Feb 20 2012

Resident Evil 5: Sheva Alomar by NECA

Collecting Video Game based figures isn’t really my thing. I pick up a few from time to time, but I don’t make an effort to hunt them all down. Nonetheless, having finally gotten around to playing Capcom’s Resident Evil 5, I decided I needed me some figures and NECA stepped up to the plate. I don’t have a lot of experience with NECA’s video game figures. I’ve been scared away in the past because a lot of them are basically just statues with some added articulation and I find NECA and McFarlane are just two of the biggest offenders in this category. After reading some reviews of the RE5 figures, the concensus seemed to be that these were bonafide action figures and not mere statues, so I decided to pull the trigger and give them a try. I really teetered between just getting the complete set of three (Sheva with Chris Redfield and an Executioner), but I found a really good deal on Sheva alone, and thought I’d test the waters first.

One thing NECA has always been good at is their sculpts and Sheva here is no exception. Her face and figure are just as attractive as her in-game counterpart. Giggity! Her top half is fairly simple, as she’s just wearing a two-tone purple tank top and so a great deal of the sculpting has gone into her from the waist down, where here gear is kept. That sounded wrong, so let’s move on. Her belt features decorative tooling, ammo pouches and a fanny pack. Her right thigh has additional magazine pouches strapped to it and her left has a holster for her pistol. Her pants feature stitching and wrinkles and her boots are cowboy/biker style with stirrup-style straps and buckles. She’s also got a sculpted necklace, a communication rig on her right ear and some kind of armband device. Yessir, a lot of nice work went into this sculpt making it one impressive piece of work for this scale.

NECA has been known to slip up with their paint apps from time to time, especially on their smaller scaled figures, but they’ve definitely been getting better and Sheva’s a prime example of that. The paint on my figure is overall quite good, with only a few notable blemishes. She does have a bit of inconsistancy between her right and left eyes, but it isn’t too bad. The tattoo on her left shoulder is crisp and very nicely printed and there’s really no slop to be found. The painted weathering and texturing on her gear is also quite impressive.

Sheva has an admirable amount of articulation. Her neck and shoulders are ball jointed. She has swivels in the biceps and wrists. Her elbows are not hinged, but rather diagonal cut swivels that can imitate a hinged joint in some ways, but ultimately I would have much preferred a simple hinge. Her upper legs move up and down and feature lateral movement, her knees are hinged, and she has swivel cuts at the top of her boots. She can also swivel slightly at the waist. This is what I call an action figure! She’s loads of fun to pose!

Sheva comes with three accessories: A Sniper rifle, an automatic pistol, and a knife. The pistol fits into the molded holster on her belt and features a snap down retaining flap. Egads, I love functional holsters! She can comfortably wield the pistol in either hand. The knife fits into the scabbard on her belt and she can hold it surprisingly well in her right hand, even though it’s clearly designed for the gun. The sniper rifle is nicely sculpted, and despite having an ultra thin barrel, mine shows no evidence of warping.

Sheva set me back a mere ten bucks plus shipping, which is certainly decent for a figure like this. I expected a solid effort, but what I got was a downright exceptional figure. The sculpt and paint here are absolutely superb and while there are a few funky designs to be found in the joints, I can have a blast putting her in all kinds of poses with her different weapons. I’m going to go ahead and say that this is one of the better figures I’ve picked up in a long while and certainly and I’ll recommend her to anyone who’s been a fan of the game and looking to represent it on their action figure shelf.

Feb 10 2012

Duke Nukem Forever: Duke Nukem by NECA

The last thing I want to do here is recount the tortured and well known history behind Duke Nukem Forever. Suffice it to say the game lingered in development limbo for nearly 20 years before finally shipping last year. The final product was not only disappointing but it was easily one of the worst games I’ve played in a long while. It was poorly designed, occasionally broken and just no fun. But worst of all the gimmicky gameplay seemed to entirely miss the point of what Duke Nukem was all about: Blasting the shit out of stuff. You could argue that the developers tried to reinvent the game for a new age, but the point is that Duke Nukem should do what he does best, shoot things and make quips. A old school style shooter in the mold of Serious Sam or something like that could have been a fun nostalgic romp, not the crap we wound up with.

Nonetheless, I love Duke Nukem. He’s an important part of my gaming youth. I even read his funny books. I was on board way back when the now defunct Resaurus was making Duke Nukem figures and so it was only natural that I would get around to buying NECA’s recent treatment. Let’s check him out.

If you’ve picked up any of NECA’s recent releases, then you know what to expect from the packaging. Duke comes in a compact clamshell with a printed insert. I like this packaging as you can easily razor along the back to get at the figure and then you can return him to the package without it looking like it was ever opened. They obviously had a lot of fun when writing the copy for the package and it shows. It even recommends you take him out with you for adventures like some kind of strange My Buddy doll. There’s no need to take Duke seriously and NECA certainly doesn’t.

The sculpt here is pretty good. Its a more realistic looking Duke than we’ve ever seen, which is a reflection of the better (and yet still dated) graphics from the recent game. The figure does have a bit of a hunched over look, but its nothing to get too upset about and in a sense I guess it stresses his whole ‘roided out gorilla look. The sunglasses are sculpted onto his face, but they’re done so well that they really do look like they could be removed. Speaking of his face, Duke sports a great little over confident smirk that suits the character really well. There’s not much to say about his outfit. He’s wearing a red wife-beater, fingerless gloves, blue jeans and boots. Its all nicely detailed right down to his iconic belt buckle. The ammo straps are sculpted as separate pieces and hang loose down near his belt to allow for his torso articulation. The flesh paint features a bit of a wash to give him a slightly dirty look, which I think looks rather good.

So let’s talk articulation. Duke has some seriously weird ass articulation. He’s quite poseable, but NECA devised some truly and inexplicably awkward designs for his joints. His neck is ball jointed, which is normal enough, although he has very little up and down movement. His shoulders are ball jointed, but might as well just be swivels because he has very little lateral movment. But then he’s got an additional pin joint just under the shoulder, which seems redundant. The figure would have been better served with a swivel cut here. The rest of the arms are pretty standard with hinged elbows and swivel wrists. His legs have normal movement at the hips with the addition of another oddly placed pin joint that gives his legs lateral movement. You then have double hinged knees and swivels in the ankles. Lastly, Duke can swivel at the waist and has an ab crunch in the torso. I have no idea what happened here, particularly with the shoulders and the hips, but it seems like NECA went out of their way to needlessly reinvent some very conventional points of articulation. Like I said… weird.

I can’t say that NECA has ever been heavy handed in the accessories department, and Duke here is par for the course. You get an automatic pistol and a cigar. That’s it. It feels woefully light, considering Duke should be a one-man walking arsenal. Where are the trademark weapons from the game? Where’s the Devastator? The Shrink Ray is even mentioned in one of the quips on the package, but its nowhere to be found. How about a friggin Pipe Bomb or combat knife? You don’t even get his Boomstick. Resaurus’ figure came with a bunch of cool accessories, here you get bupkis and that’s almost as disappointing as the game. I’ll admit the cigar is a cool little accessory and he can even hold it quite well, but the lack of an alternate head with the ability to hold it in his mouth seems like a missed opportunity.

Duke originally retailed for around $15-17 and you can still grab him at most Toys R Us stores for around that price. I got him on clearance through an e-tailer for $10 shipped, so I’m going to cut him some slack. It really is generally a nice sculpt and the articulation is perfectly serviceable albeit oddly designed, but ultimately the lack of accessories hurts this figure a lot. If you’re really jonesing for a Duke figure I suppose this one ain’t bad, but you might be better off hunting down the old Resaurus version. It may be a much simpler sculpt, but its as a toy its a lot more fun.

Oct 20 2011

Tomb Raider: Lara Croft In Wet Suit Statue by Playmates

It’s another slow week for acquisitions, folks, so I’m going to be digging into the FigureFan Toy Closet for content this week. Last week I checked out NECA’s 1:6 scale Lara Croft, so I thought it only fitting I take a look back to a much earlier Tomb Raider piece: This statue and diorama by Playmates.

The packaging is a standard window box with a tomb motif. It’s technically collector friendly, but mine has been a bit mangled over the years. The entire statue with base and backdrop is about eleven inches tall. The Lara figure itself is about nine inches. The entire piece is cast in plastic.

Starting off with the base and backdrop, I have to say Playmates did a nice job here. The platform is a rustic looking floating dock with some coiled rope, and the whole thing is supported by two half barrels. The backdrop is a badly weathered wall with cracked stucco and some brickwork showing through underneath. The Tomb Raider logo appears sculpted into the back wall just over Lara’s left shoulder. Most statues these days appear with pretty minimalist environments or just small detailed bases, but Playmates went uncharacteristically out of there way here to produce a very nicely designed and excellently sculpted environment for Lara. The small section of side wall is a nice bonus too.

Unlike NECA’s modern Lara, Playmates’ version has roots deep into the earlier games and to me that makes this statue a whole lot more iconic in appearance. Without hunting down dates, I’m pretty sure this statue was out around the time the second or third game was released. I seem to recall her spending a lot of time in her wetsuit in Tomb Raider 2. Either way, this is a Lara that we old timers are more familiar with, even if she isn’t wearing her more standard outfit. The wetsuit itself is more or less painted onto her body sculpt, although there are sculpted lines where the sleeves and shorts end. Other sculpted details include her huge belt buckle, holsters with removable pistols, and her bare feet. I’m particularly fond of the execution of Lara’s head sculpt here. Again, its simple but instantly recognizeable. She’s flashing a smile and her sunglasses are worn down on her nose to show off her eyes. Her iconic ponytail hangs down over her right shoulder. All in all, it’s a nice tough and sexy look for Lara.

Lara’s weapons include the two aforementioned pistols and a harpoon gun. You’ll note the tip of the harpoon appears to have snapped off my statue, so there’s something to watch out for. Although, in fairness I’ve had this thing a long time and it’s gotten kicked around a fair share. The harpoon gun is actually sculpted onto her right arm, but her left arm is capable of holding one of her pistols.

While there’s no doubt this is a statue and not an action figure, Lara does have three points of articulation. Her arms swivel at the shoulders and her head rotates at the neck.

As many of you are aware, I’m generally not a big cheerleader for Playmates. They’ve done their share of shoddy stuff, but this statue shines above a lot of their usual crap. Make no mistake, it’s still a low end piece, particularly in the collectible statue market, but for what it is it’s a well designed display piece with a fine sculpt and great paintwork. I picked Lara up at an indie video game store many years ago and paid next to nothing for her. You can still find this statue on Ebay fairly regularly and she often sells for around $15-20. It’s not a bad little collectible if you still have a soft spot for Ms. Croft.

Oct 5 2011

Tomb Raider: Lara Croft 1:6 Scale Talking Figure by NECA

So long as I was looking at two 1:6 scale video game queens this week, I thought I might as well make it a trifecta by digging out Ms. Lara Croft herself. Lara’s been no stranger to the action figure and collectibles market, and much like her games, her history in plastic has been pretty hit and miss over the years. Today we’re going to take a gander at NECA’s large scale talking figure. But, before we get started, let’s get some semantics out of the way first. NECA calls this thing a figure, but in reality it’s more of a statue with limited articulation. With that out of the way, let’s see what we’ve got…

Lara comes in a pretty nice window box. It’s nothing special, but it does get the job done and shows off the figure pretty well. While this figure is certainly based on the Tomb Raider: Legend game, Legend doesn’t actually appear anywhere on the box. You can get everything out without tearing it up too badly, although I opted to keep some of the accessories on the tray, but more on that in a bit. I tend to like storing my 12-inch figures in their boxes in a bookcase, so the collector friendly nature of the box is welcome.

The statue is very faithful to the way Lara looked in the Tomb Raider: Legend game. NECA usually does a fine job with their sculpts and Ms Croft here is no exception. She’s a bit more realistically proportioned, particularly in the ta-ta’s department and her aqua shirt and short shorts have given way to a brown half-shirt and well… short shorts. Ok, so some things never change. I have absolutely no quibbles about the sculpt itself. Her face is attractive, with a stern look. Her hair is sculpted and her pony tail is shorter than we’ve seen in the older games and curled down the front of her shoulder. The skin texture is pretty realistic, with a little muscle sculpted in, but not too much. Her equipment is meticulously created from her boots with the socks peeking out the top, to her belt buckle, to her backpack and the string of grenades lining the back of her belt. Lara also has a pair of holsters for her guns. The only thing I can complain about here is the rather unsightly seaming along the sides.

The paintwork here is a little hit and miss. It’s generally pretty good where it counts, but there is some unsightly slop along the top of her shorts. There’s also a bit of smudging around the flesh paint. That part doesn’t bother me so much since it just looks like she got a little dirty from crawling around in tombs. I’ve actually seen more paint issues on statues that are a lot more expensive than this one, so I’m not going to come down to hard on these issues.

Articulation? Yes, there are in fact seven points. You get a rotating head, ball joints in the shoulders, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. For a figure, that sucks. For a statue, that’s pretty good. You’ll have to make the call on which. You can basically just position which way she’s pointing her guns.

Speaking of guns, Lara does come with some accessories. Yep, two of those are her automatic pistols. They feature detailed sculpts and can be removed from her hands and put into her holsters. She also comes with a shotgun, grenade launcher and the Excalibur sword. They’re all cool enough pieces, but her pose doesn’t really allow her to hold any of them very convincingly, so that’s why I left them on the insert. Lastly, you get a plain black oval base with a peg to plug into the hole on the bottom of her foot. The stand isn’t necessary to stand her up, but it does help. I think I would have liked either a shield with the title of the game or a base made to look like actual ground.

As you may have noticed, this is a “talking figure” which means she’s got a sound chip in her and spouts off a bunch of phrases recorded from the game. There’s an On/Off switch on her and a large button below that. Press it and you get to hear a different phrase each time. I’ve got a couple issues with this gimmick, the least of which is, why bother? Lara doesn’t really have a retinue of catch phrases and nothing she says here is all that memorable or great. But the bigger problem is the sound quality of the clips is just terrible. There’s a ton of background hissing and there’s a ridiculous amount of extraneous breathing that should have been filtered out. It sounds like it was recorded over the telephone… with a bad connection… while the actress was half asleep. The lovely Keeley Hawes voiced Lara in several of her games, and I believe Legend was one of them, but whether or not this is actually her voice, I just can’t tell. The quality is just that bad.

Nonetheless, here’s what she says…

Grand entrances are always impractical, that’s what makes them grand.
Well, this is a tomb. I’ll make them feel at home.
From this moment, you’re every breath is a gift from me.
Death by irony is always painful

All in all, NECA’s Lara ain’t a bad statue. Not at all. She looks great on the shelf and really captures everything there is about the character as she appeared in this particular game. On the other hand, the sound gimmick is absolutely horrible and pointless and should have been left out. It serves no purpose other than to inflate the cost of the statue. Pretend it doesn’t exist and you should be very happy with this piece if you decide to add it to your collection. I picked up mine on clearance for about $20. Not a bad deal.

Oct 3 2011

Perfect Dark: Joanna Dark (Deluxe Armored Version) 1:6 Scale Figure by Blue Box

Last time we checked out the standard version of console first-person shooter queen Joanna Dark by Blue Box, this time we up the ante a bit with a look at the Deluxe version of the figure. A lot about this figure is similar to the last one, so I’m going to make it a quickie.

BBi used the exact same package for both the regular flavor Joanna and this one. It’s a sturdy half tube that displays the figure pretty well and serves equally well as storage. The back panel shows both figures. Not much else new to say here.

This version of Joanna uses the exact same body as the previous version, but features a slight resculpt to the head and different hands. If you read yesterday’s review than you’ll understand I’m perfectly fine with this arrangement. The figure’s body is excellent with a solid level of poseability and the head sculpt is very nicely executed with superb paintwork. The hands this time are sculpted wearing fingerless gloves, and you actually get a second pair to switch out. Why? No idea. The hands that come on the figure are perfectly adequate, so I’ve never even taken the second set off the bubbles. The change in the head sculpt only involves the addition of an earpiece and microphone.

The Deluxe nature of this figure mostly factors in with her outfit, which is a lot more complex than the simple pleather body suit seen on yesterday’s feature. This Joanna features a black body stocking, black combat boots, blue pleather pants, a pleather half-jacket that clasps at the front, and pieces of vac-metalized armor for her arms and legs. She also has a belt with a loop that serves as a holster for her sidearm. There’s a lot of really nice little details on her outfit, including sculpted ammo on her boots and belt and jacket. I think the armor pieces are a bit much and they don’t really stay in place all that well, but you can always remove them if you choose.

As with the regular version of Joanna, this armored version also comes up short in the accessories, as she includes only a single handgun, this time a larger silver automatic pistol with a scope. It’s a nice looking piece, complete with removeable clip, but just like the other Joanna figure, I had to lend her some weapons from my stash to really make her feel complete.

If memory serves, this version of Joanna sold for around $30. While she’s definitely lacking in the accessories department, she’s still a really nice figure for a 1:6 scale in her price range. The outfit looks great, although I do prefer her without the vac-metal pieces. Blue Box did a really nice job with these figures and it makes me wish they had been able to do a Lara Croft in a similar style, scale, and price range. Joanna still turns up from time to time on Ebay and is definitely worth a look if you can grab her for at or below her original price tag, just make sure you’ve got some extra weapons kicking around to help complete the package.

Oct 2 2011

Perfect Dark: Joanna Dark 1:6 Scale Figure by Blue Box

It’s going to be a slow week for acquisitions, as I’ve got some other financial responsibilities. Nonetheless, the show must go on and so I’m spending a good part of this week poking around my toy closet for some older stuff that’s worth checking out. Today’s installment is takes us back into the world of video games for BBi’s 1:6 scale Joanna Dark figure. While I still try to put in some time behind the controller, I’m not the gamer that I was ten or so years ago and as far as Perfect Dark goes, I wasn’t a huge fan of the franchise. I did have a good amount of fun playing the original on the N64 back in the day, but I thought the Xbox 360 sequel was thoroughly wretched and could never be bothered to finish it. Nonetheless, I do enjoy picking up the occasional 1:6 scale figure, especially if its a bad ass femme fatale and Joanna certainly fit the bill when BBi produced a couple of figures based on her.

Joanna comes in a sturdy half tube with a window that shows off the figure very nicely. It’s a pretty compact design that doesn’t waste any space and yet doesn’t sacrifice anything in terms of presentation. Granted, it wouldn’t work so well with a lot of current 12-inchers on the market as they tend to come with a lot more accessories than Joanna does. The accessories she does come with are discretely taped inside the bubble and there are indentations for her feet on the bottom of the tube for her to stand. The backdrop of the tube’s interior has a computer style readout and circuit schematics printed on it. Needless to say, this packaging is extremely collector friendly. The back panel shows off this figure as well as the other Joanna Dark figure that BBi produced [which we just might be checking out tomorrow! – FF]

Out of the tube, we find that Joanna comes in a pretty simple, one-piece, black pleather body suit. The arms have a cool coiled, ribbing to them, but apart from that, it’s pretty straight forward, with excellent stitching, but not a lot of detailing. It does fit the figure very well, and zips up in the back. The suit is augmented by a simple belt that hangs loose on her hips, a thigh strap on her left leg, and a shoulder harnass with a holster for her sidearm.

I think Blue Box did a remarkable job with Joanna’s head sculpt, particularly when you keep in mind that this is an older figure without a high end price tag. The face is pretty and the paintwork is far better than I’ve seen on some recent contenders from other companies. BBi went with sculpted hair, which was probably a good call cosidering her short hairstyle and the price point of the figure.

Joanna is wonderfully articulated, although I’ll beg the pardon of the hardcore 1:6 scale collectors if I don’t count off every joint. I realize that the subtle differences in articulation on these figures is of paramount importance, but getting her suit on and off to study the joints is a real bitch. Suffice it to say she has a very articulated body, with soft rubbery hands to help her grip accessories, and a pair of flat feet inside her boots.

It’s only in the accessories that Joanna comes up ridiculously short. I’ve taken the liberty of digging through my 1:6 scale armory to provide her with some additional firepower, (I think she looks particularly great with the combat shotgun) but keep in mind that she only comes with one weapon and that’s her tiny little automatic pistol. She can easily hold the pistol in her right hand and it fits nicely into her holster. The pistol has a removable clip, complete with a tiny copper bullet painted in at the top of the magazine.

I seem to recall this figure retailing for around $19.99 when first released. I picked up both of these in the corner of an indie game shop on clearance. I think they were about $10 each. I’m tempted to say she’s an amazing figure for that price, but then I think she’d be a really solid figure for even twice that. The body and head sculpt are both excellent, articulation is solid, and her outfit is nicely tailored and fits well. The only place she stumbles is in the lack of weaponry or accessories, and that’s something BBi could have easily fixed. Joanna doesn’t turn up on Ebay as much as she used to, but you can still sometimes find her in the $30 range. I’m sure the Perfect Dark franchise doesn’t have the appeal it once did, but if you’re into this scale and want a solid female action figure to add to your collection, you can do much worse than Joanna Dark.

Aug 28 2011

Player Select: Soul Reaver Raziel (Reissue) by NECA

I don’t usually plug online stores or other Interweb sites here, but I do like to give credit where credit is due. I’ve wanted this Raziel figure FOREVER (which in quantitative terms is at least around 10 years or so) and I owe the fact that I finally have him in my collection to the folks over at Infinite Hollywood. I try to hit Infinite Hollywood at least once a week and it’s almost always worth the visit, but a week or so back they featured this figure and mentioned that NECA had re-released it. I immediately went fleeing to a few online toy retailers until I was able to find one and order it. So, what’s the big deal? Well, on a personal level, I’m a huge fan of the Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver games and I’ve wanted a Raziel figure for the better part of a decade. On the more practical level, if you didn’t snap him up when he was first released, Raziel become a pretty expensive figure to get on the second hand market. I’ve literally hovered over a Buy It Now on this guy for $100 before backing down. So thanks to this great tip I was able to pick him up for a laughable ten bucks. Ten bucks! TEN BUCKS! Had I known he was this good, I probably would have paid a premium for him years ago. Let’s check him out…

I try to always talk about the packaging first, and a good thing too since I can get the only bad thing about this figure out of the way first. Ok, so the packaging isn’t really bad, but kind of blah. Raziel comes in a huge bubble on a fairly utilitarian cardback. It’s got the Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver title on the top and some serviceable backdrop artwork to frame the figure. If you’re a MOC collector, the packaging may not serve you all that well. There’s a pretty big and unnecessary illustrated insert inside the bubble that blocks the lower half of the figure from view. The insert does list Raziel’s accessories and that the figure has 24 points of articulation, but NECA could have easily put that on a side insert to better preserve the in-package presentation. To make matters worse, Raziel is a really heavy figure and the card doesn’t seem to hold up all that well under the weight of the bubble. Getting a card that isn’t bent to hell may be difficult. Of course, none of this matters to me, as I shredded the package like a rabid cat to get to my new figure.

Keep in mind, while I’ve drooled over tons of pictures of this figure online over the years, I’ve never actually seen it in person. So three thoughts came to mind as I first removed this figure from the shipping box. One, it’s huge. Much bigger than I expected. Two, the sculpt is amazing. And I mean… daaaayyym amazing. Three, the paintwork and colors used for the plastic are incredibly vibrant. This figure immediately impresses and delivered a wow factor that I seldom experience even among some of my favorite figures. The quality of the plastic is excellent and I’m thrilled with the texturework on his claws and muscles. His torn and attrophied wings are very well done, as is the cowl that covers his missing jaw. Not to forget the head sculpt, which is absolutely spot on, and of course his cowl is removable so you can check out poor Raziel’s horribly mutilated head in its entirety. Aesthetically, this figure really is perfect to me.

NECA usually impresses with their sculpts, but not so often with their articulation. While I think they’ve been generally better than McFarlane in this department, the truth is NECA turns out their fair share of statue figures. Apparently Raziel here is the exception, because like the package states he sports 24 points of articulation, making him a bona fide action figure rather than just a display piece. Some of his ball joints are a little funky and take a bit of coaxing to get into the right position, but in the end Raziel is more poseable than I could have possibly hoped for.

Raziel comes with all the necessary accessories, and a few unnecessary ones. You get his Soul Reaver sword, which fits snugly onto his hand and includes a second spiraled piece of plastic that wraps around his arm to simulate the spectral tendrils of the Reaver that bind the sword to his essence. The blade is cast in a semi translucent blue plastic which nicely simulates the blade’s otherworldly nature in the game. You also get a torch, which was a pretty commonly used accessory in the game. Those unnecessary accessories I mentioned are the extra set of non-articulated claws. I’m not complaining, but I really don’t see the benefit. The articulated claws that come on the figure are just fine.

If you’re even half as fanatical over the Soul Reaver games as I am, you really need to get yourself this figure. I think it’s damn near perfect and that’s coming from someone with a lot of high and long held expectations. NECA delivered with an amazing sculpt, excellent articulation, and really superb coloring and quality. And the price tag is just as amazing. Raziel here can hang with just about any $20-25 figure on the shelf and come out on top. I’ve given him a place of honor standing beside my computer. It’s a spot reserved for newly acquired figures that I just can’t stop staring at or playing around with, and I think he’ll probably stay there for a while now. So, hey NECA, how about Kain?

Apr 27 2010

Quake II: Strogg Iron Maiden and Strogg Technician by Resaurus

Last time, we looked at the two human figures, and their monster pack-ins, from Resaurus’ Quake II line. This time, let’s check out the Strogg Iron Maiden and her pack-in figure, the Strogg Technician. Honestly, this is a case where its hard to tell which figure is the pack-in and which is the main attraction. They are both big and cool and would probably have been totally acceptable on separate cards. The Iron Maiden is more of a conventional action figure and while I don’t have the original packaging anymore, I seem to recall that the card gave her top billing so we’re going to start with her.

Iron Maiden is my least favorite figure of the bunch, mainly because of her pose and lack of articulation. But that’s like saying I like regular chocolate ice cream less than rocky road, because this is still a nice looking figure with an absolutely fantastic sculpt. The thing that impresses me most about the Quake II figures is how much detail Resaurus packed into them. There is not one tiny part of this figure that isn’t covered with some kind of love and attention. And that’s not surprising because how could you not love this beauty? The Iron Maiden is a hellish mix of gnarled flesh and mechanical parts. Her torso looks like a reanimated corpse. Her right leg is entirely mechanical, while her left leg is a fusion of stapled skin and a robotic boot. Her right arm is withered and her left arm is a giant gun. You just don’t see detail like this on most figures, even ten years later.

Now the not so good stuff. Iron Maiden’s head does not turn. My guess is Resaurus nixed the joint because of the hoses running from her head to her body. Her arms rotate at the shoulders. She will theoretically rotate at the waist, but the skin hanging down from her torso makes it difficult. The real downside, however, is the articulation from the waist down. Her legs rotate at the groin and her legs are hinged at the knees and ankles. The problem is with the way her feet are positioned. Her left foot is turned outward, which makes her stance very uneasy. This figure is begging for swivel joints in her legs to correct the awkward stance, but there are none. So, besides being difficult to stand, the articulation that is in her legs serves almost no purpose at all.

The Iron Maiden only has one accessory and that’s her swappable left arm. The replacement arm is a nasty looking bloodied blade that looks like it would be perfect for skewering those nosey marines. The arm pops on and off really easily although with the blade installed you do lose the point of articulation that was in the gun arm’s elbow. One of these days I still plan on picking up a second Iron Maiden just so I can display her both ways. Now granted, with just the extra arm this lovely lady comes up pretty short in the accessories department, but considering the size of her pack-in figure, I think we can forgive that.

The Technician is a most interesting figure, if you can call it that. Its really just a hidious alien head flying around in a metal box. The outer shell is wonderfully detailed with an insane amount of sculpted rivets, hoses, welded panels, etc. Even the coloring of the plastic and the paintwork conspire brilliantly to give this thing a realistic and weathered metal finish. There are red tinted windows on the front and back, both of which open to reveal the head inside. The front is hinged, whereas the back one just pops right off.

The head is blue-green with yellow eyes and a series of black plates covering the mouth. I can’t vouch that this is what they actually looked like because I never got close enough to one in the game to peek inside, but I know that Resaurus worked closely with the concept art so there’s no reason to doubt them on this one. There’s a chaingun molded onto the side of the figure’s bottom, near its levitating thrusters. On the downside, this guy doesn’t stand very well. I’m thinking maybe it would have been worthwhile to release him on his own and include a clear flight stand of some kind to help him out and give him a levitating effect. Some day I may try to repurpose one of my DCUC stands to do the trick.

As expected, the Technician doesn’t offer much articulation, just a claw arm on the front that rotates and two smaller arms on the back sides that rotate. All three of which can be removed. One of the smaller arms on the side is pretty tough to get pegged in properly as it bumps up against part of the mold.

Like the Marines, The Iron Maiden is still available if you know where to look. She pops up on Ebay frequently and can even still be found in the forgotten corners of some web dealers’ online catalogs. She’s also argueably the most common of the whole Quake II assortment. You shouldn’t have to pay much more then $15 for her, and that’s a pretty good deal for two very well executed figures and a whole lot of plastic for your money. And that wraps up the Quake II line. As I said in the previous post, I would have loved to show off the Strogg Tank. He was a magnificent figure, and definitely the showpiece for the whole line. Ah, but like most of my Duke Nukem figures, he wasn’t built to last. Despite surviving in storage for about six years, I had him out once and posed him on my shelf and after just a few minutes he tottered over, hit the carpet and broke into at least a half dozen pieces. As much as I loved him, there’s no chance of me replacing him any time soon as he goes for quite a lot of money these days.

My box from Matty arrived yesterday, so I should get around to posting Evil Lyn, Hordak and Peter Venkman tomorrow.

Apr 25 2010

Quake II: Marine Major and Jungle Marine Athena by Resaurus

So, last time we looked at the tragic tale of upstart toy company, Resaurus and their Duke Nukem figure. But Resaurus’ Duke line was far from a one shot deal. This was a company that delivered on some really good video game action figures from Street Fighter to Crash Bandicoot and some of those can be damn pricey these days. But for my money, their best looking line of figures came out of the Quake II franchise. It’s a fitting situation since at the time Quake II was everywhere. If you were even slightly into PC gaming you were absolutely saturated by it. In addition to doing a few figures based on the game’s horde of baddies, Resaurus also made two good guys: A male and female Marine, each packaged with a monster. Let’s turn the camera around on this First Person Shooter and see who’s holding the guns!

The male Marine is just called Marine Major (if he had a name, I don’t remember it) and he comes packaged with a Barracuda monster. The Major is big and buff and one hell of a fantastic sculpt. The amount of detail on this figure really is impressive. He has a flattop buzz cut and a vicious sneer with a well placed trickle of blood coming out the corner of his grimace. His arms are bulging with muscles and veins and he’s got a bloody bandage wrapped around his left arm and a strap of grenades around his right. His combat outfit is a messy hodgepodge of plates, exposed electrical components and hoses. Its pretty worn and there are several bullet impacts situated about. There’s even sculpted treads on the bottom of his boots. The sculpt and paintwork here is just oozing with love for the project. It’s like the designers didn’t know when to stop, and I mean that in every possible good way.

Marine Major is slightly pre-posed and intended to be holding out both his weapons, but he still has good, serviceable articulation. His head rotates, his arms rotate at the shoulders and have swivels in the biceps arms. There are no hinges in the elbows and they are molded in a slightly bent position. His legs rotate at the hips and he does have hinged knees. No, he’s not super articulated, but there’s enough here to make him a solid and fun action figure rather than just a collectible statue trying to pass for a figure.

Of course, Quake II is all about the guns, and that idea wasn’t lost on Resaurus as The Major comes with two massive weapons: The missile launcher, with a removable missile clip, and a minigun-style rifle. The detail on these weapons is as impressive as the figure itself. In fact, I’d dare say these are some of the best weapon sculpts for a figure in this scale that I’ve ever seen. You can count all the rivets and there’s textured plating sculpted right in. He can easily hold both weapons at once, although how he could remain standing while firing them is beyond me… and yet he does! Clearly this guy is ready to murder him some Strogg.

Of course, The Major needs someone to shoot with those big damn guns and so he comes with the Baraccuda pack-in figure, which apart from being another really nice sculpt, doesn’t really do anything. Nope, this is just a hefty piece of nicely sculpted rubbery plastic. I’m not complaining as it’s still a wonderful looking piece, but considering the size of the Marine and his two weapons, its a very nice bonus for an already well rounded package. You rarely get this much stuff in a carded figure. Poor Baraccuda… I don’t think he really has a chance against those guns.

The femme fatale of the line actually has a name, Athena, although she was also known as the Jungle Marine. She comes with the more substatial of the two monster pack-ins, the Strogg Dog, but that’s probably because she and her weapons are much less bulkier than the Major and use less plastic. Athena is a really nice figure, but the sculpt isn’t quite as impressive as the Major. I think the main problem I have with her is the thin head and the vacant stare. Her face just doesn’t have the same expressive character as the Major, although she is fairly attractive and sports a decent bit of clevage and a pony tail. Too bad she’s almost wall-eyed. Her combat outfit isn’t as complex as the Major’s either, but it still has loads of detail and the same awesome little bullet notches and battlewear. As her title implies, the cloth parts of her outfit are camoed green for a jungle environment. Oh, and that Quake I tattoo on her arm? That’s like a big wet kiss straight from the designers. Athena has the same basic articulation as the Major. She has a rotating head, rotating shoulders, and swivels in her upper arms. Her legs rotate at the hips and she has hinged knees.

So as not to discriminate against the fairer sex, Athena also comes with two weapons. Sure, they’re both a little smaller than The Major’s guns, but she’s got to be able to hold them so fair is fair. She has a combat shotgun, and what I think is an assault rifle, although it looks more like a really bulky pistol. Its been a long time since I played Quake II, so the weapon inventory is escaping me. They both have great detail, but overall they are not nearly as impressive as the Major’s arsenal.

Of course, to make up for her smaller size and smaller weapons, she comes with a much bigger pack-in monster, the Strogg Dog. Rather than just a sculpted piece of PVC, this Strogg pooch is more like a second action figure as he has rotating joints on all four of his legs in addition to a big bendy tenticle-arm that comes out of his back and over his head. The sculpting on this figure is just amazing and I love the way the soft quishy organic bits contrast with the harsh metal cyborg components. The fact that this is just a pack-in piece and not really the main attraction just goes to show how much work Resaurus put into this line. You just wouldn’t see this kind of stuff on the pegs nowadays.

From my experience the Quake II figures are easier to find than most of Resaurus’ Duke Nukem toys. You can still scare up carded examples of both these figures for under $20 each if you look hard enough and that’s really not a bad price for figures of this size and quality. Also worth noting, these figures are much, much better made than the self-destructing Duke Nukem figures, so you don’t have to worry about breakage. Alas, the same can’t be said for the enormous Strogg Tank, as mine broke into so many places that I won’t be able to review him here. But next time I’ll round out the rest of the series by lookng at the Iron Maiden and Strogg Technician.

Apr 25 2010

Duke Nukem by Resaurus

Let’s keep the video game figure ball rolling with another treasure reclaimed from my closet of totes. Ever heard of Resaurus? If you’ve been an action figure collector for a while, you probably have. While I distinctly remember seeing some of their products on the pegs in Toys R Us and the KB Toys Outlet, most of their wares seemed to be peddled online or at indie comic shops. Nonetheless, there was a time when it looked like this upstart little toy company was going to go places. They had an awesome website that I used to have loads of fun perusing, which featured all sorts of cool video game related figures from Street Fighter to Quake to Sonic the Hedgehog and Crash Bandicoot. They also involved the fans in their process by showing off prototypes and talking up future waves and generally encouraging fan input at a time before the now established Internet Q&A sessions. Then Resaurus closed down, never to be heard from again. Seriously, it seemed to happen overnight, and a lot of their planned figures sadly never saw production.

It seems almost morbidly fitting that one of the game franchises Resaurus got hold of was Duke Nukem, another name that fell on hard times and disappeared into the past. The story behind Duke Nukem’s decline from video game icon to washed up has-been as far more tortured than I can go into here, but feel free to insert your favorite double entendre using the title of his last planned game, Duke Nukem Forever. Either way, just keep in mind, these figures came out back when Duke was still a big name in video games. He had conquered the computer, going from shareware sidescroller to king of the First Person Shooter, and was in the process of invading the game consoles. It was a time when the king and queen of video games was Duke Nukem and Lara Croft. But this was before the poor guy went out with a wimper. Death by eternal release delays of Duke Nukem Forever.

Anywho, I ordered the entire initial assortment of Duke Nukem figures when they were first available. They were delicate as all hell, and sadly, few of them survived unscathed to this day. Keep in mind these figures spent their lives standing on display shelves or wrapped in plastic in a secure roughneck tote. They haven’t exactly been stressed with the rigors of play and yet when I unwrapped Duke today to talk about him, the trigger guard on one of his guns promptly crumbled to dust in my hand. No shit. Imagine if kids actually played with these things! The other figures didn’t fare much better. Long ago, both arms fell off my Pig Cop, and my Battlelord figure took a swan dive off the shelf onto a carpeted floor and literally shattered. In retrospect, I wish I had just glued them back together, but in a fit of rage I tossed them. I didn’t even save their weapons. I had the Octabrain too, but I have no idea what happened to it. I suspect it might have vaporized while in storage.

But Duke survived, and he is a pretty decent figure, so long as you don’t plan on rough housing with him in the sandbox. The sculpt is pretty good. The detail isn’t overwhelming, but his muscles are well defined and you can even see the tendons bulging in his manly arms. His outfit is a simple sculpt and mainly detailed with paint apps for his blue trousers and black boots. He has a soft plastic harness and belt combo, which I’m surprised has lasted this long without crumbling away. The harness straps have molded shotgun shells and ammo pouches and his trademark Nuke symbol beltbuckle. His head sculpt is pretty much spot on, complete with trademark sneer, sculpted on shades and blonde flattop buzzcut. Its definitely Duke, alright.

The articulation isn’t the best, but it is an older figure and it doesn’t reflect the vast improvements that the industry has since seen. Duke’s head turns, his arms rotate at the shoulders and his legs rotate at the hips. He has swivel cuts in his forearms and wrists and his knees are hinged. He’s nowhere near as bad as some of the statues that pass for video game figures, even today.

Duke does come with a number of accessories. He has a large double barreled weapon called The Devastator. He holds it in each hand and it can be pegged to his back like a backpack. He has two smaller SMG’s, one of which, as noted above, is now missing a trigger guard. He’s also got a blood splattered combat knife. The SMG’s and the combat knife are all pegged and can clip onto holes on the sides of his legs, which is admittedly a really nice touch.

Like I said, I really wish I had attempted to save the other figures. Even if glueing them meant nullifying their articulation, I still would have liked to have had them for display as they were all really great looking figures. I can’t really recommend hunting these figures down, because they’re surprisingly scarce on Ebay, probably because they were so prone to breakage. The Duke figures are actually easiest and cheapest to scrounge up, especially the repaint variant, Night Strike Duke, but the aliens will require some pretty signifcant wallet diving for figures that tend to break if you look at them funny. If you do hunt them down, my recommendation would be to leave them mint on card.

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

Tag Archives: video games

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Perfect Dark: Joanna Dark (Deluxe Armored Version) 1:6 Scale Figure by Blue Box

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Quake II: Strogg Iron Maiden and Strogg Technician by Resaurus

Quake II: Marine Major and Jungle Marine Athena by Resaurus

Duke Nukem by Resaurus

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