In the middle of last year, Nerf guns became all the rage again for some reason or another.  Some laser tag outlets offered hours where they became Nerf gun battle locations, and everyone from little kids to even college students got involved with the foamy fun.  It wouldn’t be long before EA got involved with the fun with a game for the Wii by the name of Nerf N-Strike, and much to everyone’s surprise, the game was actually pretty solid, and it included an awesome Nerf gun to boot.  The game had lukewarm sales that prompted a sequel in Nerf N-Strike Elite to be released.  Unfortunately for EA, Nerf is yesterday’s news.

It’s quite sad too, because once again, this Nerf game is actually pretty solid.

While last year’s game was mainly a bunch of minigames, N-Strike Elite takes it to the next level as an on-rail shooter.  While it’s nowhere near as gruesome as Resident Evil or House of the Dead, the game does a good job with its target audience in children.  The game follows a bunch of kids take down a multimillion dollar fortress being protected by flying robots that shoot Nerf ammunition at everything in their path.

If nothing sounds threatening, that’s because nothing is.  While there is a lot of shooting and random explosions involved, there’s no real harm done to anything in the game.  For example, you can’t die.  You’re just stuck with having to restart the level.  You also can’t shoot your friends, because for some reason they’re being protected by some force field (as if they’d get hurt by spongy bullets anyway).

The coolest thing about the game is that it comes packed with an actual Nerf gun.  Using a few buttons on the toy, you can take off the main barrel and attach a Wii Remote to it, so you can have the luxury of playing the game using an actual gun mechanic, rather than just simply pointing and shooting with the Wii Remote.  While the toy isn’t an actual accessory, it plays the role because the toy’s trigger ends up attached to the B button on the Wii Remote.  Of course, rather than just an accessory, you can replace the Wii Remote with the barrel, and you’ll be able to actually fire Nerf darts with it.  We tried it outside for a test run, and the darts can travel almost a block. … Oh wait… we’re reviewing the game, not the toy.

Getting back to the packed gun, the main selling point is its “Red Reveal Tech” which is a simple, transparent red piece of plastic that’s used as an extra scope.  In good old Nickelodeon-style, you can use this red lens t o find weak points to different enemies as well as secret passageways to places that would usually be unreachable.  Of course, anybody over the age of 13 can know what to be shooting without looking through the red piece of plastic.  Just fire at the brighter colored objects, or the blurry red ones; it’s that simple.

But as you can probably tell, it’s easy to get carried away with the kind of gun you have equipped.  N-Strike Elite has plenty of guns, both real and fictional, to be unlocked.  The main story mode can be beaten by anybody in about 3 to 5 hours, so if you have a couple kids who want to join in on the fun, up to two people can use the same screen for the action.  If you don’t have two guns, that’s fine, because the Wii Remote will suffice.

The game is about as colorful as you’d expect a game like this to look.  There’s happy kids everywhere shooting at dangerous robots reminiscent of that Spy Kids movie with the 3D glasses.  The sound is rather annoying because it consists of dialog between grade schoolers, but they actually do a good job doing it, and it’ll keep other kids amused.

As stated in the beginning of the review, while the Nerf fad may be over, this game is actually quite solid and should be able to keep younger players satisfied for a couple months before the latest toy comes out.  If anything, you want to pick this up because the gun it comes with is pretty awesome.

Score: 6.8 | Recommendation: Buy It for the Kids

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About This Author: Danreb Victorio

This 21-year old Associate Editor at Gamer 2.0 covers the latest and greatest in handheld gaming as well as has an active voice with Gamer 2.0's reviews at SmashPad plog.

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