My Chameleon Suit shifts gently from gray to black as I sit in the shadows cast by the Renraku arcology, watching the Penumbra Club. It's an outright hit, a one-man job, and a risky one at that, but Mr. Johnson's money was extremely good. I don't know if he's with a corp or an overzealous UCAS security faction, and I never ask. He wants tensions between the Mafia and the Yakuza in Seattle to escalate. I'm happy to oblige. He wants proof. I'm equipped to provide. I watch the entrance, until my capo mark walks out. I raise my Ares, I adjust my CAT-HR3500, and double-check my Smartlink. His head's in frame. I pull the trigger. The guncam does the rest. Mr. Johnson's going to pay out, and get his own copy of the shot.

Then I stop daydreaming about Shadowrun and play with Hasbro's Nerf Cam ECS-12 ($69.95 at Amazon UK) . It's a toy rifle that shoots foam darts, retails for $79.99, and has a built-in digital camera for capturing your unlucky friends and coworkers. It doesn't have Smartlink, but that's okay because we don't have bionic eye implants yet. If you prefer jokes about Riggers and Deckers instead of Street Samurai, the Nerf Combat Creatures TerraDrone ($149.99 at Amazon Canada) is a remote controlled spider-tank that shoots the same Nerf darts at the push of a button, but doesn't have a camera.

Design

The Cam ECS-12 is a lengthy blue, white, and orange rifle, similar to the Rapidstrike/Stampede in design and with a vaguely sci-fi look evoking the Halo assault rifle or the non-energy weapons in Shadowrun sourcebooks. It has a pistol grip with trigger, a secondary trigger to spin up the motor, and magazine release button opposite the secondary trigger. It can take any Nerf N-Strike Elite magazines, and comes with a 12-shot magazine and the darts to fill it. A sturdy, stationary shoulder stock lets you brace the rifle, and accessory rails on the top and bottom of the barrel can hold optional scopes and lights.

Two separate battery compartments sit on the body of the rifle, on either side just below the camera screen. The camera itself needs four AA batteries to take photos, and the motors for the flywheels require another four to spin up. No batteries are included.

The Camera

The camera itself is built into the barrel, above the muzzle and just under the upper accessory rail. A pinhole lens pokes out of a rectangular orange extension above the Elite logo. An SD card slot sits on the left side of the barrel, just under the accessory rail. The camera's 1.8-inch LCD and control buttons are behind the rail and directly above the trigger. The shutter release is a small orange button on the left side of the underside of the barrel, and is used to both take pictures and start/stop video recordings.

It's a shame the shutter release isn't also connected to the trigger, but the button's position makes it extremely accessible by your thumb or index finger, depending on how you hold the gun.

This is a toy camera on a toy gun, so picture quality isn't particularly good (see the slideshow). It can capture VGA stills or VGA video on an SD card, and if you hold the Cam still and your target is well-lit, the photos might actually turn out well. The pictures get grainy to the point of bizarrely pixelated if you try shooting in low light, and they're very prone to blur if your grip isn't steady. Also, every shot will have a small wedge of the bottom taken up by the bright orange tip of the barrel. But again, toy camera on a toy gun. The pictures are at least recognizable, and just capturing your friends and coworkers as they try to dodge darts is fun.

Shooting

Speaking of the gun aspect, the Cam uses a semiautomatic motorized flywheel design, similar to the Nerf Strife and Demolisher. A fully automatic motorized air pump system like the one found on the Nerf Rapidstrike would have been ideal, but as it is, the Cam is one dart shot per trigger pull. Hold down the lower trigger to spin up the flywheels, then squeeze the upper trigger to feed a dart into them and send it flying out the barrel. They get impressive range and can be relatively accurate, but only if you let the motors spin up to their maximum speed with each shot; if you don't, expect darts to fly everywhere between 20 and 50 feet.

The Nerf Cam ECS-12 is a unique, fun, and unfortunately expensive Nerf gun. It combines a motorized, semiautomatic action and a Halo assault rifle feel with a camera you can use to capture your targets to satisfy the demands of your employers for proof. Or the demands of your Facebook and Twitter followers for amusement. At $80 it's a bit pricey for a kids' toy, but it's an amazing example of small arms for office warfare. And if your office doesn't allow shooting, it can even conveniently document HR's case against you!

Nerf Cam ECS-12 3.5 See It $69.95 at Amazon UK MSRP $79.99 Pros Fun to use.

Looks and feels like a science fiction weapon. Cons Expensive.

Poor camera.

Flywheel design is semi-automatic and less reliable than an air-pump design. The Bottom Line When you strap a camera onto a Nerf gun, you have a more entertaining Nerf gun. That's the Nerf Cam ECS-12.

Best Toy Picks

Further Reading