Well, NERF seems to be in – mostly – fine form lately. They’ve announced three brand spanking new lines of blasters for everyone out there who’s been begging for it.

Newer Years

Bigger and Badder

First thing’s first, they’re making a new sub-series for their N-Strike series called the N-Strike Elite Mega. The only known gun from this series, so far, is the Centurion. The Centurion looks like it’s shaping up to be a pretty good sniper rifle type of blaster, judging by the fact that it’s supposedly going to be able to shoot accurately up to about 100 feet. This is a really good idea considering the Elite Mega line is going to use a new type of dart called Mega Darts.

Long story short, they’re bigger, heavier, and they whistle as they fly. This has the dual effect of making them more accurate at greater distances and being pretty awesome. After all, the only thing better than a good hit is the look on your buddy’s face when he hears a loud whistle heading right for him first.

Right now it looks like the Elite Mega line will drop sometime in the fall.

It’s “Pink or Nothing”

Next up is the Rebelle line. Now, this is a line being marketed directly towards girls with a paint scheme that relies mostly on pink, white, and purple. These aren’t just dinky little “girly pistols”, though, the series is opening with a crossbow – go ahead and soak in how awesome that is for a moment – and a longbow called the “Heartbreaker Bow“.

NERF is also releasing “collector darts” to go with the set. These look to be about the same size as Elite darts, so compatibility isn’t an issue, but they have a few different color patterns to choose from.

We’re looking at an early fall release for the Rebelle series.

Fight The Walking Dead

Last, but not least, is the Zombiestrike series. This one is the one that’s been talked about the least up to this point, so not much is known. What is known, however, is that the one pistol announced so far, the Hammershot, is basically a slightly different mold and radically different paint scheme – of the Rebelle Wildshot. It’s looking like the Zombiestrike line is going to be a “Boy’s club” version of the Rebelle line.

You’ll most likely be able to pick up your Zombiestrike blasters around the beginning of fall or a bit later.

It’s a solid lineup, for sure, but it really makes you wonder one thing. Does NERF really need a line of blasters for girls? That’s not to say that no girls enjoy NERF, we all know that’s not true, but why does NERF seem to think that the answer to “how do we get more female customers?” is “Paint the guns pink!”? The guns on offer are completely awesome, proven by the fact that they’re remaking them for the Zombiestrike series, so why did they feel the need to slap a color scheme on them that would embarrass the eighties and then slap a demeaning label of “For girls” on the front?