Review date: 10/16/2004

Manufacturer: Joyride Studios

Released: 2004

Availability: NORMAL

Type: Action Figure

 
 

Personal Story:
I was already a big fan of Halo and since Halo 2's announcement, I've been waiting for the figures. I wasn't thinking of preordering him until I saw the final prototypes for the figures in an online store. I decided to preorder it since I had real trouble finding the first Halo figure from Series 1 and I hate searching for hard to find figures.

I suggest reading my review for the first Master Chief figure since I'll be making some comparisons between the two.
 
Introduction:
This figure was made by Joyride Studios. This figure is based on the character Master Chief from the video game, Halo 2. This figure shows Master Chief in all his glory. I want to note that since I'm reviewing this figure before the release of the game, I researched screenshots and trailers from the game for accuracy.
 

Sculpt:
Not what I expected. I'm going to be quite blunt, the head sculpt sucks. I'm not really sure what happened but the helmet's sculpt is way off compared to the source material. The visor is much smaller than the source but what really troubled me is the size of the "mouth" part. It's way too long and large compared to the source. The "mouth" part doesn't even bulge out like the game version. It's concave instead of the other way which shows the lack of attention to detail. The helmet looks more like a helmet from a dirt bike rider rather than from the game's counterpart. What happened?

I remember seeing the prototypes and it looked accurate in those shots. If you checked the back of the packaging, there's a shot of the prototype and you can see a huge difference with the head sculpt. I'm not sure why they changed the sculpt but it was a bad decision. I can't believe they fudged up the most important part of the figure! :( Anyways, the good part about the head sculpt is that they managed to sculpt out all the grooves and intricate panels on his visor. I really like that. The overall head seems a little longer than the game version.

The rest of the body is very well done. All the parts of the armor has been fully realized with plenty of detail in the armor. It has even more detail than the Master Chief figure from the first game. There are plenty of grooves and vents all over the figure that mimic the appearance of the game's counterpart. There's a ton of detail everywhere compared to the first Halo figures. The hands are well sculpted. I have to mention that the hands are made from a soft plastic this time (unlike the first Halo figures). This is good since he can hold the guns much more easily. But what's odd about the hands is that only the right hand has his trigger finger out. The other hand looks like it's meant to hold the front of the rifle. Weird. The legs and feet are very well sculpted and look very good. Some might say his legs are a tad thinner than the source but it doesn't look too bad. They captured the look of the body from the front to back very well.

Speaking of guns, the accessories include a pair of SMGs, a rifle and an extra hand. The guns are better made than the guns from the first series. They are much more intricate and have a better scale too. When comparing them to the source, they look fairly accurate. The extra hand was made with a tighter grip than the left hand. I'm assuming it was made for the Plasma Blade which I'm sure will be included with future versions of Master Chiefs and Elites.

The figure has a good assortment of articulation. The head can be moved side to side, the hands can be moved all the way around along with the legs. One difference between this version and the previous Master Chiefs is that the torso has a bit more articulation than before. The upper half of the torso and be rotated this time separately than the lower part. It's a bit tight to rotate but it could be just my version. The rest of the figure is much more articulate than any of the other figures from the previous series so anyone who liked the first one will love this one. You can play with it a lot more.
 

Paint:
Now the paint isn't as great as the sculpt, just like the figures from the first series. Remember that I said the colors of the paint were off? Well, it's the same here. While the previous Master Chief had darker colors than the source, the Halo 2 version's color is way too light! The green is just too gray and light compared to the source. The game version's green color is much darker and richer so I'm not sure why they made this Master Chief so light. The same can be said for the "black" parts. It has a gray wash but it's also a bit too light. Now, I'm not really sure why Joyride hasn't been able to fix their color problems, but whoever is in charge must be color blind.

The colors of the guns are much better than the previous figures. The black is much darker this time. Even though they are still a bit too light compared to the source, at least they don't look purple. The chrome part of the visor is well done. It seems like they used the same material that they used for the first Halo Master Chiefs.

The overall paint for the figure is clean except for certain parts. There is some minor bleeding of paint from the top part of the feet where the gray is. I was able to use my fingernails to rub it off so that's good news for people who hate sloppy paint jobs. But there are other parts where the paint was left there like the back which I couldn't fix. It's not too sloppy but it's not as clean as the previous figures.

 
Overall: B
I'm somewhat disappointed with this figure compared to Joyride's previous effort. The head sculpt is way off and the paint job was a bit sloppy. The body sculpt and accessories are awesome though. If you're a fan of Halo or Halo 2, it's a no-brainer to get this. But this figure could've been better if the head sculpt was more accurate.
 

Where can I find this?
 You can find this figure easily (as of this review) since it just came out.
 
Other Images:


The figure in its packaging. Similar design to the previous figures which is good for collectors. But it looks a bit simple and they could've used better graphics on it.

 


The side. Check out the awful head sculpt. The "mouth" part is completely inaccurate!

 


"Bring on the PAIN!"

 


The weapons and extra hand. Quite accurate and fairly well sculpted.

 


The back. Pretty good details.

 
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