Toy Bender

McFarlane Toys keeps surprising me with their Halo line. In amongst all the things I don’t want to buy like the stupid Halo helmets, they sneak in something that just begs for my unemployed dollar. First there was the in-scale (to their line) Hunter and now they’ve got an in-scale Mongoose!

Better yet, I checked on Big Bad Toy Store (sponsor of the 2008 Joes for Tots contest!) and the Mongoose is only going to cost twenty bucks. Yeah it’s a small vehicle, but considering prices on toys these days it’s not too shabby. This is especially true for a toy that’s got some neat features like a folding rear seat so you can have some capture the flag action in toy form. Sweet.

I hadn’t heard that McFarlane was planning on making vehicles for the five their five inch Halo line. I’m thinking that the Mongoose and possibly the Covenant Ghost might see the light of day, but its hard to imagine that their are enough people buying these toys to support bigger vehicles at this point. Maybe a few years ago an in scale Warthog might have been feasible. Remember when those huge vehicles and accessories were coming out for twelve inch Joes? Perhaps in the right time something large for the Haloverse could have been a reality, but its doubtful to me that there would be one now. Then again maybe this is a test. Buy as many as you can Halo fans!

The Mongoose is due out in October, so maybe it will cash in on the release of the new Halo expansion game, Halo: ODST.

There have been a few McFarlane Halo figures announced over the last few weeks that have gotten me interested in the line again. The first, and most impressive, is the 8 inch scale Hunter figure. The Hunters were always a powerful foe in the Halo series and it’s great to see them get such an impressive debut in the McFarlane line.

Another great looking figure is Sgt. Johnson. Poor Sgt. Johnson… anyway, the most bad ass Sgt. in the Haloverse that strongly resembles a character found in Aliens will be out in October of this year.

Hopefully figures like this will lesson the pain that the announcement that Mega Blocks got the Halo license. And yes, I’ve been meaning to cover that for awhile now but then Toy Fair hit. Dang you Toy Fair and your rush of toy news!

McFarlane Toys has announced that the anticipated Halo tie-in figures from the upcoming Halo Wars video game are due to hit retailers in February. Not all stores are going to get them, in fact their websites only list Toys ‘R’ Us, GameStop and Blockbuster as their current retail partners. The figures will come in packs of three 2 1/2″ scale figures that will be either be multicolored UNSC troops or Covenant bad asses.

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It’s hard to believe, but the company responsible for collectible table top games like Heroclix is gone. I know that this little bit of news hit this week and I realize that many of you probably had seen it already, I just wanted to put in my two cents.

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I’ll admit it. I’m not really following the Halo 3 figures from McFarlane as closely as I once was. There’s a couple of reasons for this, with the biggest being that I don’t really play the game as much as I did. There’s also the fact that once I bought one Spartan, I didn’t really need any more. The hips looked really odd to me, like they’re too wide or something. Anyway, McFarlane has got a new figure in the line up that looks pretty wicked:

Hot damn, I never thought a regular Halo Marine could look so good.

I know that there’s people still going insane for this line, but for me it’s going to take a lot for me to actually make a purchase and this one looks like he’s worth it.

After Jasman Toys announced that they would not be making a Halo energy sword for their laser tag type toy line there’s been a void in the hearts of Halo fans. If you’re a fan that was saddened by the lack of a energy sword in your life and you really, really need one… well there’s kind of one out there now. In the tradition of crappy sword makers making silly Klingon swords comes this thing:

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According to Game Pro (ugh Game Pro), McFarlane Toys (oh look they posted it too) are going to be making some figures that tie into the upcoming Xbox 360 game, Halo Wars. In case you’re not hip on all the upcoming games, Halo Wars is a RTS game that takes place in the early era of the Covenant vs. Human conflict. If you still don’t know what I’m talking about, you need your nerd credentials revoked.

The figures McFarlane Toys are releasing are three 2.5 miniature soldiers due out Spring 2009. They’ll come in a series of four three packs. There’s no word on if they’ll be making any figures in their 5″ line that tie into the game. I sure hope they do, because if Johnny Lightning still holds the toy licenses to Halo 1 and 2, this would be the perfect loophole to getting around not being able to make a Halo 1 styled Master Chief.

Big Bad Toy Store has series four of McFarlane Toys Halo 3 line up for pre-order. The series contains a tan Elite, an active camo Arbiter (not pictured), Master Chief (with sniper rifle), a red Spartan Soldier EOD, and an olive Spartan Soldier Security.

This assortment may not be as exciting as previous waves, since it looks like we’re getting down to Master Chief/Spartan variants a plenty. It is nice to see a sniper rifle, but I don’t feel like buying another figure for only one gun that i want.

Hopefully there will be more variation in the figures down the line, but aside from variations on enemies there’s not a lot of characters in Halo 3 that hasn’t been made already. I’m not sure how deep McFarlane Toys can go into the Halo character well outside of Halo 3, considering the fact that the last time I checked Johnny Lightning still had the toy license for the first two games.

Yeah, there’s not a whole lot of toy related stuff going on this week, but I kind of expected that as we are still coming off the high that is Comic Con 2008. What’s great is that it seems to be contest season now so I thought I’d update you with the ones that I know about:

Unleaded Logic is having a contest were he’s giving away an exclusive Toys R Us Halo 3 Spartan. That’s a pretty damn good prize if you’re a Halo nut. He’s also offering a couple of lucky runners up a “limited edition 16×20 Halo 3 Series 2 Vinyl Poster featuring all the figures from the campaign of series 2.” Shew that’s a mouthful.

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If you bought any of the McFarlane Halo 3 figures and were wondering what you could get for the points that each figure comes with, McFarlane Toys recently revealed all:

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Jasman Toys, the company that was making Halo laser tag pistols, has announced that they won’t be releasing the much anticipated energy sword. The reason that they’ve given is that the energy sword is really pointy and children love any chance they can have to kill themselves. In order for them to feel like they can release a safer version it would take a lot of time and their Halo contract is going to end soon and they don’t want to waste time/money if they can’t get it renewed.

I really hope that somehow this version of this sword somehow gets made. I can understand not wanting to be sued by very angry parents, but there’s got to be some way to target it towards older collectors, like through online collector sites or something. I liked the idea of the plasma pistols and what not. Let’s not kid ourselves though, the Covenant energy sword is the crown jewel in the Halo laser tag collection.*

Oh by the way, Jasman is also releasing Halo 3 laser tag plasma pistols that are stripped down from their really expensive pistols (but cool ) for mass retail at about forty bucks for two of them, so the kiddies can get in on the shooting fun!

Thanks to: Unleaded Logic for the sad, sad news.

*Yes, I realize I copied myself on Unleaded Logic’s post.

McFarlane Toys has revealed their exclusives for the 2008 San Diego Comic Con and I’ve got them here. Hurray! or something.

SPARTAN SOLDIER EVA “HELLSPARTAN”

This is the figure that both Halo fans and Spawn geeks are going to need as this version of a Spartan soldier is painted to look like McFarlane’s money making machine. Gotta love the skull on the belt.

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I’ve followed the development of the McFarlane Halo 3 toys from it’s beginnings and I knew at a certain point that I would stop caring about every single minutia of it. I’m interested in new figures as they come along, not an endless amount of variants. Well, that time has come as McFarlane toys has announced a crap ton of exclusive varient Master Chiefs.

Since I don’t care about getting a power blue Ross Dress for Less exclusive (I just made that up), I decided that it would be best to link to Digital Monkey Box’s breakdown of all the figure goodness which you can find right here.

The figure that stood out most to me in this line up is the Spartan Soldier Mark VI Silver, which is a worldwide exclusive… meaning it will be available everywhere in the world except the United States and Canada. They should really just call it the “Everyone In The World Can Get it at Retail Except for You, Chump. Yes, That Means North Korea Too”. Bizarre.

McFarlane is also releasing some free downloadable content on XBox Live. Check it out if you haven’t already. It became available on April 14 (Monday) and consists of a theme and picture pack.

Online toy retailer Big Bad Toy Store recently put up wave three of the Halo 3 action figures from McFarlane Toys, allowing us all a good look at the figures. Here they are in all their McGlory:

Brute Chieftain Weapon Class

What makes him a “Weapon Class” Brute? He comes with two weapons as opposed to a gravity hammer. If you want a Spiker grenade for your Master Chief then here you go. By the way, I love those things. They are so damn useful against idiots who run around in Ghosts.

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You’ve probably no doubt realized that it’s a super slow week for toy news. In order to overcome this drought I’ve got two noteworthy contests.

The first is from Mezco Toys who have the Heroes license. If you’re a Heroes fan and want to score a set of their test shot figures (there’s only five in existence), then all you have to do is dress up like your favorite Heroes character, take a picture of yourself, and then send it to heroes-contest@the-owi.com.

You know, this contest might be a little more effective if the Heroes characters were a little more distinct. Aside from the cheerleader when she wears her cheerleader outfit, they’re just a bunch of people dressed up like… regular people. Here’s to hoping it’s an excuse to see a bunch of hot chicks dressed up like cheerleaders and not forty year-old beast men dressed like Hiro.

Moving from TV to video games, McFarlane Toys is giving away a full set of their Halo 3 series 1 figures. All you have to do to enter is to go to this page and then fill out some basic info. They have two sets available, so good luck because I’m winning one.

Update Boy, I am a fool. I forgot all about Poe Ghostal’s caption the pic contest were you can win a Hulkbuster Iron man figure. I won the last contest and got my prize in the mail, so it’s not an impossible win if I could do it.