Adventure Force Gauntlet Review

Typically, when we see wrist-mounted blasters on store shelves, we don’t expect great performance, regardless of the baster size or expense. We also expect, at most, a fun emergency shot that you may or not need your other hand to trigger.

This year, however, Dart Zone opted to do something different. They made a gauntlet blaster that, while somewhat oversized compared to some other toys, is actually effective for gameplay. While there’s still a learning curve when it comes to aiming, the Adventure Force Gauntlet makes wielding a wrist-mounted blaster truly viable, complete with both effective ranges and slamfire. At the very least, if you enjoy the gimmick, it’s worth a look.

Handy Little Fellow

The Gauntlet is larger than other wrist-mounted blasters – large enough, in fact, that there’s also a bar for your hand to grip. You still have a bit of mobility when not using the blaster (for example, in a game I could have this on my off-hand, and still use my off hand to stabilize a flywheel blaster or carry throwables). But don’t expect this blaster to be something that will be out of the way until you need to use it. For the most part, you’re going all-in with it.

The wrist straps, thankfully, are generously sized so that adults and kids can use the blaster, with lots of spots for the straps to snap together. The end result, with both wrist straps and a grip bar, is that you have a steady platform that can be consistently aimed. That is, once you get some practice; while you can hold your arm out straight and tilt your head in order to aim down the sights, just pointing with your arm feels more natural, so you’ll need to learn to compensate and develop the muscle memory.

Speaking of sights, that large sight on top of the blaster actually doubles as the priming handle! There’s a picatinny rail mounted to the priming system, so in theory you could use other things, but the included sight essentially locks into place and is a very stable grip.

Finally, Dart Zone made sure that you can use the blaster, regardless of what arm it’s on. There’s a trigger button on both sides of the grip, so you can always use your thumb to fire a dart. Yay for having options!

The package includes six darts and a full-length dart magazine. You’ll also need to combine the grip and main blaster prior to use.

Performance and Gameplay

The Adventure Force Gauntlet averages 80fps with the included waffle-tip darts, which makes it comparable to many other regular dart blasters. Additionally, the blaster has slamfire! With the included magazine, that feature is a bit useless. When you use larger magazines? That’s when it can shine. You can use most Nerf-standard magazines with the Gauntlet (a few oddly-shaped drums and sticks don’t quite align). In fact, while it’s impractical to do so, you could use the CS-50 Titan drum with the Gauntlet!

Slamfire Improves rate of fire to around two darts per second; it’s still a stiff spring you’re priming with a nonstandard motion, after all.

As for gameplay, that takes practice, but the blaster is still tons of fun! Weirdly, the Gauntlet with a large stick magazine seems to work just as well as a shield as it does as a blaster!

Internals

The Adventure Force Gauntlet has to fit a LOT of things under the covers to make all this performance happen.

Interestingly, we’ve returned to an old-style breech, where a “dart tooth” gets raised up during the priming motion, keeping the dart in place while the barrel slides over. Once the dart is loaded, the dart tooth drops away in the last part of the priming motion.

I found the plunger tube assembly to be largely solvent-welded. You can see the white plastic sealing off the path air takes from the plunger tube to the back of the barrel. There’s also a tiny bleed hole before the air safety valve.

I don’t know if it would be worth trying to upgrade the spring in this blaster. But I’m sure someone will try!

Final Thoughts

The Adventure Force Gauntlet looked at the wrist-mounted blaster gimmick and said, “Let’s make it work!”

For $20, it’s a blaster with decent performance that kids and adults alike can use. And it’s silly blasters like this that make me appreciate the goofiness that should inherently be in this hobby.