For the inaugural review on Nerf in the Northeast, I debated and debated on which blaster should have the honor. There are flywheels and springers, one hand primers and pumps, but the one blaster that my wife and I BOTH race to grab first whenever we battle around the apartment is the blaster immediately to my right as I type this, in the top drawer:
The Nerf Mega CycloneShock. (I’m going to attempt to set a precedent on how I’d like these reviews to pan out but we’ll see. If the viewers like it, then the review layout will remain, if not, then I shall reassess!)
The three sections:
- Out of the box fun
- Out of the box battle readiness
- Mod-ability
Section 1: Out of the box fun
Whether you like the Mega line or not, this blaster is great. It doesn’t matter if you consider yourself a “competitive” player or you just like to shoot around the house with your family and/or friends. As soon as you remove the CycloneShock from the packaging and hold in your meat hunks (that’s moon for hands) you can feel a difference.
The grip is comfortable, the prime is smooth and not overly long (i.e. centurion, magnus) and there is a definitive vibration through the blaster when you fire it that just makes it feel even more rewarding. There is also a simple pleasure in shooting larger caliber ammo for some reason unexplainable by science. The mega darts are fairly accurate, whistle pretty decently, and are a lot easier to find than the smaller elite darts. As I mentioned earlier, my wife and I always race to the CycloneShock when we have our home battles because it’s just so much fun.
We have all the Megas; Centurion, Magnus, Thunderbow, BigShock, but the CycloneShock is our #1 choice. It holds 6 Mega darts, is easy to reload, and isn’t big or bulky. It’s just a great all around blaster right out of the box hence the reason I have a second coming from Amazon so the Mrs. and I can both have our own.
Section 2: Battle Readiness
This section is a little more difficult to discern because Megas aren’t widely used in Nerf battles (yet) but the CycloneShock could be the first to usher in a new era where Megas are a viable option. With only a 6 dart ammo capacity, the CycloneShock is not considered a primary but it’s power, ease of use, front re-loading, and (relative to other Megas) compact size makes it worthy of taking into battle. If Nerf can create a REAL primary Mega blaster (no, the Rotofury doesn’t quite cut it) that is reliable, then don’t be surprised to start seeing more Mega darts out on the battlefield.
Conclusion:
Section 3: Mod-ability
After scouring the internet for literally minutes, I was able to find TONS of mod videos and guides. I read a few guides and watched a few videos and wow. As awesome as this blaster already is, there is a lot of room to make it even more powerful. So if you are modder, check out all the usual channels. I don’t know if they’d be upset at me for bumping their videos/guides so I won’t include any links, just google “nerf cyclone shock mod” and sift through the 29,900 results for what you are looking for.