"Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war."

I wont lie, we love a good scrap! we're proper boys and that's what boys do, roll about wrestling, make up crazy martial arts and diving off things we are probably not supposed to (says mom). I tend to double up as Stay at home Dad/Climbing frame and i'm expected to crawl around with those two special items of cargo comfortably on my back, in between the usual play beating that i get which usually ends when one of them stomps on a spot they shouldn't ouch.

Obviously i'm not complaining though, the boys are the greatest thing to happen to me, along with Mrs M they are my best friends. I love the fact that there is no need for me to grow up and i can live my days reliving my youth. A few months back we reviewed the Boomco twisted spinner and had lots of fun playing with our friends so when we were asked if we would be interested in trying out the new product, i couldn't wait to get in to battle mode with the boys.

On the day the package arrived i answered the door and thought 'what on earth is that, it's huge', i soon realised that inside that box was the game changer in our play battles. The Boomco rapid madness is an insane play thing and i was hooked from the second i fired the first round, a 20 shot clip that fires like a machine gun. Today i was selfish and fired the first round myself and Seth's eyes lit up when he saw what it was capable of. He then responded with 'i need to fire that while i'm sitting in a tree'... awwwww, our adorable little sniper.

The power in the blaster made it quite clear that we needed to be outdoors with plenty of space for action, It was time for battle and some of us take this sort of thing very seriously, oops!! The Rapid Madness really ups your game on the battle field as it is air powered and can blast out all 20 darts in the clip in literally seconds. If you are in to running about having a play battle with the kids then this bit of kit is really morish once you have fired once.

After running about for a while and spending some time looking for missing darts (because the range on the shots is up to 50 feet and Seth was firing shots all over) Seth finally got his chance to fire from the tree's when our battle came to a stand off. Thankfully our battle came to an end with the shaking of hands and a big hug, If only wars were ended the same way.

The Boomco rapid madness is a serious addition to your play armoury and i can see we are going to have a lot of fun playing with it over the coming weeks. Since playing with the Boomco blasters all the ones we owned from another well known company have been given away, i think that pretty much sums up the awesomeness of this product

Need more reassurance before you purchase? check this fun video out...

Boomco Rapid Madness Epic Battle

There is also the Zoom 'n' Boom event still going in Glasgow until the end of August, stay tuned for future events.

I'm Stickman, I'm Stickman, I'M STICKMAN! Thats me.

While in Asda we did our usual rounds perusing the toy aisles but there was nothing to take our fancy so we headed over to the books. Since our friends bought the boys 'Zog' by Julia Donaldson for Christmas, everytime we read it and get to the pictures of her other books on the back page Opeie always points to 'super worm' and says 'I'd really like that'. Well today it was staring right at us from the shelves and as it was on offer we got to choose another book. I liked the look of 'stickman' so that found it's way in to the trolley too. 

Stickman is a great children's book and Opeie finds his adventures lots of fun, We've read it at least once every day since getting it. It made me think of when I was younger and how much fun i could have with a stick. A stick is the ultimate classic toy and it's up there with the rock, the cardboard box and the piece of string. Sadly with technology taking over this simple yet extremely versatile play thing probably doesn't get the attention it deserves these days.

Thankfully in our house 'Stickman' has awakened something in Opeie and his love of sticks is growing stronger by the day. Despite all the toys he has to play with over the last few days our garden role play has been stick heavy. His beloved stick (which now resides in the house and lounges about on the boys sofa like a lazy teenager) has been subject to many different games. The cliche but ever popular use as a sword or 'Lightsaber' if Opeie's feeling a little futuristic has been the weapon of choice for some up close and personal scrapping but it has also been transformed in to some form of gun/blaster to get him out of sticky situations (perfect for long distance battles and fending off up and coming attacks...

Are you a little bit bored while waiting for your Nemisis to attack? Why not make use of the phone setting (I'm not sure what the reception is like but I'm guessing its better that EE)...

The stick also comes in handy if your foe's nose resembles that of an elephant or prehistoric monster beak and you need to throw a little smack talk down. "hey big nose..."

Nature really is a wonderous thing and as I said before the classic, true vintage toys are really unbeatable in the world of play, so get outside while the suns out, grab yourself a free toy and let your imagination run wild. After all it's what being a child is all about and us parents need to be encouraging that.

"It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle."

I love it when a new product is released that changes the balance of things in the market or makes it clear that they are there to topple their big named rivals. After being asked to review the new BOOMco Twisted Spinner and giving it a try Ive a feeling that Nerf are in panic mode. Having two boys the need for running about and shooting things at each other was bound to come up at some point. We had always bought Nerf because they monopolised the market. That was until we bought one of the larger guns last year and all it did was chew up and destroy the darts. Absolutely no fear of this happening though with BOOMco.

This product is AMAZING! I knew it from the moment we opened the packaging and fired the first dart as it's got so much power that the dart vanished and we've not seen it since, despite looking Everywhere. The push pull handle to load and fire is far superior to anything else we've played with from a blaster. As I said before the power in the blaster really shocked us so goggles whilst playing is a must. It wasn't until we got outside and played though that we realised the true potential of this great new product.

Last weekend we decided to take the blaster out with us on a picnic with friends and having a huge amount of space meant that we could really see what the blaster was capable of. I'd love to say the boys really enjoyed playing with it but play seemed to be dominated by us over excited adults, especially our friends Chris and Katie who were really getting in to playing with the boys.

The range on the box says up to 70ft and honestly I don't think that was far off the distance we fired it so clearly we were all very impressed. 

I'd have loved to have had another three that day as the quick loading and speedy multiple fire would be great for battle. But while one of us took aim the rest of us waited patiently for a chance to attack.

If blasters and play combat are your thing there really is no product better or at least not one that we've found. Even though the design, load/reload speed and smooth firing are exceptional the thing that really blew me away but is also still confusing me is the stickiness of the smart stick darts to the targets provided. The darts arnt sticky at all yet there is some extreme attraction to whatever material the targets are made from which has been awesome for target practise, again I would love to try out a few of these in a play combat kind of environment to see the targets on the side of the blaster put to their full use.

BOOMco seem to be popping up everywhere at the moment and are at the front of the store in all of our local toy stores and supermarket toy aisles. Clearly the marketing team are doing a great job with this exciting new release and all though many new products come and go once these blasters are played with you're hooked. Effortless and fun play, you won't hear a single negative word said by us. BOOMco are here to stay.

Sadly the boys were left thinking 'when is it our go?'