Power in your Pocket (or are you happy to see so many Nerf blasters?)

"Drop your gun, Mr. Bond," said the bad guy. Bond did as he told. But just before his weapon hit the ground, without warning he spun around and, as if out of nowhere, a small Walther PPK was in his hand. He placed a careful shot between his assailant's eyes and before the bad guy knew what was going on, the last thing he saw was the floor before he blacked out.

The N-Strike Secret Strike AS-1 is the most powerful Nerf blaster in the world and it is approximately four-and-a-half feet long.

Just kidding.

Would you believe it if I told you that the Secret Strike AS-1 was part of the N-Strike family? Indeed it is! What does it mean to you? Well, other than the fact that it looks like the baby brother of the Maverick, Firefly and NiteFinder (though recent NiteFinders have a different color scheme) the answer is: absolutely nothing. The Secret Strike does not have an attachment rail that would allow it to integrate with any of the other N-Strike family of blasters. And why would you? It gets unwieldly when you "Borg-ify" your Nerf blaster, unless you particularly like the Sanford and Son approach (those of you old enough will remember the ol' 1972 show!)

The Secret-Strike literally fits in your pocket and its form factor is roughly that of a bulky cell phone. It comes with a key ring so if you ever fear losing your car keys, the bright orange and yellow will hopefully get your attention if you've left it lying around the house -- unless of course it was laundry day four months ago and your keys are under some pile of funky linen.

Interestingly enough you can "grip" the Secret Strike. The gray part fits into the web of your hand between your thumb and index finger.

You basically pump it 7 or more times and then press the "trigger" on the top. And what amazes me is this: it keeps up with the Maverick and the Nitefinder (and Scout, and Crossfire, and Firestrike -- the repainted Nitefinder). All of Hasbro's pistols achieve roughly 20-22 foot distance if angled up approx. 30-35 degrees, and i'm talking effective indoor distance. Not bad for a little shrimp.

There are no whistles and bangs here. It's basically of one-shot capacity.

While it's not as wieldly as the Nitefinder, it has comparable distance. Not a bad value for $3.00. The downside in a firefight is having to pump the little pump several times to prime it, but the upside is that it's a quick process. But if you needed a cheap backup weapon, keep it primed and in your pocket or at the end of an elastic cord attached to your belt. If you're ultra serious and ultra dweeby, I could envision you wearing a tactical vest with ten of these attached, so as needed them you'd use them if you were backed into a corner by a ton of n00bs and you won't go down without taking out a few of them in the process. Listen: if you were to ever do that and you e-mailed me a photo of yourself, I'd award you with an L33t G33k award and post the photo here on Nerf Intelligence Files!

The N-Strike Secret Strike AS-1 a powerful yet tiny Nerf blaster and it is approximately four-and-a-half inches long. In my opinion it has the highest power-to-size ratio of all that Hasbro has manufactured to date. (For those of you who'd argue and are too young to understand ratios, that means that for the teensy size it packs a lot of power, so if you scaled the size larger, think how immense the power that would be.)

All that power in my pocket. Whoo-ha.