hello everyone my name is brett and sometimes i wear a beret i was just watching myself a very
interesting live stream which i really do want to talk about but i'm going to wait a little bit
longer to organize some of my thoughts and see what else comes out before i really dive into
a tournament of sorts but also i'm gonna wait because something very important just happened
and we need to talk about it it's possibly the most important thing you're gonna hear about
all year and yes i'm joking but it is really odd at least in my opinion it's from nerf
as it always is it's here guys the nerf pro line has officially launched and we are here
to bear witness as if you can tell i'm also in a bit of a sarcastic mood so bear with me
the nerve pro gel force gel soft gel line
what really i didn't see this coming no expectation that nerf was going to jump into
the gel ball category and i've been waiting for an excuse to talk about gel ball and here it is given
to me by nerf themselves now we have an official look at the very first product and a small article
or articles to go along with it or i should start with the instagram teaser coming soon nerf pro gel
fire hashtag fuel your fire these hashtags are out of control that's what we're using for pro that
nerf will do anything but make half darts right that's been another very popular joke amongst
the community i get that dart zone has set their pro line and you know has very much established
it up to this point but uh nerf was like gel ball now that's that's our pro line right there
and we didn't have to wait too much longer nerf's first jail blaster is coming this november with 10
000 rounds now that is certainly an interesting title because talking about the capacity of a
nerf blaster and how much ammo is included is a uh is an important thing because usually you
don't get that much ammo but officially we're getting the gel fire mythic for 80. 79.99 usd
it's got that same sort of gel ball hopper on the top that says nerf pro gel fire in case you forget
the box art also tells me a little bit more information again that 10 000
gel fire rounds being included cool i think this is a rechargeable battery setup which is
great it's red and white and gray the nerf pro gel fire mythic will cost 79.99 this november and it's
wild to see it exists partly because it's such a departure from kid-friendly darts and partly
because it feels like hasbro is finally conceding that it doesn't need to reinvent the wheel to
attract an older audience what the frick well part of that yes i completely agree this is why it's so
odd why is nerf making gel ball when the whole point of nerf was they established themselves
as the leader in the foam dart category right that pretty obvious safe to play with foam flinging fun
going into gel ball feels like a really odd step out of that niche and you could make the argument
that with hyper they were towing that line uh even rival for some people that was a a bit of a
question mark but this is the other side this this is gel ball now let's let's stop a minute because
i do want to talk about my thoughts on gel ball i know a lot of people have been talking about
gel ball over the past year especially in the north american sphere gel ball has existed for
a while especially overseas from myself mentioned in this article too this gel ball stuff is real
popular in china and australia although australia has seriously cracked down and in recent years
the chinese government has voiced disapproval now we're seeing the explosion here and even
some blasters that are coming out for the foam flinging market are inspired by gel ball blasters
some of them are fine some of them i don't mind too much but some of them cross the line i've
never played it before so yes uninformed man makes an opinion sorry i would play gel ball i just
i'm not that interested what about me has kind of expressed that i would be interested in trying
that out if i haven't like already tried to jump into airsoft but i'm still just not super
interested so i understand that it kind of exists in that realm between like foam flinging and
airsoft or paintball if you like playing gel ball if you like the gel ball blasters that's great i
have no problem with that i have no problem with a lot of these blasters because they look like a
lot of fun to play with using the right venues i would imagine these things are a ton of fun and
some of them fire ammo real real fast and the high capacity is definitely a plus that said i'm also
paying attention to things going on in my local area gel ball has created its own unique problems
even where i just lived there were articles coming out about drive-by shootings with gel balls you've
probably heard about the orbeez challenge orbeez challenge which in its own right is hilarious
because orbeez doesn't make gel blasters but they've been associated with the gel ball like
size and shape and like water beads or water bbs so they got their name tacked onto it got their
name tacked onto a tick-tock trend allegedly that has people just firing at unsuspecting others or
their friends there was someone on my street who was walking their dog and someone did this and
they record it that hit pretty close to home as a new dog owner that's no good and i know that's
not an isolated incident because i've heard other people talk about these experiences and i've seen
the articles and i mean police are like pressing charges that's not okay and i also understand
this could be done with anything right people could don't do this people could be doing that
with like pellet guns they could be doing it with nerf blasters in which they will be called
nerf blasters regardless even if they are things like dart zone x shot busby doesn't matter
but what's been happening for some reason it's all these gel ball blasters that people have used
and that's definitely tainted the idea of gel blasters in the united states i don't see gel
ball as this horrible evil i just don't like a lot of the ways that people are using it the blasters
themselves look like fun a lot of the designs are really cool they're really sci-fi and unique and
they're like oh that's kind of enticing to see how that works and then others look like this i'm
sorry what that's a gel blaster that you want me to buy that and you're trying to market that to me
someone who regularly goes to events in public locations and you want me to bring that to my next
nerf game is that what you're saying you're trying to get me to change over people to use that that's
the other real annoying thing as more and more of these blasters are coming from the foreign market
they are not abiding by u.s laws and i'm shocked sometimes when i see some of these designs
again some are fine some are cool others are that's a gun you're not going to be bringing
this new nerf gel blaster to your next nerf game right it has to exist and it's completely on
in its own category whereas there's an argument to be made that you could bring hyper you definitely
can bring rival to your nerf games barring the age differences if you're playing with younger
audiences you probably wouldn't want to bring you know fast firing foam balls or even hyper
for whatever they're made of it's not remotely clear yet whether nerf's blaster is designed to
be competitive with other gel shooters in the us and abroad as the company hasn't offered any range
or velocity claims yet just that it can shoot up to 10 rounds per second and that it apparently
fires hard enough to justify including a set of eye protection in the box most of their like
14 plus line includes eye protection at this point same with dart zone i think that's just the smart
thing to do but it doesn't look like a terribly hard cell compared to hasbro's other attempts to
make nerf more competitive it's not practical to attend a nerf war with a hyper or ultra blaster
since you'd be one of the only one using that type of ammo and you'd either have to
spend serious money on a huge stockpile or spend the entire game picking up projectiles you shot
they're not completely wrong here you can carry a huge tank of theoretically dirt cheap pellets that
are typically biodegradable although hasbro makes no explicit mention that in that announcement
what no no you're not bringing this to your local nerf game again
these have to be their own game i get that there are different velocities for gel blasters but it's
like a different sport it's not the same yes the capacity is a plus and i was racking my brain when
i first saw it for that reason too i was like so nerve loves their proprietary ammo right why would
they make something that is so cross-compatible with other like gel blasters right it's just like
one uniquely oh it's uniquely sized probably maybe it's not compatible with other gel blasters on the
market but i'm sure there's something comparable but the real kicker is that you can't reuse these
and that's been one of the best things about nerf you can always reuse your ammo unless it
gets completely destroyed but there should be no reason why you can't fire a dart go and pick it up
and fire it again yes there's a bit of cleanup there but it's also a nice feature now we've
lost that feature completely and we're also not getting the commitment these are biodegradable
because gel ball is not universally biodegradable there's no proof to that overwhelmingly at least
because there's so many different categories of gel blasters and actual gel balls or orbeez then
you just don't know without nerf saying explicitly that that's what they do
you can't believe it so we'll wait and see if that is a pro of the line
a pro of the nerf pro line i wouldn't use that as a selling point just yet and i wouldn't use
that as justification if you're looking to get in on this line but now you get to buy more nerf gel
ball ammo heck yes because buying exclusively nerf brand ammo in the first place wasn't fun enough
now you have to because when you run out of ammo with this there's no reloading from the
ground it also just looks neat with a retractable stock and removable barrel
yes for a variety of play styles okay you know what i think i think we're done here
it's coming out in november you can pre-order soon i don't know why nerf is really going into
the jailball market now it seems like they're showing up as the last person to the party
busby i guess you would be the last person to the party or x shot but you guys don't
have to go to this party you can stay in the water blasting category that's that's a little bit safer
nerf does what they want and that's the extent of that if they want to chase the gel ball craze they
can go ahead and reap the rewards and consequences of whatever happens i'm not saying there are going
to be consequences i'm just saying when you tie your name to that not really fully established and
fleshed out market in the u.s then we're gonna see what happens maybe it is just so much more
popular in areas that i understand because i'm just not paying attention to it too much but when
i see all their current like dart offerings i feel like there's been just overwhelming support for
that half dart ecosystem into their line and they would do such a good job that's right i'm saying
it nerf would do a good job with half darts i know they would because they have the resources to do
something incredible and they also have another company that's already tackled the first steps
they can kind of swoop in and either improve upon stuff or make things that are even better
competition and nerf you're really dragging your feet if you want to get into that ecosystem
or you're never going to because we don't matter and that's fine if you want to make that decision
that's totally okay but i just still don't understand what gel ball is going to do for
you in a year maybe i'll be proven wrong it'll be your most profitable aspect and we'll wait and see
what other blasters they've also got planned for this launch or if it's just the one blaster and
then more are going to come out maybe there'll be some actual competitions built up around this
nerf pro gel ball stuff that could be the silver lining as well getting people to go out and play
competitively actually encouraging people to play together organize a tournament
i'd go that maybe i might actually take up gel wall if you want to organize a real tournament
and have people play hit me up nerf i think i've reached the extent of my confused
ramblings on this one if you can't tell i'm torn about all of this so i'd really love
to know what you guys are thinking because i've seen people commenting like weird step
nerf and others like heck yeah sign me up this could go in a really cool direction
but with nerf a very big player in the toy industry in the projectile category right taking a
stance and saying yes we're doing gel balls that signals to a lot of other companies that this
could be the direction to go and i think that's one of the biggest takeaways by seeing nerf fully
commit to gel ball thank you everyone so much for watching subscribe for more gel ball content and
i will see you next time at the bottom of a pool reviewing a gel ball blaster that i receive for
free because i love gel ball and i've always loved gel ball gel ball is my favorite snack
okay don't don't don't actually eat the gel balls
i feel like i have to make that explicitly clear don't don't actually do that
nerf's gonna have to say that too don't eat the darts don't eat the gel balls don't eat anything