After discovering video games, I didn't really keep up with my old friend Nerf. But last night I got to shoot (and get shot by) the Stampede, a new, fully automatic Nerf rifle with a tripod and replaceable magazines. What!?


Just like robots and movie violence and Halloween costumes, Nerf guns are getting more realistic with each passing year. The N-Strike Stampede Blaster, the first fully automatic dart clip Nerf weapon, is the most realistic to date. Maybe not realistic in the sense that it looks just like some real gun that any military uses, but real in the sense that it looks like the yellow version of something that could fire bullets and fatally wound someone.

The Stampede has a detachable shield to protect you from enemy darts, an extendable tripod for prone Nerfage, and a general badass look that will make you feel like you're a Halo soldier whose gun happens to be canary yellow.


The upside of it being a toy and not a real crazy ass rifle is that it comes with a toy price tag: the Stampede will retail for $50 when it's available September 9.

The event also had a nice retrospective of Nerf products from a simpler time. A few observations: was Nerf really the first indoor ball? Next are you going to try to tell me outdoor ball was only invented in like the 50s? And why is a brain-shaped football better than a regular football?


Perhaps most disquietingly, why do I distinctly remember the Nerf swords being the incentive for me to master potty training, if they came out in 1998, when I was 11 years old? [Nerf]