was provided with complimentary review samples of the Nerf guns mentioned in this post.
