Hi, I'm Luke.
Today on out of darts, we are checking out the Monolith from Adventure Force.
Let's get going!
That pretty much sums up the review!
Thanks for watching(!)
Dart Zone does blasters for a variety of different brands;
the Adventure Force line is, of course, for Walmart.
So, this is a Walmart exclusive available, I believe, for $34.99.
This is a full-auto flywheel blaster with a side hopper.
It's kind of a goofy little bit of hopper,
but I had no problems reloading this when playing with the blaster.
I did frequently knock that panel off which is a little bit annoying, so
that is something to keep in mind.
The blaster is a pretty standard operation.
It is rev-fire, and it runs on six massive D-cell batteries.
So, it's got some pretty big heft to it.
You can see here we actually put a
thumbscrew on the battery compartment because I always hate looking around for that tool.
Go in there, batteries!
Aesthetically I think it's a very pleasing nice-looking blaster.
It's got kind of a sci-fi feel to it; it's got a nice bright muzzle up front,
and you can see kind of faux barrels here.
Only the bottom one fires, which is pretty common on rival blasters given that you've
got a hopper up top, and it's got to get down into a feeding mechanism and flywheel cage.
This is not Dart Zone's or Adventure Force's first
flywheeler for rival. They have done several others.
You may remember my review of the Accelerator,
which was a very interesting blaster but proved to be very unreliable when modded.
You put this thing on 3S, and you're pretty much
guaranteeing you're going to spin the flywheels off the shaft of the motors.
Now I cannot confirm whether that is the issue with the Monolith at this time,
but I will post an update down below in the comments
and in the description if we get a chance to actually get this open and modify it.
Unfortunately, that's about where the good things end.
I have to say I'm a little shocked at all the
other YouTubers out there that have been so happy with this blaster.
"I'm fairly disappointed," I guess is the best way to put it.
Ergonomically is not a very comfortable blaster.
This grip up here is just weird. It's extremely thin, and my hand does not fit around it in any
meaningful way that's actually comfortable to hold on to.
I'm not entirely sure
what they were expecting you to do there, but it doesn't feel very comfortable to me.
Like a lot of other thumbhole stocks, this is very cramped and is not comfortable for my large hands.
This is a toy for kids; I do understand that, but it isn't comfortable for an adult hand,
and I'm pretty much reviewing this for an adult audience.
Or, if you're a kid, this is probably pretty comfortable.
The rev and fire triggers feel just fine.
They are very similar to the ones on the Spectrum.
However, the actual nub of the rev trigger is better than the Spectrum in that it doesn't
have that extra bulky point that sticks out and causes a little bit of discomfort.
Where this blaster really fails is the reliability.
And I had hoped that this was just my blaster and that it wasn't
the rest of the blasters that are out on the market, but unfortunately,
I've confirmed with other friends who have the same blaster that this is not the case.
It is worth noting despite Brett dropping this off for me to review, I have already purchased this.
So, this is not a sponsored review, though I do technically have one that
I second-hand got for free?
I don't know how that works; I just wanted to put that disclaimer out there.
But I did purchase this one with my own money prior to that one being dropped off here by Brett,
and Brett and I were able to play with these at the game a couple weekends ago,
and we, unfortunately, were very disappointed.
The feed mechanism is very poor, as you saw from the opening.
These batteries are very fresh, they have only been used for testing,
and I just don't know what else to say.
I mean, check out this firing.
If you're lucky, you'll get about two rounds a second and frequently if you've got more
than about a half-full or a three-quarter full hopper -- like if you're if you top it off with
the 40 rounds that come with it, you're gonna see some major issues when firing the blaster.
It's to the point where the reaction time when you pull the trigger is so
bad that I couldn't hit anything with it, and it just felt clunky.
Now I do understand this comes in at a $35 price point, but given that you do have to
buy 6 D batteries, you're going to spend another $10 or $12 just on the batteries.
So, if you're going to compare this to something like, say, the Perses,
you're really comparing to me. I would say you're comparing like $45 to…
This blaster, the last time it was available, was about $80; the retail
was $100 on it, but it was available for $80, and it came with a rechargeable battery.
The performance of the Perses cannot
be understated when you're comparing these two blasters.
They aren't even in the same playing field, both in terms of fps, rate of fire, reliability, and
kind of everything else that's important.
Where this feels cramped and small, the Perses feels like
a much more premium product with a very comfortable ergonomic set.
I'm quite disappointed, obviously, with the Monolith overall.
I had hoped that they would improve on some of the issues with the Accelerator,
but it seems to be somewhat similar.
It is a budget offering at a retail price of $35,
and I really don't think it's a great buy, honestly.
I think you would be better off finding a used Nemesis, or a discounted Nemesis, or a Perses.
Both of those blasters are going to perform and fire better than this blaster will,
and in the case of the Perses, you're going to have a rechargeable battery.
That's going to both up the performance, lower your operating cost
of using the blaster, and probably even out the price point.
Really, when you start talking about D batteries that get thrown in a landfill
and aren't going to last you more than four or five days of play six days of play,
depending on how much you play with it (might be less), you're going to end up spending more
on batteries if you use this consistently than you would just having a rechargeable battery.
The performance numbers on the blaster are surprisingly good,
but they don't line up to the reality of playing with the blaster.
The Monolith does have a hop-up, but it's a far less aggressive hop-up.
So, what you'll find is that shots drop really quickly
they don't get that nice little bit of float in stock configuration,
and the ranges and accuracy are far worse on this blaster than the other nerf rival counterparts.
I have also found that anytime you're rapid firing,
you know with a full-auto blaster, your follow-up shots are going to drop
down to somewhere 80 to 85 fps, and you can literally hear that as I fire.
You can kind of hear it struggling where the flywheels don't
have… there's not enough current from these batteries (or given the current motor setup) where
it's not able to pull enough power to get those spun back up to speed.
You compare that to the Perses, which can fire, I think, around eight rounds a second, seven rounds
a second full auto pretty consistently right out of the box with the rechargeable battery.
It's really a lose-lose here unless that upfront cost of 35 versus 80 is the deal-breaker for you.
In the end, I, unfortunately, would not recommend this blaster.
We might play around with looking at a mod guide.
I will see if that does more to it, but at this time,
I'm going to give this three out of five stars.
I do think that Dart Zone has done a lot of amazing stuff,
from their pro line to the nexus pro, the max striker, and the tomahawk-60,
which we'll have a review on that soon as well, but this is not a winner.
Again: 3 out of 5 stars,
and I do not think I'll be playing with this again, which is a little sad to me.
But I hope you enjoyed this look.
I have kind of a different viewpoint, and I have verified that it's not my unit.
I've seen two other units that perform just as poorly, and I'm a little bit surprised.
So, let me know what you think in the comments.
Maybe you've got one of these, and it works spectacular.
I'd love to hear it.
Until next time, I'm out of darts.