iSoak'D 065: Not Just What They Say - Part 5

[isoaker]

On the bright side, were it an Electrostorm, the results would've been shocking!

[SEAL]

My friends, I have an announcement to make.

As of now, I will no longer refer to Hasbro's blasters as "Super Soakers". To me, Super Soaker has been dead since 2002, and I refuse to call these new piss-shooters by the same name as the great classics that set the standards for years. When I think of "Super Soaker", I think of soakers like the SS 50, CPS 2000, Monster XL, etc. Not this new crap.

From now on, I'll refer to them as either Hasbro, Nerf, or maybe something like Super Squirter. The only time I'll ever call them by their "Proper" names, is if I'm doing a review or something.

Oh, by the way, I love the comic!

[Andrew]

There have been a decent Super Soakers during Hasbro's era, but only a few (stressing the word FEW) in recent years. The Flash Flood for instance. But the Max-D 6000, CPS2100 and CPS4100 are also Hasbro blasters (check the links if you don't believe me)! Admittedly they were from 2002, but still officially Hasbro. In fact Hasbro acquired Larami in 1995, but continued to use the Larami brand until around 2002. This makes the a Hasbro blaster!

Hasbro did make some quite good developments aswell as some good blasters! The hot-swappable Max Infusion backpack idea is fantastic, and the theory behind the Max-D ball valve was great too! It's just a shame they never persued and/or futher developed their good ideas into great ones!

Hasbro have, however, slowly been going downhill in terms of Soaker production, with only the odd blaster bringing them back into contention. It's a shame that a company which holds patents for truly great blasters and related technolgies, has reduced itself to level it is at today. They've focused so much on styling that perfromance has fallen by the wayside, but surely it can't be that hard to make a stylish blaster that also performs well? I mean, that's basically what BBT has offered for years!

[isoaker]

There have been a decent Super Soakers during Hasbro's era, but only a few (stressing the word FEW) in recent years. The Flash Flood for instance. But the Max-D 6000, CPS2100 and CPS4100 are also Hasbro blasters (check the links if you don't believe me)! Admittedly they were from 2002, but still officially Hasbro. In fact Hasbro acquired Larami in 1995, but continued to use the Larami brand until around 2002. This makes the a Hasbro blaster!

Technically, water blasters released in 2002 were designed and sent to mass-manufacturing in 2001 so I believe that the Max-D series as well as the CPS2100 were still Larami Ltd's doing. (The CPS 4100 is merely a stripped down Monster (2001) so I consider that more of a re-release as opposed to a new blaster).

I do give Hasbro credit, though, for the Max-Infusion series as well as the Flash Flood and Arctic Blast. Perhaps there are still more new models to be seen for the 2012 Nerf Super Soaker line, but only time will tell.

[SEAL]

Oh, they certainly did make a few notable blasters (Flash Flood/Arctic Blast, and Hydro Cannon for modding.), and the Max-Infusion idea was cool (But then they went and abandoned it.), if only the backpacks were bigger (Say, CPS 3000 size.). But then again, so did some other manufacturers. So I still don't think they deserve the Super Soaker name.

And I wouldn't call the CPS 2000 a Hasbro blaster; sure, Hasbro owned Larami, but I seriously doubt they had much influence in the blasters being built.

[atvan]

Nice! A wet microburst then. That is good, though a dry one would have been more appropriate. How are they standing still? Is it that lack of surface area on the stick figures again?

[DX]

Wet ones are more common in the east. We don't really have dry thunderstorms that would produce dry microbursts. I've only seen a handful of storms that were strong enough to produce lightning, but no rain, and all produced rain later when they were fully developed.

[Andrew]

sure, Hasbro owned Larami, but I seriously doubt they had much influence in the blasters being built.

They owned Larami and added a fair share of development in the earlier years. I did, however, fail to mention that the management behind Hasbro has almost certainly changed since the CPS2000. It's likely due to changes in the proposed direction of the brand (around 2002) that Larami/Hasbro engineers left to form what is now Buzz Bee Toys in 2002/2003. They obviously didn't agree with the future planned for the Super Soaker brand.

I therefore do not hold Hasbro itself as accountable, but the lunatics which they let into the managerial positions in the first place, which caused some, obviously important, members of the team to leave and form the Water Warrriors brand. there is no doubt that (especially the earlier) Water Warriors blasters feature similar design and technology to earlier SS blasters.

But then again, so did some other manufacturers.

I may be wrong, but I thought Hasbro were the first to develop a hot-swappable backpack or aquapack reservoir system? You're right though, they did ditch that tech, and I (personally) feel that was a bad move. The small size of the backpacks comes down, once again, to a failure to develop their ideas. Unfortunately they just made the system as a short term accessory to entice buyers, until something new comes along (like the current NERF magazines).

I wouldn't right off every Hasbro Super Soaker since 2002, but they have slowly been getting worse, as the brand is aimed at younger and younger children. For instance the most of the 2003-2006 blasters were not all that bad, especially when compared to current offerings from Hasbro!

But now that BBT has lost the ability to make elastic based soakers, and the Hasbro managment seem to be continuing to reduce the age of their target audience, we may never see the performance anywhere near the likes of the CPS line, or even the higher end XP line from a stock blaster.

[DX]

Hopefully BBT will start looking into piston-separated air pressure. It's not constant, but at least it can be designed more like CPS, with cylindrical PCs and straight line paths. However, I wouldn't mind the traditional air pressure PCs, as long as they can take a lot of pressure. Gorgon performance in a more streamlined and no-frills casing would be awesome. The casing designs of older guns resonate with me much more, because they look like nothing more than ways to connect the essential parts together. Modern water guns look like the essentials are nothing more than things to toss into the casing.

[cantab]

I agree with Andrew in that the worst of the SS downturn is certainly later than 2002. 2007 was perhaps the last OK year, with the Arctic Blast as its standout, albeit not quite as good as the Flash Flood. The Secret Strike also wasn't that bad, not the most powerful thing around but I do like the excellent one-handed balance that makes it nicer to hold. A minus is that my examples of both those guns broke.

Then 2008 saw a couple of pistons and a movie license, 2009 according to isoaker had no new blasters. 2010 brought the NERF name to the soakers, and gave us more pistons and movie licenses (albeit, a movie recolour of the Arctic Blast wasn't a wholly bad thing, but even so IIRC the branding pushed the price up). 2011,,,well I guess with the Hydro Cannon, it was the best since 07! But besides that...more pistons, motors, and an air pressure blaster using technology abandoned in the mid 90s.