|
Series:
Spawn 18
Craftsmanship: 9.3 out of 10
- Boggles
the mind how they designed everything
- An
engineering marvel
- Tons of
detail and accessories
- Very good
display piece
-Assembly
borders on insanity, definitely not for the impatient
- Some of
the pieces are so spindly you’ll wonder how it stays together
- Great
stand
Playability: 1.0 out of 10
- Playing
with this toy is not recommended
- Loads of
accessories to lose
- Be
satisfied with repositioning the arms
Accessories: Many
Potential
Frustration: High
|
|
Newsletter
|
|
Be
notified of site updates. Sign-up for the Newsletter sent out
twice weekly.
Enter
E-Mail Address Below:
|
|
Interlink Spawn (Spawn 18)
by
McFarlane Toys
There isn’t a doubt in my mind that the figures
which make up Interlink Spawn should be packaged with something to kill the
pain. A headache larger than a bus started tearing around my skull mid-way
through assembly. Which is to say nothing of my bruised fingers. Some of the
pain could have been avoided had I downloaded the instructions (in handy PDF
format) from spawn.com. However, not everyone
|
|
|
has a computer so I used the included instructions.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
You’ve just spent a lot of hard-earned money getting all six Interlink figures
(TS2, RL3, RA5, LL4, LA6, HD1). Apart, they are some of the baddest-looking
robots around – highly detailed,
highly articulated, cool to look at and play with. You can’t wait to assemble
the beast that
|
Advertisement
|
|
is
Interlink Spawn. Before assembly I recommend you go for a walk, telephone an old
friend, eat your favorite kind of sandwich – something that will bring peace to
your soul – because you’re about to enter a world that jigsaw experts have
nightmares about.
There’s a picture of Interlink Spawn on the back of each card but this should
only be used as a general guide since the finished product differs from this
ideal. I started with the instructions and by about step 5 I ran into my first
roadblock. There are some pegged leg shields that need to be repositioned on
LL4. The peg was clearly supposed to fit but it didn’t. After two hours of
careful scraping to widen the hole the damn peg still wouldn’t fit! A pair of
vice grips solved that problem. After a few more steps I ran into the second
roadblock – the instructions themselves! The pictures are tiny and at some
points resemble squashed bugs. There are so many plastic limbs and torsos
everywhere that discerning what goes where turns into an exercise in trial and
error. After a while I concentrated on the written instructions rather than the
pictures. Bad idea! At one point you’ll be instructed to remove "RA5’s left
arm." After much straining and grunting I snapped his left arm out. Hearing
"snap" when dealing with action figures creates the double "S": SNAP! S#%@! When
I took a close look at the picture it was more like a double "S" followed up
with a few F’s and A’s. It was his left arm not his right, that needed to be
removed! My next double "S" moment came later as I was putting the final touches
on Interlink. Inserting the cursed RA5 where shown and instructed to form
Interlink Spawn’s right arm resulted in the securing peg on TS2 to snap off. End
result: Interlink Spawn is an amputee around my house. (Fortunately, the snap
did not affect the individual figures, except that TS2 can only have one
shoulder mounted cannon.) Disassembling Interlink is far easier.
Once assembled, Interlink Spawn is a sight to behold. The group that designed
the figures to fit together should be commended. They did a fantastic job
getting everything to fit (for the most part) and the end result is very
interesting to look at – lots of cool arms, guns, and shields. The colour scheme
is good – shiny metal and cybernetic parts are all consistent with how giant
robots are supposed to look. I felt a little let down though, an anticlimax
considering the amount of energy that went into getting it together.
Playability . . . if you know what’s good for you, you won’t play with this.
Besides the fact there are a myriad of small accessories to lose, you risk
breaking important pieces to the puzzle. Each figure comes with a piece that
forms the base (or refueling station) which keeps the figure standing and solid.
I suggest you leave it alone – maybe repostition some of the arms and guns to
keep things new. When it comes right down to it, Interlink Spawn, with all its
great detail and engineering wizardry, is a display piece.
- Omni |
