Nerf, who doesn’t know Nerf? These guns that shoot rubber darts. At home I have Nerfs that the kids use from time to time. Well, Nerf has arrived at Carrera. What is the connection between Carrera, which makes cars, and guns? Carrera had the good idea of merging the two and thus putting a Nerf shooting system on an RC vehicle. A rather ingenious system that we will dissect in the rest of this article.
Already when opening the package, the color of the vehicle is a beautiful orange that flashes well, while in the catalog, it looked more like a very slightly orange red. I can’t wait to free the beast from its packaging, a quick cut of the wire clamps that hold it and that’s it. In the box, a small box contains a LR06 battery for the vehicle, and a block for the remote control, as well as a single charger for both elements.
The remote control battery, which is in pistol format, is in the shape of a charger. So you insert it from below the stock like a real gun. I loved the principle. We are fully in the theme.
We find 10 Nerf darts that can be inserted into the barrel of the shooting module.
The firing module
The shooting module can be attached to the radio-controlled car or to the remote control. To do this, simply slide it forward to detach it. It’s very simple.
To reload the gun and fully access the cylinder, simply pull the blue tab at the back and lift the cylinder.
Then insert the darts and replace the module.
The remote control
The remote control is a pistol type, I’m not a fan of this type of remote control, I prefer remote controls with handles. But here we’re talking about Nerf, so I say a big yes to the pistol.
Traditionally the trigger controls forward and reverse and the side steering wheel controls the direction. Be careful, the controls are not proportional and it is not possible to move forward while turning. If you move forward and turn, the vehicle stops and turns on itself.
Special feature: while a normal vehicle must move forward to turn, here, the car turns on the spot a bit like a tank.
on the back of the remote control there are 5 buttons.
In the center is the button to launch the darts from the vehicle. You don’t have to do a single press, but keep it pressed. As long as you press, the car fires a series of shots as long as you have cartridges in the cylinder.
The bottom button with a light on it, allows you to turn on or off the vehicle’s LEDs.
The left and right buttons allow the vehicle to translate to the left or right. This is very impressive, because it is not usual.
Finally the last button, the top one, allows you to put the vehicle in automatic mode, it moves back and forth and from left to right randomly. We will see later what this mode is for.
The vehicle
Thanks to the omnidirectional wheels, the vehicle has the ability to turn on itself but also to move in translation a bit like chassés. This is my first vehicle equipped with this type of wheels and it’s really great.
On the front of the vehicle, the equivalent of the hood, three small blue arrows light up if you activate the lighting with the button on the remote control.
When the shooting module is the vehicle, it is possible to tilt it upwards to reach a target further away or higher. This movement is not automatic, you will have to adjust it manually.
Modular
Modular is the key word for the different elements.
We have
- the car
- the remote control
- the shooting module
- the target
It is possible to mix these elements to enjoy several game modes and vary the pleasures.
Vehicle-mounted firing module
This is in my opinion the most fun mode, attach the shooting module to the vehicle, move with the remote control and start a dart shot. You can sneak around, adjust your position and shoot. It’s not easy to adjust the shot because you’re not in the vehicle and you have to estimate the trajectory. It’s a mix of physics exercise and observation.
Dodge mode!
It was necessary to give a name to this mode and I found this name relatively appropriate, dodge.
So on the remote control if you activate this mode, the vehicles will make small movements in all directions, and shooting at it will not be easy, because it dodges your shots.
For this mode, you will obviously have to fix the target on the vehicle, and with the shooting module on the remote control (gun), you can shoot at it.
Target on the vehicle
If you don’t use dodge mode with the target on the vehicle, and you have a Nerf gun, you can play two players. One player controls the vehicle while the second player with the nerf gun shoots it.
Ground target and vehicle-mounted firing module
If you place the target on the ground and shoot it from the vehicle, it is quite possible. Except that in this case, there is a catch. This is the flaw of this box, if a dart hits the target, the target falls, whereas when the target is on the vehicle, it tilts back a little and returns vertical.
So it must be put back in place after each successful shot.
Ground target and remote control shooting module
You can practice shooting directly from the remote at the target but will have the same stability problem as before.
Darts
In the right photo, the top dart is one of 10 supplied by Carrera, the others are from different Nerf guns. The size matches perfectly and the darts can be used in other guns in the range without any problem.
The target
The target is the point that could have been improved. The best would have been to have a system that counts the number of times the target has been hit, with a small red display. We could also have a small sound effect that indicates that the target is hit. After all this would have had an impact on the price but it would have been a nice feature. Maybe in a version 2 in the next few years.
The connection system
The firing module does not work by itself, it needs a source to power the system. We did not put a battery inside and it remains functional whether it is on the vehicle or the remote control.
The firing module is equipped with a connector in the mounting slide. Thus it is powered by the vehicle when it is fixed there and powered by the remote control in the second case.
Even more fun
Previously we talked about the target that would have deserved some additional functions. Well for a few euros, 6 from memory, I found an automatic target at Action. It has 3 targets that you can tilt. Each time one of them falls, the digital display increments by 1 and you know your score in real time. At the same time, each time a sound effect is heard.
And when the 3 targets have fallen, a few moments later, they go back up by themselves. No need to move and you can chain other shots, again and again. You can see this element at the end of the video.
The video
It’s not always easy to realize, so nothing beats a video with some slow motion.
Bilan
Reference: 370240020
Indicative price: €50