Review by: Brandon "Howler Dart" Cackowski-Schnell

As a (mostly) responsible parent I should be appalled at Nerf guns and their insidious indoctrination of our nation's youth into the military-industrial-commercial complex that will undoubtedly grind them up like so much wood pulp. As an immature goof-off I can't help but love slinging suction cup darts across the room into my kid's back as he laughs uncontrollably. That odd dichotomy of sanctioned, sanitized violence is on full display in Nerf N-Strike Elite providing an entertaining, albeit short, on-rails shooter experience…when it's not acting as a giant commercial for Nerf guns.

BOB from the original Nerf game is back and he's up to no good. Lucky for you he's armed with only Nerf guns and has surrounded himself with robots that can be defeated with well placed darts to the optical sensors. It's up to you to get to the bottom of his metallic shenanigans and unlock an entire arsenal of plastic weaponry in the process. To do so you'll take your N-Strike team of four tweens through a harrowing journey of pain, loss and self discovery. Ok, you don't do that at all, but you will shoot a lot of darts at a lot of robots.

To do so the game comes with the Nerf Switch Shot EX-3 blaster which serves double duty as both an excellent light gun shell and an excellent Nerf blaster. As a light gun shell it has a nice heft, possibly too hefty for younger kids, and has a responsive trigger. As a Nerf blaster it's superb. The pull handle makes it easy for kids to lock and load and it can sling a dart over some seriously long distances. It comes with three whistler darts as well as a holder for two darts. Rounding out the package is the Red Reveal accessory which is used in the game to reveal secret codes and messages and give anyone over 30 a splitting headache.

The game follows the usual on-rails shooter formula leading you on a merry journey as you stop to shoot robots as well as neon blue cannisters to amass in-game currency as well as icons to replenish shields and ammo. Each of the four playable characters has a default blaster that has unlimited ammo but all differ in terms of range, number of darts fired at a time and clip size. As you progress through the game you'll find codes via the Red Reveal that unlock additional blasters for the characters and in a nice, capitalistic twist you can use codes found on real life Nerf blasters to unlock even more foam throwing weapons of robotic destruction.

The weapons are all modeled well in the game and depending on the type of ammo used the parabolic curves of the darts or foam balls are represented accurately if a bit exaggerated. Switching between blasters means that you'll have to adjust your shots accordingly based on the ammo type or better yet, modify your blaster to shoot multiple rounds at once and then just spray darts willy-nilly. As you shoot more and more cannisters you can use them to modify any of the game's blasters to up the range and damage as well as add scopes, targeting lights, extra barrels and different ammo. The game could do a better job of explaining what the different ammo does as there's no clear explanation of how a howler dart is better than a whistler dart, but other than that things are pretty straightforward.

The shooting is all handled well and very kid friendly. You don't die so much as fail and just restart at the last checkpoint. It's clear that the enemies are shooting the same kind of darts you are as you'll see the projectiles stick to the screen when you take a hit. The only real problem with the shooting is that the game eschews the use of the nunchuk meaning that you'll constantly have to use your off hand to access the d-pad to switch weapons or the A button to zoom in. Luckily the ammo capacity of your non-infinite blasters is high enough that once you select it you can use it for quite a while before having to switch blasters.