Tag Archives: NECA

#0313: P-Body

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

P-BODY

PORTAL 2 (NECA)

P-Body

Guest reviews are still something I’m getting used to on this site, I must say. I’ve had them for a little while, but for the most part Tim and Christian have their own interests separate from mine. Believe it or not, there’s some cross over, which means, occasionally, one of them will own a figure I do. This creates the issue of duplicate reviews, an issue I’m facing today. See, Christian and I received our Atlas and P-Body figures at the same time. He was very excited about them and asked if he could do some guest reviews. Obviously, I obliged. I also didn’t want to steal his thunder, so I pushed my own reviews back a little. Thing is, I don’t really know that I have any new ground to cover here, so I’ve actually been pushing these two back for over a month. I’ve finally given in, so here goes. Let’s start with P-Body.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

P-BodyWilsonP-Body was released as part of what I’d guess you’d call the second series of Portal 2 figures from NECA. According to Christian, P-Body’s a girl, which seems weird to me, but I guess if you have to assign genders to inanimate objects, P-Body could be a “girl.” P-Body is about 7 ½ inches tall and features 17 points of articulation. The sculpt is totally unique to P-Body, and I believe it may have been built from a 3D model of the character. Everything looks pretty much spot-on to the design from the game, so that’s all pretty good. The sculpt does limit what you can do with the articulation, but that’s not too surprising, given the design and scale. P-Body’s paint seems to be pretty clean over all. There’s a fuzzy line here or there, but nothing too bad. P-Body has a light-up feature. By pushing the button the figure’s back, you can enable the light up eye, which will stay-on until the button is pushed again. It seems just a tad bright to look right, plus it’s battery powered, so I can’t see many people leaving it on long term. Still, it’s a cool feature. P-Body includes a portal gun, painted to match the figure. It also lights up, via the same type of mechanism.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got P-Body as part of a set with Atlas online. Christian had found P-Body at Toys R Us and was wanting an Atlas, so I ordered the set so we could both save on shipping. So, yeah…

Anyway, I was always second player, so I suppose I can kind of connect with P-Body. It’s a pretty great translation of the design to action figure form, and for $25 it’s pretty much a win!

#0303: Scunner

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

SCUNNER

PACIFIC RIM

Scunner4

There’s been plenty of movies that have come out since Pacific Rim that have delivered on the awesome quotient, but it’s a movie that had its own definitive style, and it left a very lasting impression on me. That impression was mostly: Holy crap those robots fighting those giant monsters were SO AWESOME!

NECA picked up the license to do figures for the movie. The first two series of figures weren’t bad, but they weren’t quite as awesome as the movie. Most notably, the monsters, or Kaiju, were lacking in detail, articulation, and especially size. Beginning with Series Three, NECA set out to fix this, going so far as to split the Kaiju off into their own sub-line so that they could truly be the gargantuan creatures they deserved to be. Today, I’ll be looking at one of the Kaiju from the film’s climactic underwater battle, Scunner!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

ScunnerWilsonScunner was actually not part of a series-proper. He ended up being a single release in NECA’s Pacific Rim Kaiju sub-line, hitting just a few months after Series One. The figure is about 8 inches standing tall, and it features 29 points of articulation, plus a bendy tail! That’s certainly an improvement over the original Knifehead’s less than 7 inch height and 15 points of articulation. Scunner makes use of the new and improved Knifehead body from the first series of Kaiju. It’s a sensible re-use, as the creature designs used many of the same elements, and it’s also a key plot-point that the creatures are all manufactured by mixing and matching parts. If you’re going to get extra mileage out of a sculpt, this is definitely a good one to do so with. The sculpt is well-detailed, well-proportioned, and well-articulated to boot. In addition to the Knifehead parts, Scunner gets a brand new head sculpt and a torso overlay to reflect his slightly tweaked design. The pieces match the quality of the body pieces very nicely, and accurately reflect the design of the creature in the movie. Scunner has been molded in a dark gray/brown plastic, with paint to add texturing as well as Scunner’s bioluminescent features. The paintwork is mostly good, and is definitely a step up from previous Kaiju offerings, but there are still a few areas of slop, most noticeably around the edges of the bioluminescent green. Fortunately they aren’t too distracting, but it would be nice if it were a bit cleaner. Scunner includes no accessories, but given the lack of any real accessories to include coupled with the sheer size and mass of the figure, this is forgiveable.

Scunner5Scunner7

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Scunner was picked up from a small toy store called All Time Toys, located near where I live. While Super Awesome Girlfriend was visiting, she and I went out and about to explore the area. We stopped by the store, and I was definitely intrigued by their impressive Pacific Rim display. I resisted the urge to buy anything, and we continued exploring. However, we had to pass the store on our way back to the car, and Super Awesome Girlfriend, living up to her name, encouraged me to go back in for one of the Kaiju. I decided on Scunner, as I felt he offered the most unique look of the possible options. He’s really a fun figure, and it’s nice to finally have a Kaiju that matches the quality of the very impressive Cherno Alpha from the most recent series of Jaegers.

Scunner6

#0287: The Heavy

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , ,

THE HEAVY

TEAM FORTRESS 2

Heavy1

Birthday Reviews chug along, now working into Part 7. We’re nearing the end, but we aren’t there just yet! Today, I’ll be looking at a video game figure, a first for me, but not for the site. Most interestingly, while I have played a few video games, and I do have some figures from them, this one doesn’t come from a game I’ve personally played. But toy, so…

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Heavy3The Heavy was released as part of the first series of NECA’s Team Fortress 2 line. This particular version is the Blue Release, which was put out a little while after the initial Red Release. The figure stands just shy of 8 inches tall and features 32 points of articulation. He’s based, shockingly enough, on the design of the Heavy from Team Fortress 2. The figure has an all new sculpt, which isn’t too surprising, given the unique nature of the character designs in the game. The sculpt seems to be pretty spot on to the design from the game. Some changes have been made here and there to facilitate the articulation and make the figure a bit more stable, but they’re minor changes. The blocky nature of the design really translates nicely to figure form, which is a definite plus. The paint work marks the distinguishing feature between the two versions of the character. I have the Blue Version, which means I have the one painted blue, which is what the Heavy looks like when a player is playing on the Blue team. The default looks tend to be Red, but Blue was a little easier to find, so it works for me. Otherwise, the paint all seems to be done pretty well. There aren’t any noticeable occurrences of slop or bleed over.  The Heavy comes armed with his big gun and a shotgun, as well as a pair of hands to properly hold both.

Heavy2

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Heavy was given to me by my really cool brother this year for my birthday. I’ve never actually played TF2, but I know of it, and I’ve always found the designs, particularly the Heavy’s, to be pretty cool. This is definitely a neat figure, and probably even more so to someone who’s actually played the game!

Guest Review #0009: Atlas

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

ATLAS

PORTAL 2 (NECA)

Atlas1

 

Hey guys!  The following is a Guest Review from my awesome brother Christian Wilson!  Take it away Christian…

Hello again! I’m back again for another action figure review because I’M OFF MY MEDICATION! This is Part Deux in the Deux Part series of action figure reviews about the Dynamic Robotic Duo, Atlas & P-Body! Today, I’ll be reviewing P-Body’s male counterpart, Atlas!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Atlas is the male robot, made by Aperture Laboratories, from the co-op portion of Portal 2 and works alongside P-Body. From our best boys at NECA, Atlas stands at about 7½ inches tall, just shorter than P-Body. Atlas boasts 15 points of articulation and has a blue LED light in his eye. This light, like with P-Body, is REALLY FREAKING BRIGHT! This figure is my favorite because of the design of the character. The ball (or head) moves side to side at 360 degrees and the figure is a lot stockier than P-Body, which make him easier to stand, so a lot less jimmying on this end. The paint job, like with P-Body, is fantastic and really brings the character to life (Ba dum Tshh!). The figure comes with no stand, but comes with his own personalized Portal Gun, with the colors of blue and purple in the game, but just purple here, because Chell’s Portal Gun was already blue-lit. The gun is the same model as Chell and P-Body’s, but has two blue lines along the top, which are a good paint job. Atlas does hold it pretty well, but it’ll take some work. The joints, for mine, took a while to ease up, especially in the wrists. So, I thought that he didn’t have any, until the Chief Executive [I guess I’m the Chief Executive — E] told me that he did. One of the problems I found with P-Body was the lack of good leg movement. Atlas does it better, but at the cost of having any shoulder articulation at all! This lack of articulation does stifle the fun a little for me but he is hindered TOO much by it.

WARNING: Like I said in my last review, these figures like to break A LOT. Luckily mine was from bigbadtoystore.com, and they guarantee not broken figures, which they do deliver (Ba dum tshh) However, I have seen other Atlases (Atlasi?) that have broken legs, so WATCH OUT!

AtlasWilson Atlas2

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I kinda touched on this in my last review, but I didn’t get P-Body and Atlas at the same time. I got P-Body first because she wasn’t broken at Toys R Us. Both Atlases were so I didn’t want to waste my money. I ordered it when I got home, but then we went to the beach and I didn’t get to it until the week after. Still, IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT! Both Atlas and P-Body are fantastic figures and have been LONG in the making. NECA did a good job of making these figures so go and GET ‘EM!

Atlas&P-Body

#0269: ED-209

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , ,

ED-209

ROBOCOP (NECA)

I’ve never been a huge Robocop fan. It probably doesn’t help that Robocop 3 was the first of the movies I saw. It’s not very good, so I was kinda turned off the whole thing. I did eventually see the original Robocop, and I do think it’s a pretty good movie, but I wouldn’t rank it as one of my favorites. Still, it has some pretty impressive design work, namely on the title character and one of his nemeses from the first film, the ED-209. NECA has the license to the original movies, and they’ve put out a few versions of Robocop and one of the ED-209. Let’s take a look at the ED-209!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ed-2092The ED-209 was a special online-only deluxe release for NECA’s Robocop line. The figure stands about 10 inches tall and features 15 points of articulation. It’s based on the ED-209’s design from the first Robocop movie. The figure features an all new sculpt, meant to replicate the look of the original ED-209 model. Near as I can tell, they’ve pretty much nailed it. All the details look to be in just the right places, and the figure features some great sculpted texture work, that really makes the figure look like it stepped off the screen. The amount of detail NECA has put into every little nook and cranny on this figure is nothing short of astounding. The figure’s paint work is pretty great too. There’s pretty much no slop or bleed over, and the paint does a tremendous job accenting all the details in the sculpt. I’d even say that the metallic sheen present on the figure’s main body makes it look more realistic that the actual ED-209 model! ED-209’s articulation is slightly limited, with just 15 points on such a large figure, but what’s there works really well, and while it’s too bad he doesn’t have any ankle articulation, but the figure is more stable that way. The ED-209 included no accessories, but he does feature a sound feature. When you press the button on the right side of ED-209’s head, he makes one of four possible sounds. I’ve included a video to demonstrate this. The clips are clear and loud, which is always a good thing with sound features.

ED-2095 ED-2094 ED-2093

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I got into NECA last year around the release of their Aliens line, I started picking up figures from some of their other lines as well. One of those was the second NECA Robocop figure. Not long after I picked the figure up, NECA announced their ED-209. I was initially interested, but when the figure was released, I didn’t have the $70 to spare, and I wasn’t sure I still wanted it. However, a few weeks ago, my brother Christian was looking at a few things on Think Geek, and I noticed they had the ED-209 marked down to $42, plus they were having an addition 20% off, bringing the figure to under $35. At that price, the figure was a steal! I’m glad I was able to find the figure at such a great price. At full price, I think the figure’s still okay, but I’m not sure I’d go for it.

ED-2096

Guest Review #0008: P-Body

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

P-BODY

PORTAL 2 (NECA)

PBodyCH2

Hey guys!  The following is a Guest Review from my awesome brother Christian Wilson!  Take it away Christian…

Hello, everybody! It’s me again! The brother of the big man upstairs (Ethan)! As these (P-Body AND Atlas) are my figures and they are from a game I played (and very much enjoyed), I’ll be reviewing these robotic buddies of friendship for you loyal 17 readers. Now, sit back and “HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS!”

THE FIGURE ITSELF

P-BodyWilsonAs P-Body was the first figure I obtained (I’ll explain later), it’s only fitting that I review this strapping and tall robot buddy first!

P-Body and Atlas (who will be tomorrow’s review) are the co-op playable characters from the video game Portal 2 by Valve. She is the robot best-friend of his robot counterpart, Atlas, and her Portal Gun colors are Orange and Red. P-Body stands at about 8 inches tall with 17 points of articulation. The overall sculpt of the figure is all its own since this line is very limited and no two figures really use the same parts (maybe Atlas possibly uses the same parts, but if so, not many).The figure has one LED-Lit eye (that you may switch on and off at will) and it is really FREAKING bright! As she is very detailed as a robot with all the wiring and stuff, her articulation is strange. In the game, P-Body moves around with her legs a TON. So, you’d expect SOME leg articulation, but it is very limited. This lack of articulation in the leg department is also present in the other figure in this line, Chell. The paint, for a figure that only cost $25, is fantastic! It looks extremely aesthetically pleasing and represents his character greatly! The figure has one accessory, her personal Portal Gun! It is LED-Lit also, but only displays one color, Red. It is also well-painted, but a reuse of the Portal Gun belonging to Chell (the first figure in the line). P-Body needs some jimmying to get her to hold it, but she can! P-Body, unlike Chell, does not come with a stand. She can stand on her own, but again, it will take some jimmying.

WARNING! These figures like to break A LOT! Not beyond repair, but in the case of P-Body, mine’s right arm comes loose on a regular basis. This may not be the case of yours(if you choose to buy one after reading this review, already own one, or are from the FUTURE) but it is very much the case with mine. Still, I think this figure is WAY PAST COOL and I was and am excited to purchase and own her!

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got these very recently (The day before I wrote this review) at a Toys R Us in Glen Burnie. Both Atlas & P-Body were there, in fact TWO Atlas’s(Atlases? Atlasi?), but both were broken and would both need to be bought just to fix one. So I ordered Atlas immediately. Still wanting something to get, I got P-Body. I STILL AM IN LOVE WITH THIS FIGURE, but it would’ve been nice to have both. As these were delayed again and again, I was swooned away when I finally got at least one. Now we wait for Atlas.

PBodyCH1

Guest Review #0007: Chell

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

CHELL

PORTAL 2 (NECA)

Chell

Hey guys!  The following is a Guest Review from my awesome brother Christian Wilson!  Take it away Christian…

Initiating Surprise in Three…..Two……One…. SUPRISE!!! EVERYONE GATHER ROUND! IT’S ME! THE SMALLER VERSION OF THE HEAD HONCHO(Ethan), CHRISTIAN! I, like Tim, LOVE video games. But, my upbringing on action figures, was not one of Video Game based action figures, it was a very similar upbringing to Ethan, as we are brothers. I don’t have as many action figures as Ethan nor am I as good at video games as Tim, I still have years of experience in both to combine them to create a lovely concoction. Still, I do love them video games equally as much as action figures. Moving On! As Portal 2(The game this figure is from) is one of my favorite video games of all time, it’s no surprise I would get the action figures. The first one I got is the one you see above, a girl named Chell.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

ChellWilsonChell is the main protagonist in both Portal and Portal 2. She is the only human test subject left in all of the ruins of Aperture Science. She successfully escapes the Laboratory in Portal, but is brought back into the Lab by another Aperture Science robot. She then again tries to escape in Portal 2, but eventually is let go by the main robotic operator of the facility, GLADoS. Moving onto the figure, Chell stands at 7 inches tall, with 23 points of articulation (EVEN ONE IN HER PONYTAIL!). The paint job is quite fantastic (Although, there are reports of HORRIBLE face paints, but mine looks OK) and shows Chell from Portal 2, not Portal (There was a major redesign in the appearance of Chell between games). Also, her parts seem to be all newly sculpted and they really look well-sculpted. She comes with a Dual Handheld Portal Device, or Portal Gun for short. This Portal Gun has a blue LED Light and fits nicely in her hands. Also she comes with a stand, BECAUSE SHE CAN”T STAND FOR S**T! Since Chell comes equipped with “Long Fall Boots”(These were created by Aperture Science to stop Test Subjects suffering from fall damage and breaking valuable equipment) the design of them cuts off her standing ability almost entirely. So hold onto the stand, because she’ll need it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Since the game is first person, Chell was not immediately recognizable. But I knew after the marvel that was Portal 2, I would need to get one of those figures. But, my BIG BRO got me Chell for my birthday and I was very pleased. She is a great figure and is up on my shelf to stay!

#0265: Caesar

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , ,

CAESAR

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (NECA)

Ceasar1

It’s not often that I review a figure from a film I haven’t seen. I think the last time I did that was with The Good, The Bad & The Ugly Minimates set, and those were Minimates, so I had that excuse going for me. Sometimes I’ll buy figures from a movie I’m looking forward to prior to seeing it. It’s not often I buy a figure from an upcoming movie I’m not even certain I’ll see in the theatre. But, that’s the case with today’s figure, Caesar, the lead character from this month’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I’ve seen the previous film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and I thought it was pretty good, but I’ve yet to really make up my mind on the sequel. It looks like it may have potential, so I might see about checking it out. Anyway, NECA picked up the rights to the film, and they’re doing a line of figures that just started hitting. So, let’s see how Caesar turned out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ceasar3Caesar is part of the first series of NECA’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes line. He stands about 6 ½ inches tall and features 24 points of articulation. Caesar is based on his look from Dawn, which is slightly different from his look in Rise, mostly in build and the presence of the tribal paint the apes are sporting this time around. Caesar sports an all new sculpt, and a very good one at that! Near as I can tell from looking at trailers and the like for the movie, Caesar’s sculpt is a pretty dead on realization of the CGI model used in the movie. The figure is covered from head to toe in hair detailing, which is all impressively handled, but I think the best part of this figure is his face, which features an amazing amount of texture and detail, and just seems full of character. It’s not all perfect; some of the hair points in odd directions, and there’s a bald patch on his torso that looks a bit off. However, the sculpt as a whole is definitely most impressive. The paint work is on par with the sculpt, doing an amazing job accenting the already great sculpt with some pretty great texture work. They’ve also included the tribal paint, which looks appropriately uneven and worn. Once again, the bald spot on his chest stands out as one of the few bad marks, being just a slop of flat brown paint amongst an otherwise heavily detailed figure.  Caesar includes a spear, which can be separated into two pieces, and a spare set of gripping hands to hold the spear. The spear is nicely sculpted, though I did have a bit of difficulty getting the two pieces together. The hands hold the spear nicely, and swap out very easily.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I honestly hadn’t intended to get this figure, at least not before seeing the movie. However, I was walking around my local Toys R Us, on the same trip where I acquired my second Striker Eureka figure. I didn’t want my only purchase to be a duplicate of something I already had, so I looked around to see if there was anything else I wanted. I came across an Engineer from Prometheus marked down to $2.50…and put it back. I do have the ability to say no! Ha ha! Anyway, I eventually came upon the Dawn figures, and I was so impressed by Caesar in person that I decided to go ahead and get one. Even if the movie’s terrible, he’s still a really great figure, most definitely worth the purchase!

CaesarWilson

#0257: Private Hudson vs Xenomorph Warrior

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

PRIVATE WILLIAM HUDSON & XENOMORPH WARRIOR

ALIENS (NECA)

HudsonVsXeno3

It’s no secret to those who follow this site that I think the movie Aliens is one of the greatest movies ever made. As a toy collector, I want toys from just about everything, even bad movies! Heck, I even bought a bunch of the figures from James Cameron’s Avatar, before I came to my senses and sold them all off. So, it stands to reason that I would want all the toys imaginable from the greatest movie of all time, right? Well, that’s where things get tricky. See, there’s been a few toys here and there from the movie over the years, but a lot of them weren’t that great or they were solely focused on the aliens themselves. I don’t watch the movie for the aliens, I watch it for the awesome characters standing up to the aliens!

HudsonVsXenoI was thrilled beyond belief when NECA announced that they were making a line of Aliens figures and the humans would be one of the focuses. So far, we’ve only gotten two of the marines, but Bishop’s on his way in Series Three and NECA’s already confirmed that Riley should be showing up in one of the series after that.

NECA is a slightly smaller toy company, which means there can end up being quite a wait from series to series of a line. So, to keep the momentum going on Aliens, they’ve released three two-packs, scattered between the main releases. The two-packs re-use parts and tend to be re-releases of previously seen characters. Today, I’ll be looking at Private Hudson facing off against a Xenomorph that’s a little worse for wear!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

This pair was released as a two-pack outside of the regular Series structure. It’s the third of the two-packs NECA has done for its Aliens line. These two were originally meant to bridge the gap between Series One and Two, but due to delays, they ended up coming out a little ways after Series Two, which actually makes for a nice bridge between Two and Three.

PRIVATE WILLIAM HUDSON

HudsonScreamingThis is Hudson’s second figure in the Aliens line. Both figures so far have depicted Hudson after the initial attack on the alien hive, as denoted by the bandage on his left arm. The Series One version of Hudson depicted him immediately after the attack, but this one depicts him as he appears in the last third of the film, when the aliens are attacking the remaining marine forces. The big difference is that Hudson has his helmet and his game face. He’s ready to fight. Hudson stands about 7 inches tall and features 30 points of articulation. From the neck down, the figure is more or less identical to the Series One release. So, I’ll be focusing on the new head sculpt. The big change is the addition of a helmet, a piece that was woefully from the Series One marines. The helmet is different from the one used on the second Hicks figure. In the movie, Hudson has a cover on his helmet, so I’m glad to see NECA pay attention to this detail. The helmet also sits better on Hudson than it did on Hicks, which makes it look less doofy. That’s definitely a plus. The actual head is pretty decent. The screaming expression makes more sense here than it did on Hicks, as Hudson did tend to be the more reactive of the two. Hudson’s scream here is less a frightened one, and more a “come get some” yell, which is pretty much spot on to Hudson’s look during his last stand. The paint work on this figure is alright. The helmet exhibits the best work, with all of Hudson’s graffiti cleanly applied. The face is a bit messier, with some harsh cuts between his 5 o’clock shadow and the rest of his face, and a fairly messy hairline. It’s not bad overall, but it could be better. Hudson includes a shoulder lamp, a welder, and a pulse rifle, all the same as the regular release.

HudsonComparison Hicks&Hudson

XENOMORPH WARRIOR

XenoShotThis is the sixth version of the basic Xenomorph in the line. Like the last one, this one is another exploration of the “just got shot” look. He stands about 8 inches tall and features 38 points of articulation. The figure is mostly the same sculpt as all the previous Xenomorph figures, which is hardly a bad thing. It’s a great sculpt, so I think NECA should milk it for all it’s worth. The key difference is the addition of blast effects to the figure’s upper torso to simulate the effect of the Xeno being gunned down by one of the marines. It appears that these pieces have just been glued onto the basic body, with no real changes to the underlying structure. The new pieces seem to be sculpted well enough, although the larger one got smashed in the package, which makes it look a little…droopy. You know, one in ten….uhh never mind. The paint is the key part of pretty much every NECA Xeno release. In this case, the Xeno has been given brown highlights, similar to those on the Series One version. They seem to have been applied cleaner, which is a definite plus, but both the Series Two Xeno and the Xeno packed with Screaming Hicks have convinced me that Xenos just look better in blue. Also, the blood spurts on this figure are more dull than the neon greens on the previous shot-up Xeno, which I feel robs the figure of the needed pop.

XenosShot XenoComparison

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

In contrast to the other two-packs NECA released, I fully intended to pick this set up from the moment it was announced. I felt the screaming expression and helmeted look were more key looks for Hudson, and I foolishly believed that the Brown Xeno look was superior. Interestingly, I actually ended up putting off purchasing this one a bit more than the other two. In the end, my opinion about Hudson turned out to be true. I’m going to have a rough time picking which version of the character will be staying on the shelf once more marines arrive, as both are great interpretations of him. The Xeno is a serviceable Xeno variation, I suppose. It’s not as cool as the exploding head version packed with Hicks, and I’m not the biggest fan of the brown, but I suppose it could be worse. All in all, a pretty good set, but not quite as exciting as I’d hoped it would be.

#0027 – Supplemental: Give Me A Break….

Posted by Ethan Wilson in General and tagged with , ,

STRIKER EUREKA

PACIFIC RIM

Striker2.0

Wait a second… haven’t I done this review before? Why yes, yes I have. Here’s the deal: I’ve got a story to tell about a somewhat common issue that plagues action figure collectors.  And that issue is BREAKAGE!

Toys generally are made out of plastics, and one of the important things to remember about plastic is that it isn’t indestructible. Plastic can suffer from some serious wear and tear. Depending on the type of plastic used for a figure, breakage can be a rareity or an inevitability. Most importantly, as figures become more and more detailed, and gain more and more articulation, they are more and more likely to break.

I am no stranger to toys breaking. When you own well over 2000 action figures, you tend to get really familiar with the idea that they aren’t always built to last. When I was a kid, my dad had a box on his desk where I could place my broken action figures. Every month or so, he’d sit down with a tube of apoxy and repair them to the best of his ability. For the most part, it was simple stuff. Arm joints broke. A head might fall off. Easy fixes. But, as the toys got more and more complex, they became more difficult to fix. My first real experience with an un-fixable toy came when I was about 12 years old. I had just gotten the Marvel Legends Series 9 Nightcrawler. I was so thrilled! But, not long after opening him, I was showing him to my dad and I dropped him. It wasn’t a big fall, maybe 3 or 4 feet. Regardless, his head came clean off. Due to the nature of the neck joint, there was no fixing him. He was broken, what could you do. Not too long after, my Dad felt bad about it, so he bought me another one. He was a $7 figure, so it’s not too much of a loss, but it still sucks.

StrikerComparisonSo, where does Striker Eureka come into this? Well, Striker is a really cool figure, but he’s also a master of the “Shelf Dive” where a figure takes a tumble off of the shelf they’re being displayed on. Striker did this a few times to no ill effect, but one day, I picked up Striker to take some photos with Cherno Alpha, and off came his leg, right at the hip. I closely looked at the brake and noticed that the hip’s swivel joint had split in two. All the pieces were still there, so I figured I could probably fix him without any frozen joints. It took me a few hours of careful work, but I got him put back together. And back on the shelf he went. For, a few months, he sat there, no issues. Then a couple weeks ago, I was doing some cleaning before a few friends came over, and down he came again. I picked him up like I had lots of times before, and went to put him on the shelf. Then, I noticed his arm was missing. Yep, it was lying on the floor. I looked at it and quickly diagnosed it was a lost cause. The weight of the arm and the small size of the broken peg meant there was no way to fix him. Since Striker’s a fairly popular figure who comfortably sells for north of $60, I wasn’t going to rush out to get a new one. So, Striker sat armless on my desk for the past few weeks.

Yesterday afternoon, I was walking through my local Toys R Us, and I came across another Striker, sitting on the shelf alone. So, I picked him up, happy to find a replacement at the retail price. I guess things worked out, huh? Sure, having a non-broken Striker means he effectively cost twice as much as the other figures in the line, but I guess it could be worse. Regardless, I’ll definitely be more careful with this one!

If you’d like to read my actual review of the Striker Eureka figure, go check it out here!