I drew the line a little while ago and pledged that I wouldn’t be picking up any Night Force or Tiger Force stuff. Classified is extensive enough without buying a lot of repaints. Also, I’m generally not a fan of the Tiger Force deco, while the Night Force stuff is more appealing to me. Well, I kind of reneged on that pledge twice now, as I preordered both this Night Force set, and the Tiger Force version of the Ferret. Yup, my willpower ain’t that strong! This set includes a repaint of the RAM Cycle as well as a repaint of Jason Faria, aka. Shockwave with some mix and match accessories. It’s also a Walmart Exclusive, which I was able to get online, because that’s the only way I get any store exclusives these days.

The packaging is simple, yet impressive. The toys come in a big window box with everything laid out in the tray. The accessory count looks to be pretty high, and while I don’t recognize everything, I’m willing to bet that there is nothing in this box that isn’t recycled from a previous release. Everything is collector friendly, and this may be one of those sets that I choose to display in the box, rather than have two RAM Cycles on the shelf. But we’ll see. Let’s start with Shockwave, and I’ll spend more time with him than I will the bike, because he’s totally new to me.

Shockwave is one of a very small number of mainline release Classified figures that I skipped when he went up for preorder. I have nothing against the SWAT specialist, but the original Real American Hero figure was released in 1989 when I was long out of my kid phase of buying GI JOEs and about ten years away from entering my adult phase of buying GI JOEs. I also think the Classified figure was part of a rather large flurry of releases, and I wanted to make some responsible decisions and maybe pick him up later. That never happened, and so here we are. This version is a straight repaint of that first release with a lot of gray, black and some green in place of the blue. His cargo trousers are printed with digital urban camo and he has a rather robust tactical vest with a quilted chest, angled knife sheath, a brace of what I think are shotgun shells, and lots and lots of pouches. The regular release had two submachine gun holsters, whereas this one has a single holster on his right thigh for a pistol. He does, however, retain the second knife sheath on his lower left leg. The coloring is a lot more subdued here than the original blue, but I dig it. The only thing I’m not crazy about is how the vest prevents him from putting his arms down all the way. As a result he can look a little silly trying to adopt natural standing poses.

The head features the balaclava repainted to all black and the removable cap is redone in gray digital camo to match his trousers. I’m not a fan of the eye printing here, he looks like some kind of coked-out maniac and I think it’s more suited to a Cobra figure than a JOE.

You also get a recycled helmet, which I believe we last saw released with the VAMP. I didn’t have much use for this with Clutch, but I do really like it on Shocker when he’s on the Night Pursuit Cycle.

Shockwave borrows from some of Firefly 1.0’s kit, namely his backpack and drone. I don’t mind this too much, since I retired that figure after Firefly 2.0 came along. The backpack is a great sculpt, here cast in gray instead of black. There are all sorts of pouches holding sculpted tools, many of which are painted silver. The drone can nest on top of the backpack and inside the pack is a compartment that stores the drone’s remote control unit, which I thought was a really cool idea. The drone has some articulation in the legs, the VTOL fans are static, and there’s some red paint for his large camera eye. I think this is some worthwhile recycling, but there is a tab and a socket on the backpack, which doesn’t work with any of Shockwave’s gear, and that’s awkward. I may actually give those accessories to Shockwave, since Firefly 1.0 won’t be needing them at the bottom of that tote he lives in. Let’s move on to weapon role call!

For the cutlery, Shockwave comes with two knives, which fit in the previously mentioned sheaths. These have black handles and silver blades. The one that fits in his chest sheath is a fairly standard combat style knife while the boot knife has a gut-hook. Maybe, I don’t want to know why he carries that. The gut-hook knife is one of the few accessories here that came with the first release of Shockwave. These are fine, but the boot sheath doesn’t stay on his leg very well and slides down.

As for the smaller guns, Shockwave has an automatic pistol that he stows in the holster on his right leg and a submachine gun, which I believe is the same that came with regular Shockwave, who actually had a pair of these. Both weapons are cast in black plastic and have some excellent sculpted detail. The submachine gun has an extended magazine, which is not removable, however, the suppressor can be removed.

Next up on the pew-pew chain is the double barreled AR, which sounds batshit crazy, but I believe it’s based on an Israeli design. I love the detail in this sculpt and the green magazine is removable. There’s also a hinged foregrip, and it too is cast in green plastic. As someone who has to slum it with my boring old single-barrel AR, I’d love to give one of these a whirl just for the experience.

Onto the biggest gun, or at least the biggest that isn’t meant to mount on the cycle. This looks like the JOEs answer to the SIG 338 Light Machine Gun and it is a beautifully sculpted accessory. This rifle has a detachable box magazine, cast in green plastic and a grab bar on the top. The exposed rounds feeding from the mag into the receiver are individually painted in gold and banded with green. Hasbro really put together an interesting arsenal for this guy and I love it all. Unfortunately, he has nowhere to carry most of it, which is partly due to him recycling the old backpack. It’s a shame, because I really like my JOEs to be able to carry all their gear. OK, let’s move on to the Night Pursuit Cycle!

Wow! For what could have been a quick-and-dirty repaint, Hasbro poured some serious love into this new deco. The dark matte gray plastic replaces the green of the original, and there are lots of new tampos all over the place, including the Night Force logo, the eagle on the gas tank, and “Covert Special Task Force” printed on the chain gun’s casing. You get some tan paint added to the seat, handle bar wraps, and to the sculpted wrap on the exhaust pipes, which is pretty damn cool, because I don’t think I even noticed that detail on the original, where it was left black. Finally, there are some gorgeous copper highlights to the vents, shocks, and wheels, which may not be ideal for a stealthy night vehicle, but they look so nice, it’s easy for me to not nitpick the logic there. Of course, as with the first release, the chaingun can be removed from the housing and wielded by a figure, and there’s a drop down kickstand to stabilize the bike with the weapon sidecar detached.

I think Shockwave pairs really well with the bike, and with the helmet on, he looks totally bad-ass. The colors of his fatigues compliment the Night Pursuit Cycles deco very well. For me, nothing will ever replace how iconic the Classified RAM looks as an homage to the vintage toy, but I have to admit, that the deco here is quite striking and most certainly holds its own.

I’ll admit, I didn’t think I’d be nearly as excited with this set as I wound up being. Shockwave is a cool figure, even with his odd mix-and-match assortment of accessories. I also think that there’s enough changes here to make him work as a Night Force strike team army builder, if you already own the regular Shockwave. The helmet and fairly generic fatigues goes a long way to giving him that troop builder vibe. And because of that, I may still pick up the regular version. As for the bike, Hasbro went above and beyond kitting out the deco with new markings and making it feel like just another quick-and-easy cash grab on an existing mold. And while the nostalgia of the regular RAM Cycle will always win out for me, I could easily see collectors preferring this snazzy new bike. This set retailed for $55, which seems to be the going price for these smaller vehicle and figure combos, but at the time I’m writing this, the set is discounted to $42, and that seems like a real steal!