The more I play with Nerf weapons, the more I notice that there are things you need to look for in the guns you're going to be using to shoot your children or pets. In terms of the more recent line of blasters, the Nerf Dart Tag Quick 16 may have a silly name that I'm not going to type again, but it has more than enough in the design department to cause me to fall in love. It hits all the right notes... and targets.

This is a gun that holds a good amount of darts, is large and comfortable in your hands, and has good range. At $20, it's hard to pass up.

This is a pump-action blaster, so no batteries are required. The gun has a single built-in magazine that holds up to 16 darts, using the sticky velcro darts Nerf sells for the "Tag" series of guns. This means the darts are going to stick to a bunch of things around your house, but be aware that this gun will only accept this single type of ammunition. It does come with enough darts to fully load the gun.

To load the gun, you slide the darts into an opening on the top of the blaster, directly into the magazine. This makes the Quick 16 a great gun when you're in the middle of a Nerf war, since it's a simple thing to pick up extra darts from the ground and reload. No switching magazines or manually spinning the chamber (like you see with the Mavericks).

This is also a really fun blaster to use. The two-handed design makes it easy to aim and keep stable, and whenever you put a round in the chamber you get a very satisfying shotgun-style *ker-CHAK* sound. Everyone else will know when you're locked and loaded, and it's also easy to fire rapidly: if you hold down the trigger and work the pump, you can fire rounds at a good pace. I've run into a few jams, but there is an opening on the opposite side of the gun that makes them simple to clear.

All told, this is one of my favorite Nerf guns in my arsenal, and the $20 price tag is more than reasonable. The blaster is well-designed, works well, and it's one of the Nerf guns that really grabs the eye. When I lay a bunch of guns out for combatants to select from, this is often the first to go. If you've ever wanted to take your children out back and get them to do chores while you oversee them like a prison guard, but with soft darts, this is the gun for you.