Toy Bender

Very disappointed in this announcement.

I’ve recently gotten a fair amount of traffic from an XBox 360 fan site in reference to an old Halo toy article I wrote awhile back. One comment in particular bothered me and since I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to leave a response, I decided to leave it here on Toy Bender.

Okay, here’s the original comment in reference to McFarlane toys getting the Halo license:

Wait, the figures are to scale with each other, but the vehicles are not? Seeing the vehicles as 3″ compared to 5″ Master Chief.

Another sucky toy line. Make the figures GIJOE (the new smaller ones) and STAR WARS sized, and you’re guaranteed continual sell-out.

Don’t give the license to someone who’s going to make them just for “don’t take it out of the packaging!” collectors.

Very disappointed in this announcement. It would have been better had Hasbro gotten the line; at least we’d get a full run of figures, characters, and vehicles — at the “industry standard” 3 3/4″ or thereabouts, we could probably have gotten a Pelican out of the line as well.

I’m a big fan of 3 3/4ths inch figures having grown up under the rule of first Star Wars and then G.I. Joe A Real American Hero. I adore this scale and would love to see other licenses in it with matching vehicles and playsets. Could you imagine how cool a 3 3/4ths scale Aliens line could be? (discounting Kenner’s fairly disappointing Aliens line) Sadly though, in this day and age a 3 3/4ths line doesn’t make a lot of sense in many cases. Sure, Halo could be pretty kick ass with scale vehicles and the like, but is there really a wide enough appeal for a full fledged line that could support vehicles?

The idea that 3 inches is any kind of industry standard is ludicrous. The only reason why many boys toys were made this size was that when Star Wars first made it to toy form Kenner could make vehicles that the figures would fit into. It caught on like wildfire and suddenly tons of toy lines were made in that size or slightly larger. Still, there were and continue to be tons of great toy lines that were made either much larger or smaller than the 3 inch size like M.A.S.K., He-Man, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Times have changed though. Vehicles don’t sell the way they used to (according to toy makers like Hasbro) to justify making figures in this scale. One of the reasons that Marvel Legends and McFarlane’s figures have been so popular is that their larger size emphasizes the character. With bigger characters you can get more articulation to pose them in great ways (Marvel Legends) or much more detail (anything McFarlane makes).

That leads me to Halo. Halo is a line that suits itself to a larger scale in many cases. Sure you lose the fact that the figures won’t fit in the vehicles, but in exchange you get some kick ass figures. As a side note, I really enjoyed JoyRide’s small and large figures and thought it was a good compromise in lieu of a 3″ scale line. It’s disappointing that McFarlane isn’t doing something like that, but maybe it’s for the better if they are concentrating mostly on making one scale and doing the vehicles as basically small models.

I don’t know how the person leaving the comment can say that they will only appeal to in the package collectors. Halo is a line that is geared more towards a mature audience that appreciates attention to detail and if one thing McFarlane promises, is some sweet ass attention to detail. And anyway, McFarlane’s stuff has always looked and worked much better out of the package.

While the idea of a small sized Master Chiefs and ODST troops duking it out with Cobra and the Empire is appealing, it’s not like the McFarlane toys doesn’t have something awesome lined up. Everything that McFarlane has shown so far has proven that bigger is better, at least for Halo.

toy, toy collecting, action figure, Halo, Xbox, McFarlane Toys