Holiday Gift Guide 2009: Ben 10 Alien Force Quickshot

For whatever reason, I reign supreme at Ben 10 Alien Force Quickshot.

Ben 10 Alien Force Quickshot

Frank’s a big Ben 10 fan and it is largely this fact that instigated our first annual Ben 10 Alien Force Quickshot Challenge. Conveniently, there is an existing game called Ben 10 Alien Force Quickshot which made our Challenge competition much easier to institute.

This simple yet wonderful game goes like this: There are two players. Each has a trigger to shoot little plastic marbles. You aim the marbles at eight cardboard pieces. The objective is to take ’em all out. (Officially, you’re only supposed to shoot five out of eight or something, but screw that. We’re hardcore.) The genius of the game is the design. There’s a clear plastic shield covering the entire playing surface so that the marbles don’t bounce out and all over the floor. The cardboard pieces slot into a plastic peg stand above the shield via peg-into-hole technology. Under each peg is a ramp. If you shoot the marble up the ramp, it will push out the peg thereby knocking down the cardboard piece. It’s rather an elegant solution.

I would’ve taken pictures of Frank and I madly hashing out our Ben 10 Quickshot Challenge, but we were too busy madly hashing out our Ben 10 Quickshot Challenge.

Frank and I traded victory for the first two rounds. I trounced him in round 1 thanks to my brilliant strategy. You see, the marbles return to the triggers thusly: marbles shot towards the player’s left return to that players ammo supply; those aimed at the player’s right go to his opponent. I exploited this knowledge in round 1. I began blasting the targets to my left at an extremely high rate of fire. With this ammo surplus, I carefully shot down the targets to my right. I revealed my strategy after the round and Frank learned quickly for a close revenge victory.

I took the rubber match, and then we introduced what we both feel is the next evolution in Ben 10 Alien Force Quickshot competitions worldwide: blindfolded Ben 10 Alien Force Quickshot. The set up is exactly the same as normal B10AFQS but with a blindfold for each player. We refined this by equally dividing the marbles and shooting the targets in limited rounds until the marbles were depleted. Then we took our blindfolds off and either declared a winner or continued until all the targets were shot away.

‘Awesome’ is the only word to describe blindfolded Ben 10 Alien Force Quickshot. You can’t just blast away as you would normally. The skilled Quickshot player will patiently squeeze the trigger, move slightly, squeeze again, until he has completed a full firing arc. It is that patience…that patience and marksmanship…that patience, marksmanship and preternatural skill which propelled me to victory after lopsided victory. Frank was nonplussed. Neither of us had ever played this game before, but I was scoring with unerring accuracy. Like Clint Eastwood shooting from the hip. It got to the point that we had to keep playing just to see if Frank would ever break my winning streak. He did not.

And so passed the first annual Ben 10 Alien Force Quickshot Challenge. Although we traded places every two rounds, Frank still insists his apartment is on a slant–both ways. Attention Olympic New Sport Admissions Committee, you will be receiving my proposal shortly.

Ben 10 Alien Force Quickshot by Pressman Toy

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