Category: Video Games
Ken
One thing I never really understood is why in Street Fighter Capcom decided to have two characters that played basically the same. Of course, I’m refering to Ryu and the subject of todays review, Ken.
El Fuerte
El Fuerte is designed to be an homage to Lucha Libre, although the actual costume draws from several other sources, like Japanese and American wrestling tropes. A good deal of treatises can be written about the specific influences that can be seen on El Fuerte’s costume, but the thing that immediately grabbed my interest is that he is a masked wrestler.
Abel
Well, I must confess I know next to nothing about the character whose action figure I’m reviewing today. After a quick dive into Wikipedia, it seems Abel made his first appearance in the game Super Street Fighter IV, and he is supposed to be the result of biological experimentation,
Ryu
One of the more easily recognizable characters from the Street Fighert games, Ryu is one of my favorite fighters thanks to the clean-cut character design and the ease of learning how to beat the game using him. Jazwares did a pretty good job of rekindling my interest in the character by including him in the starting line-up for their 4-inch Street Fighter action figure line.
Raiden
Raiden is possibly the only character in the Mortal Kombat games to have a definite heroic disposition, since his goal is to thwart Shao Khan’s plans for dominating the Earthrealm. The character was inspired by the Three Storms, the evil enforcers from the John Carpenter film Big Trouble in Little China, a movie that borrowed and adjusted rather liberally elements of Chinese folklore.
Sagat
Sagat was the final boss in the original Street Fighter game, and also one of the four Grand Masters the player had to face in the sequel, Street Fighter II. In subsequent games, Sagat became also a playable character from the start, which boosted his popularity. Therefore, it was only logical for Jazwares to include him as part of the first series of action figures in their 4-inch action figure line.
Guile
Guile is one of the most easily recognizable Street Fighter II characters. Although he’s been featured regularly in the Street Fighter series of games, Jazwares shipped this figure with the wave of figures that comes in the Super Street Fighter IV packaging.
Blanka
I love video games. I don’t get to play much nowadays, but one of my early favorites was Street Fighter II for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo consoles. I know there has been a number of licensors over the years that made action figures based on the SF intellectual property, but generally speaking, their […]
Baraka
I must confess that the only Mortal Kombat game I have a passing familiarity with is the first one. I know that there have been more than one sequel in the series, but I wasn’t even sure when did the character whose action figure I’m reviewing today came out, although as you can see, that didn’t stop me from getting this action figure made by Jazwares.
Scorpion
I was never a hardcore Mortal Kombat player. The gimmicky nature of the game’s graphic presentation and the rather cumbersome gameplay were simply no match against Street Fighter II in the struggle for my arcade tokens. However, the franchise prospered and spawned over the years a few more iterations of the game for release in home consoles and arcade systems, with cleaner graphics, streamlined gameplay and what’s more relevant for this review, improved character designs that now serve as inspiration for Jazwares to produce action figures.
Sub-Zero
Jazwares made another of the more readily recognizable characters in the Mortal Kombat game, Sub-Zero into a 4-inch action figure in their 2012 line. While in the first games the character models for Sub-Zero and Scorpion were identical, except for the coloring, on subsequent games the character designs grew more distinct from one another, although still adhering somewhat to the ninja-look characteristic to these games.
Skirmisher Murmillo
Unlike the rest of the alien species that conform the Covenant in the Halo Universe, the Kig-yar (the species Jackals and Skirmishers belong to) are different in the sense that they didn’t join the fight against Humanity because of their religious beliefs, but rather because they were at first bullied into the conflict and afterwards because they found it to be very profitable.
Brute Chieftain
Let me start with the obvious: This is one beast of a figure. Brutes are usually massive, but this guy is even more bulky and heavy than any other figure I have in this scale. The Chieftain is almost too big to be packaged in a blister card, as the weight alone will tear off from the blister from the backing card over a relatively short time. Not that this is a figure that would stay on the pegs for long, anyways.
Bastila Shan
The Star Wars Expanded Universe is a rather bizarre beast. Over the years there have been numerous books, comics and videogames that explore the often-unseen events that take place in the lapses of times punctuated by the films. The sheer volume of information is simply way too cumbersome for me to bother trying to catch up, although there is one segment of the Expanded Universe I feel comfortable with, and that is video games.
Brute Minor
The rank selected for the debut of the species in the Halo: Reac line is that of Brute Minor. Not unlike the rank designation seen on other Covenant species, the Brute Minors are the less experienced warriors in the pack, but that doesn’t make them less formidable as opponents, since the average Brute is well over 7 feet tall and incredibly strong and resilient.
UNSC Troopers (Halo: Reach)
Back when McFarlane Toys debuted the Halo: Reach line, alongside the single-carded Spartans and Covenant figures they also released a few 2-Packs, one of which consisted of two UNSC Marines.
Elite Officer
In the Halo Universe, other than the Grunt aliens, the next more common enemy is the species known as Elites or Sangheili. These are roughly the equivalent of the UNSC Spartan soldiers, although they are not nearly as scarce as their human counterparts.
Grunt Minor (Halo: Reach)
In the Halo games, Grunts are a type of enemy you’ll see a lot of. Individually, they are not much of a challenge, but in the presence of a leader-class character and in sufficient numbers, they can be quite a challenge. Following the covenant rank system, most of the Grunt troops are labeled as Minors and are easily identifiable in the field by the color of their gear.
Spartan Gungnir Custom
The name Gungnir comes from Norse myths, as this was the name of Odin’s spear, reputed to never miss a mark. In the Halo universe, Project Gungnir was responsible of developing the Spartan Laser weapon as well as additional gear to be used in conjunction with the Spartan Mjölnir armor.
Missile Launcher with JFO Spartan
Well, one of the flagship items in the Halo:Reach collection by McFarlane Toys is the UNSC vehicle known as the Warthog. This vehicle is pretty much the workhorse of the UNSC army and it is designed to take on a number of roles in the battlefield. However, this review is not going to be about that piece. Instead, I want to let you know about one of the Vehicle Upgrade Sets released in Series 3 of this line.
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