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Series: Halo, 1
Craftsmanship:
9.0 / 10 -
Real suspension -
Green color is too deep -
Great detail -
Rear-mounted gun swivels -
Generic small guys have limited poseability
Playability:
9.2
/ 10 -
Great outdoor/indoor vehicle -
Swivel gun can snap off -
Roll bar can be snapped -
Small figures lost Related Links: Action Figure: Master Chief (Halo)
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Warthog (Halo) by Joyride Studios
My
biggest bone to pick with Halo is the Warthog.
Sure, jumping into a vehicle and bombing around, running over
Covenant forces is fun, but when it’s a vehicle like the loosey-goosey
Warthog? Forget it – I’d rather walk.
This is part of the reason it took me months to complete the
final sprint of Halo, since you’re forced into driving a Warthog
through, what boils down to, an obstacle course.
Joyride’s toy version fares better in my books – especially
because it absorbed a whole lot of pent-up anger I hold toward it’s
videogame counterpart.
From
bumper to bumper, the Warthog comes in at just under 8” long and comes
packed with a mini Master Chief and two generic space Marines.
The two generic space Marines have extremely limited poseability thanks to their articulation and sculpt. One fits nicely at the swiveling gunner station and the other is just perfect for riding shotgun. They’re designed for those positions and not much else. On the other hand, |
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the mini Master Chief is built for poseability
with 10 points of articulation, including ball-jointed shoulders, and
can be installed at any of the positions.
He’s also stable enough to stand on his own!
Great work with all that – although the generic guys don’t
have much detail – but the real draw is the Warthog itself.
For
starters, it has suspension. Not
the quad suspension of the game, but dual suspension.
You won’t really notice it unless you push down on the vehicle
but it shows a certain level of attention to detail – something
exemplified by the rest of the Warthog, which nails all the straight
lines of the videogame. |
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The paint job displays some wear and battle scars – something that has been absent from Joyride’s previous vehicle toys like the MechWarrior line. The tires are muddied, too. Someone with the wherewithal and right paints can add more small details and battle scarring but if you really put the Warthog through its paces in the backyard you can make the damage look more natural.
Warthog
manages to be very playable. Yes,
the small figures can be lost, Master Chief isn’t that durable, the
swivel gun can be broken off, and the roll bar can be snapped, but I was
amazed with the amount of punishment it absorbed.
I bashed this thing into trees, rocks, a retaining wall – and
it survived intact from a seven-foot drop.
It handles dirt well but it can affect the suspension a little.
Without some mini Covenant figures, some of the play factor is
diminished but not by much. (And Joyride is addressing this issue with a
compatible Banshee fighter.)
The
balance between playability and display, make the Warthog a good
collectible for Halo fans and a toy you can play with without being
completely worried about breaking some components.
-
Omni (October 11, 2003)
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