Hey, it's Luke with Out of Darts.
Just when you thought Hasbro was done with rival, they keep coming out with more.
Today we're checking out the Helix. Let's get going!
The curve shot lineup from Hasbro kind of came at us from left field.
We have the sideswipe and the flex …were the initial offerings.
The blasters allow you to shoot around corners.
It's a pretty fun gimmick,
and these blasters were actually pretty decent; they're quite a bit of fun.
The Helix is a 20-shot capacity pump-action non-slam-fire blaster
that has a similar rotating muzzle where you can shoot left, right, or even down.
It's a fun gimmick, and if I was younger as a kid, I would have loved playing with
these gimmicks and really trying to nail those shots around corners. and
maybe in a stock blaster battle, this probably has a pretty good a good place.
I like the styling of it. I think it looks very kind of sci-fi futuristic I think a lot
of companies are going in that direction, and I personally really appreciate that, especially
when we're playing in public parks and things like that, and of course it's nice, bright, and orange.
As I mentioned, the blaster does not have slam-fire when you actually hold the trigger down,
you actually get a second ball loaded, and I can actually fire two at a time.
So, kind of a neat little feature if you want to do a two-shot. I suspect
that could cause some jamming over time so try it if you will.
We did get the chance to try this out at one of the recent small games we had;
it was a close-quarters battle which was a pretty good use for this blaster.
We seem to have a lot of issues jamming it.
Perry, however, reminded me later that it is the XXI-2000
meaning it's supposed to be 20 rounds capacity.
Surprisingly, these channels actually fit nearly 30 rounds or about 30 rounds,
but it seems that if you overload them,
you will have issues with feeding, and that could just be additional pressure on the loading mech.
Down in the front, there is a little rotating
rival wheel. It's kind of like a water wheel, but for rival balls.
Kind of fun, actually. It's a pretty innovative and interesting feed mechanism, and
I'm kind of fascinated that they got this to work fairly reliably.
But I do think you have to watch about not overloading the blaster itself.
This blaster is kind of an oddity.
I'm not exactly sure how it really fits in the overall scheme.
It seems like such an offshoot that doesn't really directly compete with their other offerings,
but I could see it being pretty popular as a replacement for a blaster like the Artemis.
The Artemis is somewhat infamous for having a rotation mech that will fail over time,
especially if you do what I did here clearly and leave it loaded one.
Pro tip here is if you have this blaster, never leave it loaded.
These springs will slightly compress over time, and they have more issues feeding.
But, this blaster is somewhat similar in that this holds 30 this holds 20, and they're
relatively similar in size.
The Helix is obviously a little bit larger, but it's much easier to load, so if you kind
of compare the two of these blasters, I think they're a pretty fair comparison; and this
might be able to come out on top, especially if it proves to be more reliable over time.
Ergonomics on this blaster are fantastic. The
grip is nice and large. We've got a nice kind of textured molding here.
It's just a mold surface finish, of course, but it fits my nice large adult hands very well.
And we've got a pump grip up front that also is
oversized and feels great. It's for once, it's something that
is very solid and comfortable, which is something we've come to expect from the rival line in
general since these blasters are intended for 14 + (as it says on the packaging anyway).
Performance-wise I'm getting a little bit over 90 fps; about 92 fps average.
As always, we will put the actual numbers up on the screen for a 20-shot average,
including the standard deviation to give you a nice, controlled situation
uh reading because we want to make sure everything's consistent across all the reviews.
At the end of the day, I think I'd give this four stars;
Fun blaster to play around with.
It's not perfect, and I'm not exactly sure how it fits in today's rival world with the
hobby side of things, but it is not a terrible blaster from what I've seen and in my use so far.
Interestingly enough, this week in nerf covered some other lineup
from rival that's coming; it was a spring assortment or spring lineup for 2022,
so it sounds like rival's not gone yet, which for me is something I'd like to see.
I think it's a really great ammo type, and it's so pervasive across the hobby now.
It's a really fun ammo type for me, and I would like to see it stick around, of course.
Given that Hyper is not off to a very hyper start, I think we will see a lot more third-party stuff,
but I'm glad we're still going to see Nerf make a few more actual rival blasters.
I'd love to hear what you think about both the Helix and this lineup in general.
It's kind of a goofy one, but I like that Hasbro's trying.
I think it's better than Elite 2.0, it's better than the mess that the Ultra line is,
and I'm interested to see what else they have coming down the pipeline -- especially Mega XL.
Thanks for watching! Until next time, I'm out of darts.