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UNSC Marine

September 23, 2011 | By Errex More

Well, in a past review I had commented on the need for the Halo action figure line being made by McFarlane Toys to include some basic human characters to act as a reference point for the other non-human figures. And to some extent, McFarlane delivered with the figure of Sergeant Avery Johnson that was released way back on Series 5. However, there was still a need for more generic human soldiers, and those would not come until Halo Series 8, in the form of this UNSC Marine.

The UNSC Marine and Sgt. Johnson share most of the same basic body type, although there were subtle changes made to the uniform of the Marine and some completely new pieces were included as well.

The basic uniform remains the same, consisting on a tan colored BDU with assorted pieces of additional protective gear layered on top. While the “cloth” areas don’t have much in terms of sculpted detail, most are covered by pieces of armor and gear. These extra plastic pieces are glued on top of the uniform and each has very crisp detail sculpted on them.

This particular UNSC Marine appears to be a communications operator, since he is fitted with a non-removable backpack that incorporates a keyboard, a telephone earpiece and a screen at the back, as well as an antenna.

On the new piece tally, there is the head of course, which depicts a fairly non-descript Caucasian male, wearing a combat helmet fitted with orange goggles and a microphone. The hands are also newly sculpted pieces, and represent a change in the way the joints were configured before, on Sgt. Johnson.

Articulation on the UNSC Marine is fairly extensive, although the character design and implementation sometimes get in the way of specific poses. The UNSC Marine has:

• Barbell mounted neck.

• Ball jointed shoulders.

• Upper biceps swivel.

• Hinged elbows.

• Ball jointed wrists.

• Floating torso.

• Swivel hips.

• Upper thigh swivels

• Hinged peg knees.

• Ball jointed ankles.

This is a good number of joints, although most of them have a limited range of movement, either because of implementation or character design.

As far as implementation woes, it could be summarized that none of the ball jointed articulations really have as much range as it could be achieved by using a different style of articulation, even though they do a fairly decent job, overall. Regarding the character design issues, it all boils down to some pieces of the gear getting in the way of articulation, but then again, that was almost expected. Thankfully, the material the extra gear is made of is flexible enough to allow some of the more relevant joints to function properly, as is the case of the shoulder pads and the upper biceps pivots.

The paint applications on the UNSC Marine are uniformly good, which is a really big deal if you stop to consider that all of the pieces that comprise these figures are molded in white plastic and therefore, the figures are painted from head to toe.

As usual with McFarlane’s, the paintjob on the exposed areas of the face is extremely effective and includes a very discrete lip color application that really brings the UNSC Marine to life. In contrast, the BDU is painted in a simple tan color with some camouflage patterning in a slightly different shade, while the protective gear is painted in dark olive green and black, with a few accents added in metallic paints.

The UNSC Marine comes armed with a pistol and a battle rifle. Both weapons are made of rigid black plastic and have gunmetal paint applications on them to add further detail.

Both weapons fit well in the Marine’s hands, and the pistol has a round peg sculpted on the side that allows it to be carried on the right thigh armor plate. The battle rifle, on the other hand, has a round peg hole that works with those black removable pegs that come with other figures in this line, although the Marine here includes none.

Bottom line, the UNSC Marine is a fairly decent troop builder figure and the less-than-stellar articulation doesn’t really detract too much in the final score. I still feel that these generic troopers really do need to be a little more playable to be a huge hit.