Kombo’s Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don’t waste your time. This is why we’ve split our reviews into four sections: What the Game’s About, What’s Hot, What’s Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What the Game’s About
Nerf: N-Strike Elite is the sequel to the EA/Hasbro collaboration from last year. The N-Strike series is an on-rails shooter that features Nerf guns instead of high-caliber, military-grade weaponry. Elite is tied together with a loose story that revolves around a group of kids going after a robot manufacturer that only wants to use his creations for evil. You select from four kids who specialize in different Nerf guns as you follow the trail of the evil B.O.B.
What’s Hot
It is a little known fact in the gaming industry that Nerf fights break out at the drop of a hat in development studio environments. So when a Nerf game finally came around, it strangely made sense because it can be viewed as a constructive outlet for the wars that break out in game makers’ cubes across the world. Elite is impressive in the fact that it takes a toy line of foam darts and creates a world in which they are the primary defense against evil. It conjures up memories of my childhood where a Nerf bow and arrow felt a lot more powerful than it actually was.
The on-rails shooting is quite decent, and it moves along at a quick pace. You don’t deviate too much from a predictable path, but Elite will throw a ton of robots at you so you will need to be quick on the draw. There are special canisters you’ll need to keep an eye out for and shoot. It requires quick reflexes as you might not have the opportunity to shoot at them later. They serve as currency to unlock more powerful Nerf guns for later missions when you encounter more difficult robots.
The game even ships with a Wii-mote attachment that looks like a Nerf gun. The cool part is it can actually convert into a Nerf gun, so when you aren’t aiming at the TV, you can load some darts and aim them at your friends. Its construction is like any other Nerf gun and, when you put in the shooter attachment, it feels solid. The best part is that the conversion is incredibly easy and takes about five seconds. Whereas most Wii peripherals are rather useless and take up room, this dual purpose idea needs is a great way to keep you thinking about the game even when you aren’t playing it.
What’s Not
Elite could have used some fine tuning with the on-rails shooting. Games like Time Crisis have shown that a cover button or gesture is a good idea. In Elite’s case, you often stand out in the open while desperately trying to unload enough darts to bring down a robot without having the option to retreat to cover. As such, when you encounter enemies, you don’t feel like the stage has been set for trench warfare. Granted, there are scripted moments where you duck behind cover, but it isn’t an adequate substitute.
Elite starts to gets repetitive as you play further into the game. There is an upgrade system to unlocking more Nerf guns, but they don’t add that much to the gameplay to keep you engaged for a long time. You walk, shoot at robots, walk some more, shoot more robots and the process gets well worn. There are some attempts to give the game life with some banter between the squadmates but boil down to cliché archtypes seen in mid-90s kids movies like Home Alone.
New to this version of N-Strike is the “Red Reveal” feature. You get a sight that clips on to your Nerf gun peripheral and at predetermined points in the game, you use that to reveal hidden messages. It washes the entire screen in red when you look through the sight so some warm colors (reds, yellows, oranges) tend to “pop” against cooler colors (blues, greens, purples). The “Red Reveal” feature is a gimmick in the purest sense and didn’t need to be included for any real reason.
Final Word
N-Strike Elite is a game that is more fun than it should be. A good deal of the fun is that the gun peripherals that comes with the game doubles as a real Nerf gun. The game is decent for an on-rails shooter. It could have borrowed some ideas from other on-rails games like Time Crisis to enhance experience that is otherwise good but bare bones.
