Toy Bender

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.

NECA recently released their list of San Diego Comic Con Exclusives for 2008 and Gears of War and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fans rejoiced. For Gears of War NECA’s figure of choice is Carmine. He’s the “innocent kid” team member that gets his head blown off, which is coincidental since he’s the only one with a helmet. Is it really a coincidence though? No probably not, I always assumed that they didn’t want to waste a character model on a standard trooper who was only going to get killed.

The other cool exclusive that they announced was a three pack of mousers for their comic book inspired Teenage Mutant Turtles line. The kit also comes with a San Diego manhole cover, which is pretty cool. For a pic of the Mousers and the opinions of someone who is actually collecting the NECA TMNT figures, check out Poe Ghostal’s blog.

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.

Not too long ago NECA’s second wave of Gears of War figures was seen at Toy Fair. Well, in honor of the announcement that the game will be released this November I thought I’d put a couple of the pictures of the figs. I also like the game a lot so it was a good excuse as any.

This second wave will consist of super jerk General RAAM, Damon Baird, Dominic Santiago (who is the co-op character for those who want to collect the player characters). Picture courtesy of Big Bad Toy Store:

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Just a quick update for you all to let you know that I personally saw some of the McFarlane Halo 3 figures for sale this weekend. No not at a retail store, but at a booth at the San Francisco Wondercon. Like an idiot I didn’t take a picture, but trust me the picture of the figures in the box suffices since there really wasn’t anything to see that hasn’t been put on the internet yet.

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While checking out Unleaded Logic’s site the other day, I noticed he had posted images of Halo figures in their packages. I hadn’t seen this posted on any of my usual sites so I thought I’d share the picks here for those who are obsessed with all things Halo.

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As reported by me way back in August, NECA had gotten the license to make Gears of War figures. Now after long months of waiting, we finally get to see how they turned out. Big Bad Toy Store has this image on it’s pre-order page:

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Halo fans, if you want some more Halo toy news I don’t have a whole lot, but I can point you towards McFarlane’s website where they posted some new pictures of Halo figures that will be on our way someday. Or you can just check them out here. Yeah, I’d like that.

Master Chief 2

Master Chief is locked and loaded with a shotgun and a… damn what is that on his back? A Spartan Laser? First one of you to tell me what that is gets… nothing but my respect. But isn’t that what you really want anyway?

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It’s not often when you see those around you rise from modest internet blogger to internet star, but it’s happening to ToyBender reader Unleaded Logic right before my very eyes. He’s got his very own review of the Halo laser gun games from Jasman Toys up on that fancy YouTube thing that all the kids use these days. Imagine, video on the internet!

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