Mar 8 2012

Doctor Who: Cyberman Pandorica Guard by Character Options

It seems like an eternity since I’ve featured any Doctor Who figures based on the modern series, and that’s mostly because there haven’t been that many. Nonetheless I’ve been hankering for some NuWho figures and so I’ve started tracking down the “Series 5” inspired“Build The Pandorica” Wave. For the uninitiated, this was an assortment of Series 5 figures that originally came bundled with a Doctor Who audio CD adventure. The CD and case also doubled as a piece to the Pandorica. Honestly, I thought the CD was a pretty hokey idea, but when CO released the wave again, slightly cheaper and with non-CD Pandorica pieces that were sculpted and looked better, I new I’d get around to picking these up sooner or later. Did I mention they’re compatible with the Pandorica chair that was released last year? Well, they are!

Its going to take me a while to hunt down all of these figures, so I started off with the one I wanted the most. He’s the creepy, delapidated Cyberman that the Pandorica Alliance left behind to guard the Pandorica. The packaging is the same as we’ve been getting with all the Series 5 and 6 figures. You get a simple, generic cardback with the figure in a bubble. The Pandorica piece is behind the figure and the cardback shows one big Pandorica rather than other figures in the wave. You’ll also note the big sticker that points out the lack of a CD in the package. That’s pretty important because the back of the cards says there’s still a CD in there!
The coolest thing about this Cyberman is obviously the detatched open head. Its sculpted in the open position with the mummified skull inside. It comes detatched from the figure and you get a set of wire tentacles to plug into the neck hole if you want to display it off the Cyberman. The sculpt is pretty amazing, although I think it would have been cool if the skull was colored differently from the rest of the helmet. As it is its just all covered in the same rusty petina. Damn, this is a creepy sculpt. I like the missing right handle too. Naturally, you can unplug the wires and plug the head onto the Cyberman body.
The body itself is pretty well done too. Character Options could have gone for a cheap repaint here, but they actually introduced a lot of new tooling to the sculpt to show the damage. His chest armor is cracked, his arms are pitted.I guess my only complaint here is that it should be missing its left arm to be show accurate. But laying that aside, CO really went all out on this one.
The Pandorica wall plugs into the base of the Pandorica chair. If you don’t have the chair, you can get all six pieces to form the complete cube. I actually prefer the walls without the CD because they feature new sculpting and while you can tell they were designed to be CD cases, they still look more like the Pandorica walls and less like some dopey gimmick.
I picked up this figure for $13 shipped, which was a mighty fine deal. This Cybie was probably the most sought after figure of the wave. I suppose Kiss-o-gram Amy would be a close second, but she was previously available in the Christmas Adventure Set, so chances are a lot of the more dedicated collectors already had her. Some of the other figures in this assortment are going to be pretty hard to pony up for just to get the Pandorica piece, but I’ll get them all eventually.

Tomorrow, I’ll deliver the second in a one-two Doctor Who punch with a look at the “Destiny of the Daleks” set.
Mar 7 2012

Resident Evil 5: Executioner Majini by NECA

A little while ago I took a look at NECA’s Sheva Alomar figure from their Resident Evil 5 series and was pleasantly surprised. I got her as a stand alone figure because I liked the game and I wanted to see how far NECA’s stuff had come since the last time I bought one of their products. Well, I thought she looked kind of lonely on the shelf, and so when I stumbled across this brute from the same series, I thought I’d give her something to spar with. I actually picked up this figure quite a few weeks ago, but I’m only now getting a chance to open him up and see what he’s all about.

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As a rule, NECA’s sculpts are genuinely excellent and this big guy is no exception. Considering he’s just a deranged giant in ratty clothes with a potato sack over his head NECA had quite the challenge to make him into a visually appealing figure and I think they hit the nail right on the head. Heh, see what I did there? He has nails in his head. Ahem… moving on. This sculpt shows off an amazing array of textures from the coarse material of his head sack and the frayed fabric of his smock to the unbelievably realistic woodgrain of is axe-hammer. Even his Big & Tall Wranglers, which are mostly covered by his smock, are really nicely detailed. The nails hammered throughout his head are soft plastic, and unfortunately bendy, but overall they do look really nice, as do the two massive nails criss-crossing his back. He’s also stitched up all over the place.

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The paint apps on this figure are pretty drab, but thankfully he’s spattered with enough blood to add some color. The figure actually photographs a lot brighter than he really is. I think my favorite thing about this figures paint is his gloves. They look red, but upon closer inspection, you can see that they’re actually black and are just caked over with a ton of blood.

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My biggest issue with NECA has been their inconsistent articulation. Sheva overcame that problem and for the most part the Executioner does too. I’ll point out right away that he is completely static from the waist down, which doesn’t really concern me much with this figure. His legs are sculpted to provide a stance that gives him the best possibile chance of remaining upright while hefting his huge axe. Sure, leg articulation would have allowed for a bit more dynamic posing, but I don’t know that the joints would have held up under the weight of his weapon. From the waist up his articulaton is quite good. He can rotate at the torso, he has ball joints for shoulders, swivel cuts in the biceps, hinged elbows and swivel wrists. His arm articulation allows him to hold the pole of his weapon with both hands, which makes me happy.

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The Executioner’s primary accessory is his big honkin axe-hammer thing, which is an amazing sculpt all on its own. Its actually taller than the figure and comes packaged in two pieces. The weapon has a huge blood spattered axe on one side and a giant meat-tenderizer on the other with sculpted chains wrapped around the whole thing. Its extremely top heavy, but you can still get the figure to hold it in a number of different poses. He also comes with three bloody meat hooks that are stored through the belt loops on the back of his pants. These are really cool extras, but unfortunately he can’t hold them because they’re too thin for his grasp.

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NECA has really won me over with these Resident Evil figures, so much so that I’m sure I’ll be picking up Chris Redfield before long. The sculpting and paintwork on display here is absolutely top notch and this dude makes one impressive display piece on my shelf. I’m also really hoping to see a second series which includes everyone’s favorite mutant bastard, Wesker. Either way, this is a great figure whether you are a fan of the game, or even if you just collect horror-themed figures.

 

 

 

Mar 6 2012

Kre-O Transformers: Sideswipe by Hasbro

Oh look, its more Kre-O!! I can’t get enough of these sets. This time around its Sideswipe, another Autobot and another Sportscar to boot. I was really curious to see whether this one is designed differently than Bumbebee and I was happy to see that Sideswipe’s car and robot mode are significantly unique from his Autobot brother. Unlike Megatron and Bumblebee, I’m going to do my best to get through this set in just one part…

Kre-O boxes equals awesome. The set comes in the same style of box-slash-carry case we saw with the last two sets. Inside you get an instruction booklet, a sticker sheet, a bunch of unnumbered baggies of bricks, and two bagged Kreon figures. The set includes 220 pieces, which makes it the smallest of all the Kre-O sets I’ve looked at so far, but it still pretty sizeable.

The Kreons include a generic human Driver and Sideswipe. The Driver is a repaint of the one that came with Bumblebee and is basically just someone to sit in the car. Kreon Red Alert is just as adorable as the other Transformer Kreons we’ve seen. He comes with a big gun.
Sideswipe’s sportscar mode is a satisfying build and while in prinicipal its similar to Bumblebee’s there are more than enough differences to make it fun and unique. Its a little smaller than Bumblebee, but not as much as you might think considering this set has about a hundred less pieces. Overall I think this car mode looks better than Bumblebees, but the boxy slab of a roof is still a sticking point for me. Once again, you can leave the roof off and Sideswipe looks much better as a convertible. In retrospect, I should have left the door stickers off, as I think they look like crap, but I can always peel them off if they bother me too much. For some reason, Sideswipe only has a drivers seat, which is odd since there is plenty of room for a passenger seat, it just isn’t part of the build. The only thing I’m not too keen on with the car mode is the grey wheel well pieces. I really wish these parts were painted red.
And then there’s the robot mode and it is pretty sweet. He’s cetainly very distinct from Bumblebee and surprisingly enough the build for his arms and legs are particularly complex. I wasn’t sure about the zig-zag configuration on his legs, but they work really well in person and I really dig the hinged armor on his forearms. About my only complaint here is that his head should have been black instead of red. As it is, its giving me more of a Red Alert vibe than Sideswipe. He stands just a bit shorter than Bumblebee, but for a 220 piece set he’s plenty big. Once again there were a number of pieces left off of his robot mode so I tried to find some places to stick them. I like the way his windshield pieces look behind his head. I was a little disappointed that Hasbro didn’t throw in a missile for his gun, it doesn’t seem like it would have broken the bank and it would have helped the gun look more convincing.
As an action figure, Sideswipe is really solid and features a great level of articulation. You get ball joints in the head, shoulders, elbows, and hips. The knees are hinged, and the wrists swivel. As always with these sets, you get some bits falling off as you play around with him, but he’s still fun to pose.
I believe the suggested retail on Sideswipe is about $20. I got my set for sixteen and change. Once again, I’ll point out that you couldn’t touch a Lego set with this number of pieces at the same price, once again proving these Kre-O’s are an awesome value. Seriously, 220 pieces, two toys to build and two minifigs all for under $20. You can’t beat that, folks! In the end, I like Sideswipe’s car mode better than Bumblebees, and while his robot mode is still excellent, Bumblebee is still my favorite.

[Just a heads up, I’ll be taking tomorrow off. Its been a crazy couple of weeks at work and trying to juggle that and keeping up with Figurefan and my excessive drinking other lifestyle commitments has really tuckered me out. I’ll be back on Thursday with some more goodies. -FF]