Game/Event Writeup: Nerf Action Xperience Manchester

As some of you know, I’ve had to pause writing between work, projects, and vacation. On that vacation, however, I did convince my wife to make a pit stop involving my hobby…

Nerf Action Xperience opened its doors in Manchester last year, at one of the city’s main shopping complexes. Even for random tourists, it felt like it was worth the money thanks to both the games played and the people we ended up playing with (a local group of 20-something coworkers). While admittedly I would have preferred less gel and more darts, the setup was still great – and I’d play again if I visited Manchester in the future.

Five Zones in an Hour

The Nerf AX setup starts with grabbing tickets online or in the shop. Prices do depend on the day you show up (weekdays are less expensive) and whether you need protective goggles; you have to use the provided goggles while at Nerf AX, but they’re included as part of your ticket price, and you can take them home with you. Come back with those goggles, and you’re paying £3.50 less than you would otherwise. There are restrooms, small lockers to rent while you’re playing, and (of course) a shop full of Nerf blasters and related items.

After a short briefing, all of use were put through five different zones: a “training area” with dart blasters and various target game setups (be they physical or virtual), two game rooms (which at this time, both featured Nerf Pro Gelfire), a Nerf Sports area complete with various skill games and Nerf balls, and a room for more experimental things, like new game types (in our case, it was a dodgeball setup).

I didn’t have my GoPro, and my phone was low on power, but I at least managed to capture one round of play:

Wait! What’s That Blaster?

As I’m sure some people have seen, there’s a custom revolver in use at the Nerf AX. Sadly, it’s specially made for the arena location, and not something you can go out and buy. Even so, it looks great, feels nice in hand, and has extra features like a priming slide/pull loop combo. I’m not sure if this means the blaster was a repurposed prototype, or is itself a test bed for design durability, since we haven’t seen a setup like this on any other Nerf blaster.

The blaster itself seemed sufficiently strong, on par with other Elite blasters (it’s not like I had a chronograph handy to get hard numbers while on vacation). At minimum, it would be cool if Hasbro made more of these, whether as a special holiday shipment or as contest giveaways.

Overall Thoughts

For the £15.50 I paid, I quite enjoyed my time at Nerf AX. I do think the experience will largely depend on the group of people you’re with, though. And I was hoping there would be at least a little more in terms of traditional dart blasting. But overall, I liked it!