Tag Archives: Jill’s Reviews

Guest Review #0038: Rue

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Guest Reviews and tagged with , , ,

RUE

THE HUNGER GAMES (NECA)

rue1

The following is a guest review from Jill Mardesich.  Take it away Jill!

Rue is one of the iconic characters from the book The Hunger Games. She was the female tribute from District 11, the farming and agricultural district of Panem. Small and bird-like, she made up for her small stature with her cleverness and her ability to jump from tree to tree like a squirrel. She loved music and won over both the hearts of Panem and the readers/viewers of the 74th annual Hunger Games. She was an excellent tribute and a beautiful character… until, you know, she got stabbed with a spear and died

THE FIGURE ITSELF

rue2Rue stands 5 1/4 inches tall and has 10 points in her articulation. These points are in her neck, shoulders, elbows, waist, and ankles. Her hair is quite accurate to the character’s, but because it is molded plastic it greatly reduces the range of motion in her neck. She also has no articulation in her hips nor her knees, so there are very few positions you can actually put her in, which is a little disappointing. However, her sculpt is quite nice. I love how you can see every ringlets of her curls in her sculpt,and how detailed all of her clothing is. Each article of clothing looks like a distinctive fabric, which is accurate to the movie. Her paint is ok; there’s some slop along the lines on her jacket and her face doesn’t look great. Her facial features aren’t dainty enough to truly be Rue and go with the size of the figure. Her eyelids are heavy and her cheekbones are done is a way that really ages her,and her eyes are very strangely painted. It makes her look like she has an older woman’s face on an eleven (twelve?) year old’s body. Nothing is glaringly bad, but close inspection of the figure does make me feel like it was a little rushed. Rue comes with no accessories, which wouldn’t bother me if her right hand wasn’t obviously shaped to hold a knife like she does in the movie. Having the knife would also make her limited poses make more sense. According to Ethan, she looks like she was originally planned to have the knife, but NECA was probably told to just release her without it to save time.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Rue is the very first figure I actually bought for myself. Ever. Before her, the figures I owned were the two that Ethan gave me for Christmas. I hadn’t really gotten into collecting the figures yet, but I saw her at the store Yesterday’s Fun and decided to get her. Rue is one of my favorite characters from The Hunger Games trilogy, even though she is only in one book. Her story is tragic from the beginning, because as a reader you know that Katniss is going to be the one that survives because she’s narrating the story. The odds were never in her favor (heh), but I fell in love with her. She was cheap and I liked her, so I got her. Though she has issues, I really do like her and am glad that she is one of the starters for my personal figure collection.

Guest Review #0037: Overworld Alex

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Guest Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

OVERWORLD ALEX

MINECRAFT (JAZWARES)

Alex1

The following is a guest review by Jill Mardesich.  For more from Jill, check out her blog Future Music Educator Rambles on Life.

Minecraft by Mojang is a game that has managed to sweep the nation, and one of my personal favorites. It is available in just about every platform you can think of, minus Wii and other Nintendo consoles. Because, you know, Nintendo doesn’t play well with others. Alex is the female version of the basic player character (Steve), and I absolutely adore her. She’s not super exciting, but the design is so much more interesting than Steve’s, and she’s a girl.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Alex2Alex is, as stated before, the female player character in the wildly popular game, Minecraft. She is a part of the third series of Minecraft figures. She stands approximately 3 inches tall and has 6 points of articulation. She is a very blocky figure, which follows the game’s overall aesthetic. Her paint work is exceptionally detailed, but there are some fuzzy edges along the facial features, and there’s some pretty noticeable slop on both of her arms, but especially the left one. The orange of her hair is nice and vibrant on top of her head, but when painted onto the body, it seems to have been applied overtop the green of her shirt and causes the color to look really dingy and just… off. From a distance she looks awesome, but up close she gets a little disappointing. I don’t care that much though, because I’m really into her as a character anyway. For her accessories, she comes with a bow, a gold sword, and a Slime. The box looks pretty cool, but the edges of the paintwork are not clean, and it’s a little tricky to get her to hold it in a secure fashion. The sword is pretty nice, the paintwork is super neat and the sword is immediately identifiable as the material it is made of in the game. The Slime is a cool item to receive, replacing the normal building block that comes with the figures in this line. It also looks really cool, a 1.5 inch cube made of transparent green plastic with different shades of green plastic on the inside to provide the detailing. It leads a super clean likeness to the Slimes in the game, and a really cool looking piece. My one complaint about the Slime character is that the color green for the transparent plastic is a rather dark green, which is inaccurate to the game and causes the detailing inside to be difficult to see. If the transparent plastic was a lighter green like it is in the game, I think the details inside the Slime would be more vivid and impressive.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Even though there is literally no story to the game Minecraft, I have loved Alex since she was introduced. She was a surprise to me in one of the updates (because honestly, who actually reads the entire update list when they log in to Minecraft?) and I was ridiculously excited to discover that my Doctor Who skin wasn’t working and it was instead I got to meet Alex. I think she has a really cool design, and I think the fact that she was such a surprise to me is part of the reason why I love her so much. She was like a present that I never expected. It seems fitting that my wonderful boyfriend Tim got her for me at the store in the same manner. She’s not a perfect figure, but she is still really cool and I’m excited to have her.