You’ve spent a stupid amount of hours playing it.. your friends have kicked your butt countless times in it.. your girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife/mother/father have rolled their eyes while you spent long evenings shooting at things in it.. even your weird red-headed neighbor has probably heard of it. I guarantee their somehow even weirder kids have. I’d say, it’s pretty safe to assume that if you or someone you know has picked up a video game controller in the last decade, you’ve played or at the very least heard of the epic video game series, Halo.
It started with Halo: Combat Evolved way back in 2001 (am I alone in thinking that wasn’t that long ago? Also, where did these crow’s feet come from?) by the very talented game devs, Bungie. Since then, the Halo franchise has become a multi-billion (with a “b”) dollar juggernaut for Microsoft Studios.
I have really fond memories of playing Halo: Combat Evolved on my ugly tan desktop with its massive CRT and beefy BFG Video card. At the time, I didn’t care much for single player games, but I was a multiplayer fiend and that’s what really hooked me! Since then, I’ve picked up each and every Halo game that slips down the chute, despite opinions of fluctuating creativity and quality. Microsoft has a knack for timing Halo releases via some intergalactic series of happenstance, which somehow seems to coincide with the exact moment I start to feel a depressing lull in my gaming world. I take comfort in two things when it comes to Halo games. I know that they’ll always be pretty to look at, and I know that, regardless of how the single player story turns out, I’ll be darn sure to wring my money’s worth out of the multiplayer. Continue reading →
Remember that time we reviewed a Real Steel robot from the toy wizards at ThreeA? Well, sirs… it’s that time again! Stomping into my living room is the hero of the film, (unless you count Hugh Jackman or the kid.. but who in their right mind would count the kid?) Atom! Dun-duh-duuun!
I won’t drag you through my thoughts on the film itself.. I think I covered that well enough here and here. What I’m going to do, and really, all I need to do.. is talk about this big ol’ robot sitting in front of me.
Image property of Dreamworks Animation
I want to make sure everyone understands a couple things before we jump in.
First, this is a production sample! What that means is that, while it should give us all a pretty good idea as to what we can expect when Atom shows up on doorsteps later in the year, ThreeA is still busy tightening bolts, refining the paint, tweaking the joints and all around making him a bunch better before committing to full-on production. So keep in mind, some things may change between now and then.
Secondly, let me quickly point you to our disclaimer page. I do this because we’ve gotten a few emails and such concerned with whether or not our opinions could be biased in a positive vein towards free samples we receive from toy companies. Let me say that, in short, it’s our strict policy here not to hand out positive reviews simply because a company sends us stuff. I have a lot of stuff.. I absolutely don’t NEED more stuff just for the sake of getting stuff (My wife’s on the brink of disowning me and my stuff as it is). This site, however, is something we’ve painstakingly spent the last couple of years building up and we’re not going to throw away our cred (street or otherwise) just on the passing hope that a toy company will occasionally toss something our way. It’s just not worth it! Of course, we’re fans of these things first and foremost and we have respect for the individuals that have the wherewithal to put these things together, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing this.. but if something is not to our liking/standard etc, you’ll be the first to know!
We can’t promise that our opinion on things will be the same as yours, but we can promise that our opinion will always be honest and our own and in no way colored by obtaining free stuff. Continue reading →
I had never heard of Damtoys until a few months ago when I was perusing loose 1/6 figure parts on an online retailer’s site. Their name kept popping up as I rummaged through pages of random, realistic military clothing and weapons. I didn’t buy anything, but I remember thinking, “Man, this stuff looks really good… the people behind this know what their doing.”
Skip ahead to some random blog post I happened upon showcasing this figure that looked a HECK of a lot like the brit movie tough guy, Jason Statham, only crazy exaggerated and equally as awesome. The promo shots looked fantastic and this.. “Spade J” looked every bit as BA as his celebrity twin. As a 3S character artist, I’ve always been drawn to exaggerated, hard edged, sculpted features on characters in cartoons and on action figures.
There was that name again, “Damtoys”. I thought back to the military stuff of theirs I had looked through a few months back and googled their name to see if there were any other figures in this “Gangsters Kingdom” series. Nope. Just lots of highly realistic military figures.. and Spade all by his lonesome. I admit I was a little nervous preordering him since I’d never dealt with this company before and as cool as lone wolf sounds, it can look a little odd on the shelf in a reasonably organized collection. Sure, the promo’s looked slick.. but that’s marketing for you and expected. Plus there’s been a few toy lines in the past who’s QC and final execution of the figure was less than stellar.
I decided to take a chance on him anyway and dusted off my credit card. Now, a mere four months later, Spade J is here. Lets see how he did.
PACKAGING
This is some nice packaging. The box is a fairly heavy corrugate and the printed graphics are rich in color and crisp. Small touches like the silk pull to release the inner box is nice. Damtoys also included a single, little poker card with Spade’s likeness on it. Not sure of it’s usefulness, but it’s a cool garnish.
On the back is an illustration of some slicked hair, fat fellah who looks like he’s about to get an extra air flow option in his neck area, compliments our friend, Spade. The inclusion of that was enough to make me really hope they flesh out the Gangsters Kingdom world with more exaggerated and interesting characters.
WHAT’S INCLUDED
Spade comes with no shortage of accessories. Two pistols with removable and extra clips, a silencer, a switchblade, a real metal necklace/chain, driving cap, ankle holster, a (amaze’n!) should bag, and if you want to count it, a sweet leather jacket. He also comes with an extra “rude” hand.. making that all familiar gesture anyone who’s driven in LA, Atlanta or anywhere in Jersey traffic will immediately recognize.
THE BREAKDOWN
As I unwrapped Spade from his stylish box prison, I was immediately impressed. First thing you see is Spade’s ugly mug, dapper leather jacket and croc-skin boots. I couldn’t help myself from smiling, leaning over to my wife (who sat nearby uninterested in my proceedings) and saying, “Just.. LOOK.. at this guy!”
She glanced over and feigned a half-hearted, “Cool.” and went immediately back to pinterest.
Hmph. I would not let her dismissive response damage my enthusiasm. I quickly popped the next layer of packaging out of the way and started to dig out his many accessories. The first thing I grabbed was Spade’s shoulder bag. Now when I showed that to my wife she actually paused.. took it out of my hand and said, “Wow, this is really nice looking.. really well done.. look at the faux leather accents!”
Or something to that degree. In any case, I was now speaking her language. I let her play with the shoulder bag while I messed around with Spade’s two hand guns.
It’s pretty darn cool that you can actually chamber a round (no bullets of course) and take the clips in and out. The smaller, ankle pistol has a silencer that sticks into the barrel of it, giving it some much needed size.
The leather jacket Spade sports is one of the nicest looking coat accessories I’ve seen on an action figure. It fits perfectly on him with working zippers and pockets. There’s a logo/brand on the back of it to let you know Spade’s a bad-ass.
The driver cap was one of the things I was most excited about with this figure. That may sound silly, but I’ve been wearing them since I was a kid as my dad always wore them. I think I’ve had more driving caps than baseball caps growing up. All the promo pics of the hat show that, for ONCE, someone got the fit right. I’ve seen other action figures that come with these hats and they look ridiculous..and just scream “DOLL! YOU”RE PLAYING WITH A DOLL!”
Well, the final result for Spade is a little bit of a mixed bag. The hat doesn’t seem to fit quite as nice as it did from the promo’s, but with a little finagling, you can get it looking pretty respectable.
I almost lost the switchblade immediately after opening the box. It’s TINY… minuscule. It “looks” cool enough, but it doesn’t fold up or anything which is a little surprising given the action you get out of the pistols.
Back to Spade J’s sculpt. I love the face sculpt.. yes, it’s basically an exaggerated Jason Statham but it works amazingly well here and looks great. Not only is the sculpt great, the paint and detail work on it is very realistic.. tiny moles and freckles as well as a copious amount of man-stubble round out an already quality sculpt. The hands continue that quality with their bulky, blocky form and realistic flesh tone.
Spade’s boots are croc-skin because.. what else would this guy be caught dead in? They work great here and are pretty remarkable at keeping him balanced in all sorts of poses. I will warn you though, don’t try and pop the feet off as there is no friendly little pop in-and-out peg in there like you may be accustom to with other figures. It’s meant to stay on and does not like to go back to it’s home if you remove it. I learned this from experience, dude.
To get his jacket off, you have to remove the hands. On some figures this isn’t that big of a deal as the pegs are short and stout enough to handle a bit of pressure. Dam Toy’s wrist pegs are long thin things that I fear would snap if even the slightest ill-advised pressure was given. I managed to get them off and back on again without anything snapping.. just know that if you choose to follow suit, take it easy and slow.
So with his jacket off, Spade looks a little.. wonky. His neck is a mile long and his body looks oddly malnourished compared to the rest of his tough exterior. Pulling the t-shirt neckline up some, helps hide the awkward appearance a bit.. but he’s miles better looking with the jacket on.
So what happens with the shirt off? Yikes! OK, so the tattoo details are pretty cool to see.. but the skin tone of the body is way off from the more tanned tone of his face (which, I guess isn’t entirely unrealistic if you never go outside with your shirt off). Also, that malnourished look is even more apparent here. The biggest issue I have with the shirtless look, is the design of the body. I’ve never seen a 1/6 body like this. The shoulder joints are basically giant rotating pegs. The good side of that is they allow for quite a good bit of unrestricted movement. The bad is that it makes him look pretty bad with all that exposed goings-on. It’s like lifting the curtain and seeing all the gears working on the “It’s a Small World” ride.. loses all it’s magic.
OK, everything back on! After seeing what lies beneath, I have no reason to ever remove Spade’s shirt and jacket again. He looks too great with them on and way too weird without. Plus those wrist joints are NOT to be trusted and you have no spare ones to fall back on if you misstep. I’ll let you you use your best judgement.
So all geared up, Spade is perfect right? Well.. no. Sadly, the weapons he comes with are all pint sized. The larger of the two pistols almost works with his scale as a small gun.. but the other just looks silly in his hands. Like he’s holding a child’s water gun. The switchblade, adorned with tiny blood flecks isn’t made for Spade at all. Literally, his hands cannot hold it. I “tricked” the camera for some of these photos by having it lay in his hand (thanks gravity) and angling the shot to hide the gap. It’s like they had some extra loose tiny knives laying around at the factory and thought they’d toss them in. It’s a little odd since the art on the back of the box would suggest that the blade is pretty significant weapon to Spade.
The same feeling that “this must have been an afterthought” goes for the ankle holster as well. I challenge you get the ankle holster on, shove the pistol in there and pull his pant leg down over it. Oh, it can be done with a lot of effort.. but the result isn’t graceful or in anyway “concealed”. It basically adds massive bulk to the side of his leg. Either the pant legs are too tight or his legs are too big for it to fit naturally. It’s a massive pain to pull off and when you do you realize, “Man, they really didn’t think this part through did they?”
The last thing of concern is the hat. I love the way it looks and honestly think Spade looks best with it covering his dome. The problem is that some people have reported that the stain used to color the hat will eventually stain his head if left on. What? Why is that a thing? People have recommended making a paper/cloth sleeve or liner to put inside of the hat so this doesn’t happen. Honestly, that’s just something we shouldn’t have to worry about.
In the end, I shoved all the extra stuff I’ll never use, the small gun, ankle holster, switchblade, and sadly.. the driver’s cap.. into Spade’s shoulder bag. He’s standing on my shelf in a neutral pose, bag slung over his shoulder and pistol in his hand. I tend to keep my figures in neutral poses more for sustained balance than anything else. That being said, Spade poses up very well and is a fun figure to play around with. Thanks to his wonky looking, but very forgiving shoulder joints it’s easy to pull all sorts of bad-assery out of him even with just the one gun and his steely gaze. He’s very cool that way.
THE FINAL WORD
Spade looks fantastic and his articulation is just as good as just about any other 1/6 figure I’ve experienced. His build feels pretty solid, though his wrist pegs did appear delicate. The bag and jacket he comes with are some of them most nicely crafted accessories I’ve seen on a figure. The head-sculpt is spot-on and flawless.. and the cheeky extra hand adds a bit of edgy comedy to the character.
While he doesn’t look so amazing showing off his tats, you’re likely to never display him that way so I consider the tattoo elements as sort of a throw-away extra… they’re there if you want them, but no harm done if you don’t.
My single, but fairly significant complaint with Spade is something I can extend to ALL the toys I buy/collect:
When a toy comes with accessories, I expect that toy to be able to USE them without altering the toy or accessory in any way. Otherwise it’s just snake oil.
If I was you, I’d toss the unusable bits in his shoulder bag or leave them in the box and find him a nice quality toy assault rifle, knife and hand gun on the secondary market. That’s what I’m going to do. He’s just too cool of a figure to leave with mediocre equipment!
Whether you have or are looking to purchase Spade J, I think you’ll be getting a pretty good value for what you’re getting, even with some of the accessories lacking luster. When I bought him, I got him for under $100 shipped, that’s an incredibly reasonable price any way you slice it. The unique, dramatic head-sculpt and core character elements are exciting and really stand out. I, for one, am really looking forward to seeing what Damtoys does next in Gangsters Kingdom
PROS:
A fantastic head-sculpt just oozes character (even if that character is Jason Statham)
The leather jacket and shoulder bag is so well sewn and detailed it had my wife gasping
Great articulation throughout
A ton of extra accessories
Overall he’s a very fun figure that looks great on display
Are you ready for round two? Coming out swinging from ThreeA is their latest but definitely not last fighting robot from Dreamwork’s 2011 movie, Real Steel. While Midas won’t be their last bot in the ring, hopefully that will be my last use of boxing metaphors for this review.
I make no promises.
Last year, ThreeA’s Ambush turned out to be a pretty big surprise for me. If you check out the review we did of him, not only was he one of the most detailed toys I’d seen from ThreeA yet, he was a ton of fun to pose and photograph. I enjoyed reviewing him far more than I imagined I would. So much so, that I put him as one of my top toy picks of 2012!
When the postman delivered Midas and I finally got the opportunity to unbox him, I experienced a fairly odd realization. Midas arrived to me with even more of a disadvantage hanging over his head than Ambush had. With our Ambush review, I went into it with only the knowledge that I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie. Thusly, I expected little from the toy. Ambush got the upper hand on me, in no small part, due to the element of surprise. I was sucker punched by his coolness! (Ok, here’s a dollar for the overused metaphor jar) From the second I opened the box I couldn’t get over that guy. I forgot almost completely he had anything to do with a robot fueled b/kids movie (one that 10 year old me would have LOVED, mind you) and was simply enarmored by the incredible work ThreeA had done in making that robot real. I expected nothing and Ambush delivered far more than that. Midas on the other hand, well..
I see you ThreeA and I know what you’re capable of!
Wow me.
image copyright Dreamworks Animation
PACKAGING
Midas comes in the exact sort of packaging that Ambush did. You can expect the same kind of minimalistic design elements with Midas’s insignia hung front and off-center. A nice, large, magnet-fastening lid covers the heavily packed bot inside. Once again, Midas’s stats are laid out for you to brush up on if you like. His aren’t as embarrassingly sad as Ambush’s were. In fact, his background reads more like that of a violent felon. His impressive mohawk is mentioned twice.
WHAT’S INCLUDED
A fighting robot doesn’t need a whole lot to make it in the world today. Just like Ambush, Midas comes practically accessory free. Some may find that a bit boring, but you can’t blame ThreeA for it. Fault Dreamworks for not designing him an awesome robo-comb of some-such.
Hmmm.. a deluxe flowbee maybe?
As the version I received from ThreeA is their official bamba version, it did come with a cool little remote control accessory. Like I said in the Ambush review, it’s well done and cool to look at, but with no one to hold it.. it’s mostly just display clutter for me. Back into the box you go, less ye be lost!
Update – 2/07/13: There have been a few comments from folks saying that their Midas did not come with batteries. There’s a chance that ThreeA included them with mine to make it easier for me to get this review together. If so, big apologies for the misinformation.
Update 2 – 2/08/2013: Confirmed that batteries do NOT come with Midas. It was included with my sample to assist in the review. Sorry for getting hopes up if I did. At least the batteries are cheap! 🙂
One thing of note: Midas actually comes with his eye-light batteries preinstalled! Huzzah! I am seriously happy 3A decided to include them this time around. I say this particularly because some battery sizes can be very difficult to find in certain remote regions. “Someone” could spend the larger part of their weekend trying to hunt them down by driving back and forth all over an island in the middle of the ocean looking for them. Just like this “someone” did when he had the opportunity to review 3A’s MGS REX.
I was stoked to find I would be avoiding that hassle this time around.
THE BREAKDOWN
At first blush, Midas is everything you’d expect him to be. Big, gold, dinged a bit and sporting a ridiculously bright red mohawk.
He’s painted up bright and gold (though it reads more orange/brown in most light) with some red accents. He’s tatted out with all manner of tribal tattoos head to toe, which begs the timeless question of.. on a scale of Ed Hardy to Affliction, just how douchy is Midas? 🙂
Ol’ Midas has been busy too! He has all manner of dings, dents and scratches running all over him. That was one of the things I really liked about Ambush as well,the asymmetry in the weathering and damage. An unfortunate notched mishap on his right arm does not mean the same for his other. It definitely adds to the realism of the character.
I’m not really much for gold, but Midas’s paint is actually really quite good. I wouldn’t say it’s as believable as Ambush’s or that it was as carefully applied like that on MGS REX, but it’s still definitely good. Since Midas is predominately painted gold (or “gold leaf “as the background statistics on his box specifically state) his rusted/damaged areas are pretty much just silver to represent the metal underneath. There are some variations in there, some layers, but they don’t read as clearly since the hues of the marks are so close to that of his top coat. It does the job and looks fine, just not quite as well as Ambush’s scratches and marks.
Ambush gets a leg up, I think, largely because his color scheme lends itself better to reality. He may be bright blue, but with the rust and silver metal showing through, you feel like you may have seen an old pickup truck that looks like him somewhere.
One thing that bothered me about Ambush was that it was difficult to get him to maintain any extreme poses. Some areas, like his arms were fairly easy to sort out and pose however you like. But his overall bulkiness, coupled with is small feet and limited hip range make him difficult to balance in any pose much more creative than his two feet planted side-by-side.
This is where Midas knocks Ambush on his butt.
Where Ambush has shell-like armored bits that need to slide over and around one another just so you can twist and turn him, Midas is basically made up of easy to use, undeterred, ball-joints. Very little gets in the way of moving him around.
His arms have several joints running the length of them which let you easily get Midas into any type of boxing stance you can think of. Midas’s hands are also articulated so you can unclench them if you feel like giving him a break after the big fight. Thumbs are posable too.
Remember to keep your elbows in, knees bent, chin tucked and always watch your opponent’s eyes.
Below is a link to a quick video where I show some of the impressive articulation Midas has at his disposal.
Note: We’re working on bringing more video content to you. We want to get things to a point where it’s as regular around here as all these beautimus photos. We’re still working on getting the quality up, tweaking the video codecs and trying to establish some semblance of quality. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy our shiny new RTR video intro! ~ knives
Now just because Midas is easy to move around doesn’t mean he lacks in detail or intricacy. Like Ambush before him, he has a bunch of joints decorated with functioning pistons. Small flexible wires are attached at his elbows, legs and hips. They look cool and seem to be firmly in place, but I am a tad worried they’ll become brittle over time, especially at his elbows. It’s the one element that stands out as “fragile” to me on Midas.
Just check out those lats! Dude’s totally crushing his morning hot yoga sessions. The photo above (hopefully) illustrates a cool element of Midas’s design. His… I’ll just call them shoulder blades, slide in and out as you move his shoulders around. Details like this make Midas fun to play around with.
Midas also has the coolest Iron Man-esque boots ever. I really love the way they came out. To go with an appropriately snug, yet very forgiving ankle joint, the feet themselves are hinged as well allowing for him to go up on his toes a little, just in case you want to send Midas off to ballet school.
So what else.. what else? OH yeah. This guy can practically do drunken monkey kung fu. Midas is SO well balanced. It won’t take you two minutes to get him standing, Karate Kid style on your kitchen counter. I didn’t get a great shot of the ability, but hopefully enough to get the point across.
Unlike our buddy Ambush, Midas is nimble, lightweight and (at least on the one I got) all his joints give/take exactly how much I need them to. His feet have just enough play to where you can adjust them to support an impressive amount of offset weight. This single feature kicks Ambush’s hiney soundly into next week.
Poor guy.
The light up eyes look pretty sweet and thanks to ThreeA supplying the batteries, you can enjoy it from day one.
The eye’s are super cool but I was a little bummed when I read the inside flap of Midas’s statistics and saw that the official movie character featured a “fiber optic mohawk”. A fiber optic mohawk?!! That would have been so awesome to see! While that info was pulled from the movie and was never an advertised feature of the toy, it would have been pretty great if ThreeA managed to pull it off .
Instead, ThreeA used stiff, paintbrush-like bristles, which stand up like something you’d see on a Roman soldier’s helmet. I’m sure there’s some complex engineering mathematics going on behind it that I could never fully understand as being the driving reason they went with the brush hairs instead. I accept that. And don’t get me wrong, it looks sharp as it is. But how cool would it have been to switch on those lights and have his whole mohawk glow a vibrant bright red hue?
Ahhh, C’est la vie.
I actually didn’t know at first that there were already batteries installed so I went through the trouble of hunting down a tinee-tiny screwdriver to see what I could see. Seriously, I’m lucky I have a few of these laying around from my PC building days… what would the average person use to access the batteries? Maybe toy companies should keep in mind the kind of tools the larger majority of consumers keep around their pads before they go slapping screws the size of butterfly teeth on their toys. Tiny screws are fine for holding bits together that you’re not meant to mess with, but for a panel that you may want quick access to, a more common screw size would be appreciated.
THE FINAL WORD
I don’t think I like Midas quite as much as I did Ambush. That being said, I think Midas is, without question, a much better toy than Ambush turned out to be. So what’s the deal?
Midas beats down Ambush round after round (Cha-ching! Another dollar for the metaphor jar!). He’s far more posable and stable. His joints move easier and hold in place as they should. He doesn’t feel near as fragile as Ambush did as he’s made up of mostly solid pieces. On top of all that, he comes ready with the batteries you’ll need to run the lights in his eyes.
In short, his glowing eyes look dope, his paint looks dope, his mohawk looks dope, his boots look dope, his various moving robo-parts look dope, his posable thumb looks dope. I just want to be crystal, this bot is dope!
Honestly, the only things I have to whine about with Midas are mostly aesthetic, meaning, my own personal taste. I mentioned before I’m not into gold and Midas is well.. gold. He’s also covered in terrible tribal tattoos like some weird future robot from the 90’s. He turned out to be completely true to Dreamworks Animation’s original design.
Well, completely true-ish. The character’s mohawk is officially made from fiber optics, not paint brush hairs, but this is the toy and not the movie.. grumble.. grumble.. grumble.
Despite how much better of a toy Midas is than Ambush, I still believe I like Ambush a little more. Mostly it’s his rusty blue pickup truck paint I dig. I just love his paint app and how nice and contrasty his colors are. Plus all those finicky “steel shell” bits that encompass his body, while cumbersome to grip when positioning him, give his form some layers and depth, which I really like as well.
It’s simple really, both are cool. It’ll come down to what you personally prefer.
Quick side note: I never did figure out what the little black plastic flaps on his shoulders are for…
ThreeA has once again done a great job that further cements themselves as masters of their craft. With Midas, The Real Steel/3A union continues it’s impressive journey. They’re two for two, will you be ready for round 3? (*cling! I’m steady filling the jar)
PROS:
Top notch looking bot with great detail and sculpted damage
Fantastic articulation and balance
Very solid paint application and weathering details
As close a replica to the on-screen version as you’ll ever see
Batteries included!(update – 2/7/13 :possibly.. possibly not) (update 2 -2/8/13: confirmed they are not included)
CONS:
Some of the body wires hinder movement which means they are more prone to break over time
It’s a shame the mohawk hairs aren’t made of actual fiber optics or a similar material.. that would have been something to see!
Might be a good idea to use more common sized screws on battery access panels
I’m starting to think I need to watch Real Steel again…
A big thanks to ThreeA for getting Midas out to us! Lily ^ thanks you too. ~ knives
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