521,600 Minutes, Motherf***er

Around the time that I slacked off and stopped posting, things in the Nerf world were entering their yearly slowdown following the roll-out of the Elite line.  Maybe my temporary disinterest in the hobby was coloring things inappropriately, but the dead zone in last year's product cycle seemed particularly vacuous and boring, particularly after the underwhelming arrival of the "flagship" Hail-Fire.

In this context, the timing of my return to the community seems rather serendipitous, at least as far as my individual interests are concerned.  While not universally exciting, a tidal wave of new foam goodness is on the way.  If I had been paying more attention in the last year all these developments might seem a little less momentous, but now that we are on the cusp of release I'm getting all tingly.  This is particularly true regarding the Sledgefire, the pics and info for which I managed to miss until today.

A cartridge-based firing system might set off some alarms, but when I look at this blaster I see a furthering of the pleasing signs evident in the rest of the fall's offerings.   Promising new individual blasters, multiple new product lines, new priming and firing systems, a new ammo type.  Efforts are being made to cater to the hardcore and explore new demographics.  Forward, forward, forward.

While, in aggregate, this may fall short of perfect nobility (we are talking about a corporation here, after all), Hasbro is driving the Nerf brand out of the corner swinging with both hands, from all angles, with the gloves off, wearing a minimum- minimum - of five rings with pointy bits.  It's going to be a hell of a year.