Last week's Haul: Halo 3

It's a tad' late for the Halo 3 hype, but with dirt cheap prices, you can't say no. Was checking out Takashimaya when i found these going off at clearance prices. I got 4 of these little red men at $8.00 apiece, 2 EVA and 2 Mark VI, all red. Originally, i had 2 halo 3 figures, one master chief and the other a red mark VI, cost me around 19.90 each at day of release, but since then as you can see, the prices have fallen to dirt cheap.

Dirt cheap prices.

EVA spartan soldier RED.

EVA spartan in packaging background

Freshly removed from box. - not a fan of the twisty wires.

Background.

The two i opened.

HALT!

To be honest, i'm not a fan of the halo 3 figures despite being a halo 3 fan. I previously encountered problems with my halo 3 figure on purchasing my first two. With the master chief figure having a terribly weak jointed wrists. This is so because the entire production line for Halo 3, made by mcfarlane, suffers from what i would call the cheap plastic syndrome.

Yes, plastic is cheap, but this plastic is CHEAPER than CHEAP.

Why so, unlike the previous lines of halo combat evolved and halo 2, microsoft gave the production rights from Joyride studios to Mcfarlane in hopes that they would produce a better grade of toys with better articulation.

I was pretty satisfied with my Halo 2 figure ( master chief with flood creature), as it was made out of very durable plastic, or something i would dub as the 'solid plastic'. It feels real solid and heavy, and the joints won't suffer as you pose it in any way you wish ( within the joint limits of course ).

However, this standard and quality is gone when Mcfarlane took over, though the articulation of the toys greatly improved, the paintwork and scuplting improved tremendously, the plastic used was cheaper and was somewhat flimsy. Each joint had to be handled carefully as you could literally FEEL THE JOINTS BEND WITH EACH TURN. i understand stiff joints. but stiff joints and ball bearings combined with weak plastic is a every toy collector's greatest nightmare. Trying to strike a realistic pose in itself was a challenge, nay, a FEAT!

in simple, you have fantastic articulation with great ball bearings, but with the weak plastic which makes up the entire toy, moving this ball bearings strains and breaks these parts of plastic. Enough said.

All in all, i'm terribly dissapointed with mcfarlane's release of halo 3 figures. Not that they weren't good aesthetically. Its functionally where it flops. An action figure which looks great, with zero playbility.

still prefer joyride studios' halo 1 & 2 figures.