N1, being the new Hasbro standard dart, is finding its way to various IP-themed blasters as well. Some, like the 2024 Minecraft Pillager’s Crossbow, are a great marriage of form and function. Others, like the Creeper and Skeleton Mob Two Pack, are more like figurines that happen to fire darts.
They’re cute, and they’ve been cleverly designed to allow the inclusion of dart-blasting internals. But they also like to fire both darts at the same time, despite what they’re designed to do, and especially after darts have been loaded for more than a few minutes. As such, they’re better decorations than combat tools.
Let’s take a peek!
HISSSSSSS
The two included mob blasters are simple in operation – they’re pullback primed blasters with two-shot Smart AR systems. The feet, as it turns out, are the priming handle! After pulling them away from the body, a return spring will bring the feet back. A trigger button on the side of the blaster (where one of the “arms” would be) then fires the blaster.
The blasters are quite sturdy, and stand on their own. The shells have the pixelated texturing you’d expect to see, and they look great. Kudos.
Comfort isn’t exactly the focus of a blaster toy like this, so I’m not going to really penalize them for that aspect. That being said, using one effectively can be a bit difficult. Since it’s easiest to grip them while keeping your thumb on the trigger, you’re either going to be stretching out your arm to aim down the side of the blaster, or firing from the hip. The former is a bit awkward, while the latter takes practice to just get muscle memory.
Performance
When working properly, the blasters averaged 60fps with the first shot, with the subsequent one averaging 53fps. The rate of fire was an easy two darts per second, since you can quickly prime the blaster and fire off the second shot.
However, the blasters have had issues the entire time I’ve used them. I’m unsure if it’s a defect in the Smart AR design for this blaster, or in how the blaster holds the darts, but ore often than not, firing the first dart will, at minimum, dislodge the second. Maybe 1/4 of the time, you fire both darts, with the first reduced in range and the second dropping out of the barrel. If darts are left in the barrels for any real amount of time, even a couple minutes, you’re likely to double-fire. This made the blasters nearly useless when I used them for HvZ – since you can have periods of calm followed by frantic shooting, being unable to leave your blaster loaded presents a severe disadvantage.
Internals
Yep, that’s how Hasbro fit everything inside the blaster! It’s a rather ingenious setup.
Last Thoughts
If you care more about having these as showpieces than blasters, you might appreciate the Mob Two Pack. If your views are more balanced (or more in favor of just function), I’d stay away.