JORGE, EMILE, NOBLE SIX, AND GAUSS HOG

HALO MINIMATES

The following is a guest review by Tim Marron. For more from Tim, check out Timsical Thoughts and Tim’s Blarg.

You may know that I’m a big fan of the Halo series of video games, however, Halo Reach never quite seemed to stop teetering on the like/dislike fence for me. It was one of those frustratingly middle sort of games where any negatives on one hand like lame deaths, Kat in general, and an overall meh delivery of plot were balanced on the other hand by things like Emile, jetpacks, new guns, and Emile again. Fortunately, the set I’ll be looking at today has far more of the better parts of the game in it. And there’s plenty Emile to be had. I mean, it’s just one figure but that’s enough. It would just be weird to have, say, 6 of the same character. But I digress, on to the reviews.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

In this set we get two of the more memorable/tolerable NPC Spartans from the game’s campaign, Emile, and Jorge, along with Blandy McBlanderpants a.k.a. Noble Six as well as a big car they can all ride in. They make up half of the central Noble Team, the remaining three Spartans being grouped in another set.

JORGE

For those unfamiliar with the game, Jorge is Noble Team’s guy with a big machine gun, along the lines of Drake and Vasquez, Dutch, or the TF2 Heavy. He’s based on his appearance in Halo Reach, for it is his only one. He stands about 2.5 inches tall and features 12 points of articulation. He’s built on the basic Minimate body with a modified waist which adds a little extra height to him. In addition, he comes sporting special pieces for his helmet, body armor, hands, leg plates, and boots. All of these pieces are pretty well sculpted and accurate to the game, though the fact that his bulky-ass shoulder pads are part of his body armor does mean his arm movement is pretty limited. The paint is not stellar. There’s a fair bit of slop and bleed on his armor and his visor is more of a pinkish beige rather than gold. He is the only Spartan of this set who actually has a face under his helmet. The details are a little too heavy and dark, making his wrinkles and facial stubble look like he drew them on with Sharpie. The texturing on the hair is a surprisingly nice touch though. Jorge comes with his signature big machine gun.

EMILE

I’m not sure if this came across earlier but Emile is radtastic, sick nasty, and other combinations of words meaning he’s the coolest dude in the entire game. He’s the team’s resident ‘splosion master and the only character in any Halo game to have a big knife visibly on his person at all times. Construction-wise, he is built the same as Jorge except minus the torso extension and with his shoulder plates being on his arms instead of part of his body armor. The sculpt work is, again, well done and faithful to the source material. Emile shares the same boots, left hand, and right leg plate with Noble Six. Emile’s paint is an improvement over Jorge’s with only a couple sloppy spots. The skull pattern on the helmet looks pretty good too, though the black outline around the whole thing makes it look more like a sticker rather than an etching. Emile also has his trusty shotgun which is painted in snazzy silver, a nice touch that really makes it stand out.

NOBLE SIX

Ah, Noble Six, the player character. He/she/it is what we refer to as a blank slate (I’ll keep things simple by saying “he”). He has no personality and no characterizing dialogue that I can recall, not even a face that the player can see. The figure is built the same as Emile, just with different armor pieces for his helmet, body, shoulders, right hand, and left leg. It’s all based on the starting armor set you have in the game so it’s a reasonable choice, even though in my playthrough, I wore the operator helmet, but that’s a petty gripe. The sculpt is right on par with the other two Spartans and the paint quality is the best of the lot, though not the most exciting. Nobby Sticks comes with an assault rifle.

THE VEHICLE IN QUESTION

The Warthog is pretty much the cornerstone of the vehicles in the Halo so it’s inclusion in this set makes a lot of sense. But this isn’t the standard run-of-the-mill ‘Hog. The one in this set is the Gauss Warthog, meaning it has a Gauss Canon on the mounted turret in place of the traditional machine gun. In my opinion, it is the superior of the two. Aside from the proportions, it’s a near perfect recreation of the game vehicle. All three of the Spartans can fit in it together: one driver, one riding shotgun, and one on the turret. The wheels do in fact spin, which I’ve heard is not always a guarantee with Minimate vehicles. The turret can rotate 360 degrees and angle up and down. Overall, it didn’t need to be included but I’m glad it was as it serves nicely to keep the Spartans together and looks good doing it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This set was a Christmas gift from my boy Ethan. Up till that point, I’d only had a couple Minimates of my own so of course he jumped on the chance to remedy that, and I have to say, of the available sets to choose from, he chose wisely. Despite being a little dull, Noble Six is still a fun little figure and Jorge and Emile are just as awesome as they were in the game. It’s a good thing Kat wasn’t part of this set, otherwise she would probably have run over Noble Six and driven the Warthog off of my dresser.