Air Zone Punisher Review (7/10)

It costs $400,000 dollars to fire this weapon for twelve seconds.

This review is pretty late but whatever. I got a thing for giant, impractical, guns that do more to harm you just carrying them around than anything terribly worth noting on the battlefield. Pretty much nearly every heavy machine gun I've used minus the Rhino-Fire boasts huge ammo capacities, massive sizes and weights, and they don't shoot anything more impressive than your average rifle. The Punisher fits that bill very well, but it sure as hell knows how to look cool while doing so.

Size compared to a Rhino-Fire. Screw practicality, amirite?

I had one of these back in 2009 when I saw it on NM&R and instantly ran to Toys R' Us and got one, it was the most badass looking blaster on the market at the time. But for some damn reason I exchanged it for a Unity Power System and regretted ever since the Punisher got discontinued and the value of it spiked dramatically. Anyways onto the beast itself. It's made by Prime Time Toys who also makes the current Scorpion Gatling Blaster under the Dart Zone line but I don't ever think this was sold outside of TRU's Air Zone line unlike it's successors. This thing is a pig, it weighs roughly as much as the Vulcan but it feels better in your hands for some reason. It has no tripod so using it turret style is out of the question. It also looks completely epic, just the fact that it was a minigun was enough  to get me to buy it in the first place.

The rotating barrels are purely aesthetic.

But like the Vulcan, it's usability factor is pretty well mediocre compared to most assault rifles. Being belt fed, it's difficult to load one handed considering the weight and lack of a stock. Plus like all belt feds, it jams more easily than clip fed blasters. Speaking of belts, the 30 round belt on this thing isn't that great. It only fits these proprietary slug type darts and they seem to fit awfully loose plus I don't even think Air Zone sold refills for these darts too. This means that you will have to cut down your existing darts or modify the chain/blaster to fit them. The rotating barrels only exist to drain your battery power faster, they don't serve any purpose other than to look cool which is understandable because it would probably be damn near impossible or expensive to build a blaster with a rate of fire to support functioning gatling barrels.

Closeup of the flywheel and feeding mechanism.

As for it performance, it's notably better than the Vulcan. Mine hit roughly the 35 to 40 foot mark with fairly good accuracy. The rate of fire is only minutely slower than the Vulcan but it can be overlooked. In general it operates much smoother than the Vulcan which is quite nice. Modding this thing should be easier too considering it uses flywheels as opposed to an electrically driven plunger. I'd assume dropping a new power pack in and tightening up the flywheels should greatly improve this blaster.

All in all the Punisher is a cool blaster with decent performance that falls highly short in usability. There are far better heavy machine guns out there now like the Rhino-Fire and actually most assault rifles like the Rapidstrike are better to use. For these reasons I give the Punisher a 7 out of 10. You can't get a blaster that looks more badass than this but you can definitely get one that performs a bit better.

The Verdict

Class- Belt Fed Minigun

Range- Good, around 35 to 40 feet.

Size- Comparable to a Vulcan.

Reliability- Jams can happen as with most belt feds and darts fit loosely in the belt.

Ammo- 30 Micro Darts.

Modding- Voltage mods are about the most you can do.
Value- At $40, it's better performing and cooler than the Vulcan.

Is It Better Than?

Vulcan- Yes, the Punisher holds more ammo and is slightly more powerful than the Vulcan, not to mention easier to mod. For whatever reason, despite both blasters being very similar in form factor and weight, the Punisher is more comfortable to use. Odd but cool.

Rhino-Fire- No, yeah I know, the Rhino-Fire costs a damn arm and a leg but performance wise the double barreled beast destroys the Punisher in virtually all aspects. I will say though I like the feel of the Punisher over the Rhino-Fire though.

Scorpion- No, this is the Punisher's much smaller and quite shockingly, vastly more powerful successor. Yeah I didn't quite like the fact that this minigun is literally miniature and it pretty much defeats the purpose of building a blaster in this form but it performs excellent, and best of all, it's cheap.