When the small boy and his friends play together, these days invariably they pretend to be superheroes, usually fighting a baddie and saving the world. To begin with it was mainly Spiderman and Batman, but increasingly different characters are being brought into play. Lately Iron Man and Captain America have been putting in an appearance, so the boy was delighted to be given a Captain America Civil War Blaster Reveal Shield to put to the test.

The Captain America Civil War Blaster Reveal Shield is, well, it’s a Captain America shield with a hidden Nerf blaster. It’s a smaller, but faithful replica of Captain America’s actual shield, but made of plastic.

The Captain America Civil War Blaster Reveal Shield is really easy to use. Just press the star button and the shield opens revealing a hidden blaster. Slip the darts into the slot, pull the trigger back and press the button on the handle to fire. The shield has space to store two extra darts for when you are doing battle. 

The shield comes with two Nerf darts, which isn’t enough, but they are widely available and we picked up an extra pack from our local toy shop for a few pounds.

It is made from plastic and seems to be pretty robust. It’s survived some fairly rough play over the past week or so. The worst that has happened to it is we’ve lost some of the darts, but that’s poor aiming, not poor construction.

The Captain America Civil War Blaster Reveal Shield comes in a sturdy cardboard box and is well secured with ties which an adult should remove with scissors. I always end up having a bit of a fight to get toys out of their packaging. At least you know it’s not going to fall out of the box and get bashed about in the toy shop. The shield does require an adult to attach the handle securely, but once that is done it is good to go.

The Captain America shield is for children aged 6+ and my nearly 6 year old and his slightly older cousin really enjoyed playing with it. 

Interestingly, although they enjoyed the blaster element, they played with the shield, just as a shield as much, if not more. I think the retractable shield is a really cool feature and their faces lit up every time they pressed the star button.

This is our first Nerf product, I’ve always been wary about having Nerf in the house (partly for fear of being a target) because I was concerned about people being hurt, but the darts are quite soft and fairly innocuous. We tried firing them at ourselves and it felt like someone was flicking you fairly gently. I wouldn’t like to take a dart to the face so we drummed in a health and safety message to be sure, and there is a warning on the box too.

The small boy and his friends have great imaginations. It’s interesting how a superhero toy like this Marvel Civil War blaster can really enhance their play and help bring it to life for them. I like that the shield isn’t just a shield, that it has the hidden blaster and when it retracts it’s pretty cool. What I like best about it is that it encourages my son to dodge the baddies, save the world and run about, far far away from a TV screen or iPad.

Disclosure: We received the Captain America Civil War Blaster Reveal Shield for the purposes of writing this review, all opinions and images are our own. Contains Amazon affiliate links.