review 3A’s Metal Gear Solid REX

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Knives

INTRO

As far back as I can remember, I’ve been an avid gamer. That joyous affliction is the result of my folks starting me on the fast track at a very young age. They had an Atari 2600 already in place in the living room before I was born, just waiting for me to be able to hold the controller in my tiny, baby hands. Games like Pitfall, Berserk, Centipede and Q Bert, were all at some point a part of our collection. All classic games and iconic characters that, even in my youth, struck various important chords to my psyche. A few years later, my folks purchased a Commodore 64 for their office, which I loaded up with a bunch of old keyboard clicking games like Kung Fu Master and Summer Games.

But gaming didn’t truly hit it’s full stride for me until the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System. The NES was responsible for game after game of trend setting, classic goodness.

Mario, Zelda, Bionic Commando, Punchout, Final Fantasy, Metroid, Contra, Ninja Gaiden and of course, Metal Gear.

Fast forward to 1998 and the great Hideo Kojima and Konami released Metal Gear Solid on the original Playstation.

Bam.

To this day, it remains as one of my most memorable video game experiences. The story, art, gameplay, characters, all of it. A historic game made only better on the PS2 with MGS 2: Sons of Liberty. While the Metal Gear series continues with spin offs on a variety of systems and numbered releases.. MGS2 maintains it’s absolutely epic status and remains steadfast among my top 10 favorite games of all time.

SO! I could go on and on about the Metal Gear series, how much I love it, how much the games and their “sneaking missions” shaped the types of games I play and enjoy most.. but that’s not why you tuned in.
We’ll move forward and take my Metal Gear Solid fanboydom as firmly given.
METAL GEAR SOLID REX!!

If you’re reading this page then you probably know at least a little bit about the young toy company, ThreeA. They announced they’re partnership with Konami/Kojima way back in 2009. The first toy to be released from the international handshake was to be Rex.

Being a massive Metal Gear Solid AND 3A fan, my ears perked up, my heart did a leap and my wallet ran off to hide in the shadows. A match made in.. “Outer Heaven.”

Whamp whaaaamp.

That was back in late 2009/early 2010. Suffice to say, it’s been a slow roasting process. Ashley Wood, who’s ties to the Metal Gear franchise go deep, continued to pump out fantastic designs from his own worlds for us to pose, photograph and play with. But despite how fantastic the larger majority of those were, they couldn’t satiate the craving of Metal Gear fans. It seemed like someone over on the official 3A forums was asking practically daily for more information, any information, about REX.

The year of our Lord, 2012 just also happens to be Metal Gear’s 25th Anniversary and just in time too! In February the massively pregnant wait came to an end as REX finally hit bambaland.com for a whopping $490 buckaroos! The seemingly steep price tag didn’t stop fans from throwing their money at their computer screens and yelling “Take my money! Take it all!”

The excitement was palatable.

3A has put out a ton of great, sometimes downright AMAZING, toys over its short four(ish) years in operation and today, I have REX sitting here on the table in front of me.

As we’re coming up to the tail end of 2012… let me tell you this,

stuff just got real.

PACKAGING

Do I need to say it? This box is HUGE! Look at the two crazy cute slobbery fifty pound pups sitting astride it. It’s silly big!

I had to laugh when I popped the lid open. The oh so iconic “!” beaming up at me like a pretty girl’s smile. Wrestling it from the packaging took some real doing. I recommend you snag a friend or friendly hobo to assist you. Keep him or her around, because you’ll need them for the next part too.

Ash’s inks dot the front of the box calling back to his work on the epic Metal Gear Solid graphic novel. On the back, we get REX SPECS(tm) and a little background on him.

WHAT’S INCLUDED

First thing to fall out was a ThreeA catalog featuring a bunch of toys you can’t get anywhere but Ebay or via fan based BSTs. Next, to my surprise, was a couple of instructional booklets. Yes, there are booklets aimed at instructing you in how to play with your toy. Believe it or not fellows, you’ll probably need to read it and refer to it often. More on that later.

Also included is a little plastic wrench-like tool which you’ll want to keep close at hand. It’s your new buddy.

THE BREAKDOWN

I was unable to show the ornate process of me actually removing this guy from his box. I contorted myself in ways I’ve only seen tiny, exotic acrobats twist. As I tried to support the heft of the box and pull the styrofoam trays free, I kept wondering to myself “Why didn’t I wait until my wife got home?”

Keep that friendly hobo close, he’ll come in handy.

The long rail gun is separate from the rest of REX proper and snaps in with zero fuss.

It’s possible I’ll say this a few times, so steel your resolve… “REX is huge!” I don’t even know where to start with him. There’s a ton going on with gears and removable pieces layered all over him. Not only is REX huge, he’s complex. There’s with good reason he comes with two instructional booklets and a tool.

I thought it best to start with some of the technical bits before I rushed out the door to snap away in strange territory. As mentioned, the gun is separate and has to be attached, as does the antennae to the satellite dish. There’s also a baggy full of tiny bits that attach to each of his legs as well.

Even though I didn’t plan on doing any of my night shots until later, I went ahead and installed the batteries for REX’s various light features. He takes three AAA in the gun and three AAA under his head. Bring your own to play, none are included. The rail gun’s side pops off rather conveniently for a quick install. The head lights require you to unscrew a tiny screw underneath REX’s head to access the panel. You can light up the rail gun by pushing an easy to access button on top, but to turn the head lamps on, you have to hunt for a wee switch towards the bottom/back of his head. Easy enough if you have light.. an absolute pain if you don’t.

REX has a ton of removable panels scattered all over his body. The booklet will illustrate exactly where all of them are, but I thought it was fun to leave much of it up to discovery. The following pics showcase a few of the panels you can take off. Kim and company did a great job at accurately mimicking the body damage REX takes in MGS 4 all of which shows off the faux mechanics that make this monster work. It’s pretty fun popping them on and off to mix up his look.

(UPDATE: Since publishing this review it’s come to our attention that you may, in fact, be able to remove all the panels from both legs. However, I was unable to remove all the panels from the right leg due to how tightly they are attached. It’s possible they’re sealed on by paint but they literally feel permanently attached so I am not going to force them. We apologize for any misinformation. Most of the other removable panels on the body are still only one sided.)

It may be a confusing to some that you can knock off panels on one side but not the mirror side. For example you can almost completely strip down his left leg, but there’s nothing to remove on his right. I didn’t realize this at first and started cursing a little under my breath when I couldn’t get a matching panel to pop off like it had on the opposite side. It’s particularly confusing on REX’s back area because the side that isn’t meant to come off has some give to it and looks to have the same creases and recesses as the other. The only thing that seems to stand in the way is a small screw drilled underneath, through the middle of it.

It’s not a big deal and may not be off-putting to you in the least. I just thought I’d share my confusion so it doesn’t throw any of you who like to jump right in and start messing with things without reading the instructions first.

For the most part, I think I’ll keep his panels intact but I like the asymmetry you can achieve by taking a few off here and there. The satellite looks far more interesting without it’s cover.

After putting all the panels back on I thought I’d attempt to get accustomed to how REX moves around before I headed out to do the rest of the shoot. I popped out his heel supports and extended his toes to get a more dynamic and alive pose.

At this point you can que 15 minutes of me trying to figure out why the legs would not support his weight. Each time I got him into a pose I was happy with, he’d buckle either left or right.

It turns out that my REX’s leg joints were twisted 45 degrees down on both sides. I only realized that after staring at the booklet and comparing it to what I had. Below is a pic of how your leg joints should look out of the box. An easy way to tell, is that the metal mud flap-like things should be hanging from the front of the leg joints, not the bottom as mine were. It may not really matter in your case, but in mine the rotation joint that originally faced forward was a good deal looser than the joint that should have been. Thus causing the buckling under his weight. After I turned them to face correctly, my problem went away.

So what if your REX has ill-rotated leg joints or what if you want to just move the legs in general? Well there’s the right way to do it and a “do at your own risk” way.

To do it the right way, you need to break out the included black plastic tool and put it to use. You may also consider grabbing your friendly hobo as a spotter as well.

Warning: Please use hobos, friendly or otherwise, at your own risk. Hobos don’t know no better than to ride the rail.. they may wander off with a few of your things in a gunny sack if you don’t watch them carefully.

I believe the idea with the tool is to give the quad-hinged joint some counter support to your twisting. There’s a substantial amount of resistance in the leg joints, necessary I assume to support the toys weight. That being said, I found some of the joints to be a good deal too tight. Twisting one leg out will put noticeable strain on the neighbor joints, something that I’m positive could lead to breaking if not handled carefully. The tool is there to help prevent that. In the images below, I tried to demonstrate somewhat how to use the tool.

In the image above, I’m using the tool to go across the top of a joint while I swing out the leg, which uses the neighboring joint. This gives the joint I’m NOT using counter support against the pressure I’m putting on it. I’m not 100% sure I’m using as intended but it seemed to work well for me. Don’t worry, it comes with it’s own instruction sheet so you can decipher the best way for you to use it yourself.

With or without the tool, it was a little stressful having to apply that much force to rotate a joint, particularly when loud cracking and popping sounds accompanying it.

Taking REX on the road for some more interesting atmosphere was fun. I had about two dozen or so people stop and ask what the heck I was doing. I’m sure more than a few were concerned of the nuclear capabilities of this guy.

Confused civilian: “Whoa. What is that thing?”

Me: “It’s a toy robot”

Confused civilian: “Is it a transformer? My kid has those..”

Me: “Uh.. sure. Sort of.”

Confused civilian: blank.. long stare followed by walking off a few steps, only to stop and look back warily.

Rest easy civilian, I got this.

Once you get your nerves in check, posing REX is pretty fun. I found myself approaching him as more of a puzzle than something you’d simply grab and toss into a pose. You have to think a little bit about what you want to go for before you do it. It’s difficult for me not to look at him as some sort of menacing, mechanical K-9, so I just went with it. Opening up the cockpit, lowering the head with the backend in the air, we could be playing fetch..

..or nuking a small village.

You can get a pretty wide variety of looks out REX simply by changing his leg configuration The back heels have 3 different positions (and everything in between) that cause Rex’s look to go from rested to full alert.

The way his front of his legs extend is pretty nifty. You flip up the toe gates, which kick the motion into gear, then just pull out a bit. It only extends the leg maybe an inch, but it’s cool and gives a surprising amount of lift to him.

The body articulation on REX works a few different ways. You basically have a central, groin area that the leg joints attach to. From there you have the front end (head) and back end (tail) on their own support arms that can be lowered or raised. The back-end also slide extends to allow for more wiggle room.

The rail gun is just so cool looking. 3A didn’t originally design it or anything, but they did a bang up job at recreating it.

The joints attaching the rail gun and satellite allow you to swing them in or out, as well as push them slightly forward or back. I naturally wanted to raise the gun up and down like you would expect to be able to do with a tank-like vehicle, but to raise or lower the nose of the weapon, you have to raise or lower the entire back portion of REX. This seemed a little inconvenient and took a little getting used to, but I believe it holds true to the source material so shouldn’t really be an issue.

One thing you may have already heard is that 3A didn’t implement any kind of head rotating articulation that the in-game REX appeared to have. In the game, Konami made REX much more alive and animalistic than what we’d generally relate to a nuclear tank-like weapon. I assume 3A’s decision was due to how much REX weighs and that adding a rotating joint would risk leaving him with a slack, hanging head. The harshly clicking joints are tight for a reason. It’s been bemoaned by many, but once you actually see this guy, I think you’ll understand just how complex and impressive he is.

While his head doesn’t rotate around, you can cheat to get similar looks by using the well designed multi-jointed leg hip/torso articulation. Through some finessing you can twist the entire body one way and the legs the other and he’ll look as though he’s panning the landscape for Snake. It would have definitely been nice to have but after spending some time with him, I don’t miss the idea of rotation too much.

One thing that did slightly annoy me was that some of the little panels, particularly the vents on his legs, just will NOT stay in place. Some are literally just resting there thanks to the grace and magic of gravity. Just posing him and clicking a stiff leg out can cause 3 or 4 of the little covers to pop off and go jettisoning across the room. Just be mindful of that when/where you’re posing this guy so if one does unintentionally spring free, you won’t lose pieces.

Now it’s time for a flood of photos.

There’s so many cool little details on REX. The machine gun underneath him is one of my favorites.
edit: It was called to my attention that it isn’t a machine gun at all but actually a FE laser. The same one responsible for slicing Gray Fox’s arm off. Thank for the help!

The afore mentioned removable panels shows a variety of cool engineering underneath.

His paint application is top notch and stays on par with the best of what 3A has ever offered. Also, since some have asked and just in case you can’t tell from the photos, REX is mostly an unsaturated green in color.

Here you can see some of the light details 3A worked in. I love the fact that the screen for the driver has a small light that you can only really see if you’re practically in the cockpit. Details man.. amazing details!

Other than the glow from the cockpit, you get 4 flood lights which basically look like Rex’s eyes and of course the ever impressive rail gun lights which pulse just before it evaporates your neighborhood.

Oh yes, I almost forgot to mention..

REX can also do this..

Yes, REX can stand completely upright without heel support in appropriate T-Rex fashion. He’s obviously intentionally designed to, but it’s challenging to balance and you need a good level playing field to do so. It’s totally worth the effort because he looks absolutely bonkers this way. REX just got huge-ER!

Just amazing.

We thought a good way to really show off the lighting system 3A has built into this guy, was to shoot him at night. Setting our shutter speeds to slower than your average bear, the fun really began.

(Editors note: Some extra lights were used for illumination and effect. IE REX does not have body glow or back lights)

The cab lights are really bright. Even with the hatch closed, blue light still spills out. I know this is basically a fun gimmick, but having the cool rail gun’s pulsing light effect made me wish there was an accompanying sound effect. Even cooler would have been having some sort of metallic/animal-like scream.
Real quick, I have to give props to my supporting wife who is responsible for many of the awesome night time photos you see here! Go team us!

On second thought, perhaps silence is golden. Everyone knows that toys with sound effects are the unholy work of Mephistopheles.

I wanted to show a few silhouettes of REX to give you a little better idea of how his back heel positions change his appearance.

THE FINAL WORD

3A’s Metal Gear Rex. Man, Oh man is he something special. If you were fortunate enough to pick one of these guys up, you’re in for a real treat come delivery day. Personally, I can’t wait to see how some of you guys will display him with the rest of your collection. He huge so he takes up a big chunk of real estate and isn’t necessarily to scale with much else I’ve seen.. (mini mates maybe?). I have a few of the Play Arts Kai Metal Gear figures that I think would look cool sitting next to him, even if the scale is completely out of whack. It’ll be interesting to see what you do.

Technically, there are things going on with Rex that I’ve only ever seen hints of before in 3A’s own Real Steel Ambush figure. They continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible in realistic, highly articulated, borderline seamless (the toy aspects, joints, buttons, etc.. are well hidden) toy robots. You will be in awe.

But there’s something else that struck me about Rex.

There’s really only so much you can do with him. He’s not a humanoid with articulated fingers and arms, carrying a bunch of weapons. He’s not a Transformer, jumping from vehicle to fighting robot with a few clicks. He’s basically, a very sophisticated vehicle. You can move his legs around to a half dozen or so different ways, tilt his head and body up or down and play with his light features. That’s really it. Combine that with the fact he’s somewhat challenging to pose, made easier only with the help of a friend or friendly hobo, it takes away some of the impulse to move him around very often, so after a few days, you probably won’t.

I’m not pointing this out as a negative, I’m pointing this out to manage expectations. Rex has a lot going on, with a lot of cool things to discover and move around. But most likely you’ll find a pose you’re happiest with and leave him like that, fondling only occasionally to trigger the rail gun lights and open/close the cockpit/jaw.

The fact is, I wouldn’t call REX just a toy. If anything, he’s too much of a toy.

I’d more appropriately call him a display piece. Heck, he’s the CENTER piece.

He’s the one thing that your non-toy collecting friends will notice above all else when they walk into the room . They’ll scan over your collection of Hot Toys, 3A, Sideshow, vintage Transformers and GI Joes with dull, lifeless eyes, possibly mumble a few, “neat”s or “cool”s. All the while, they’re quietly internalizing the question of their friend’s manchild-ness and how they can segue this unfortunate turn in activities into a drinking game.

However, when they get to Rex, I can almost promise you their eyes will widen and their jaw will drop. The words you’ll hear will be something along the lines of, “Holy ..!! That thing’s freaking incredible!!”

And you’ll be standing there, arms folded and cocky, nodding your head.

“Yeah, he is. He most definitely is.”

I can’t wait to see what 3A does next with the Metal Gear Franchise. The unpainted RAY prototype was on display at this years Hong Kong Venture and from the photos, looked very impressive. However, not much has been said on availability, price, etc. RAY may be just as REX was. A very long wait. It could be mid to late 2013 before we even get the chance to drain our bank accounts into another plastic MGS masterpiece. Which would mean sometime in mid to late 2014 before he joins our collections on the shelf.

Don’t lose sleep over it. REX isn’t human and won’t get lonely. RAY’s long development gives us time to save our pennies and enjoy one of the coolest pieces 3A has put out yet.

In the end, if RAY turns out anything like REX, it’ll be worth every penny and every second.

PROS:

Incredibly detailed, accurate portrayal of a beloved and iconic video game character
Highly sophisticated articulation
Impressive looking and functioning lighting system
Massive to the point of shocking
Fun break away bits to show off hidden details
It’s a Metal Gear figure done 100% right

CONS:

His huge size and very tight joints make posing him a little stressful/difficult (aka, hobo/tool almost required)
Some of the break-away panels do not stay soundly in place.

Huge thanks to 3A, Kim, Cody and Gimbat for sending me Rex to review. Thanks for the support guys!

Review 3A Real Steel Ambush

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Knives

INTRO

When I was a kid, you could probably list my significant interests on a single line of paper. Super heroes, ninjas, robots, monsters, comic books and movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford or Michael J. Fox in them. Like a lot of kids my age, ridiculous or not, I loved action-packed entertainment.

If it had a robot or some promise of karate, I wanted to know all about it. I was obsessed with the stuff. Lucky for me, the 80’s pretty much banked on those concepts. It wasn’t about the quality, it was about the quantity of how many in-your-face explosions and muscle bound heroes they could shove in front of you. Watching those same movies now, mature me can certainly see how my tastes failed me in my youth. Most of these “films” are tragically terrible. I think this realization is what has had me avoiding the vast majority of “action-packed” movies as an adult. Nowadays, I find that I can’t comfortably roll with the cheesy cinema.

A good example of cheesy cinema was last year’s robot fighting movie, Real Steel. It was big and flashy, with some cool, realistically rendered robots (thanks to Dreamwork’s CGI chops) punching each other over and over again in the face. End scene. The storyline seemed as though it was essentially ripped from Stallone’s 80’s flick, “Over the Top”. Some movie exec took that thin prose and married it with Rock’m, Sock’m Robots. My skepticism was pretty high so it was passed over while in the theater only to be picked up months later when it became available on DVD. I didn’t expect it to be very good and big surprise, it wasn’t.

But what I also didn’t expect was that I actually liked it. For the first time in years, I embraced the cheese and enjoyed it. Something about the film tapped into that 80’s nostalgia that used to push my buttons when I was a kid. Maybe it had something to do with how disappointing all the Transformer films have been. Here were these giant, cool looking robots beating the crap out of each other. As a youth, that would have been all I needed to dive head first into bugging my parents to buy me as many of the related action figures as the family’s “spoiled only child” budget would allowed. The story and acting was completely secondary.. nay, THIRD-ary. It wasn’t Shakespeare, it wasn’t art, it was just cool to see big robots beating the heck out of each other.

image copyright Dreamworks Studio

So, what am I getting at?

3A, one of the top high-end action figure toy manufacturers in the world, signed a fat deal with Dreamworks to make high-end figures based off the Real Steel franchise. When I first heard about it, I thought it’d be quite the conundrum for collectors. On one hand, it’s robots and 3A is ah-maze-ing at making robots. Probably the best out there. On the other hand, it’s a robot from a movie that wasn’t very good to begin with and isn’t really that popular with anyone who is old enough to afford 3A robots.

With all of 3A’s other toy lines tying up my play money, it was pretty easy for me to pass when the first figure, Ambush, was up for pre-order. While I thought the film was fun and the pictures 3A used to show him off looked intriguing with all of his intricate-looking, gear-supported articulation, it wasn’t quite enough to rally my interest and loosen my purse strings.

A few weeks back I got a surprising email from 3A that they wanted to send me Ambush to review. This was a definite first and something I was very excited about. Still, I was a little hesitant because I didn’t feel that jazzed about a Real Steel robot. I tried to keep an open mind and wait for him to show up. I had no doubt that the figure would be at the very least… neat. The thing I wanted to see most was if Ambush was cool enough for me to be able to ignore the franchise and simply be interested in a cool robot for the sake of a cool robot, much like the ten year old me would have done back in the day.

Well sir, the delivery man has arrived and it’s time to answer that question.

PACKAGING

The outside of the box is pretty minimalistic. A logo here and there with some of Ambush’s stats on the inside flap. My favorite stat being, “Cost – Won him in a bet”. Said flap has a magnet that keeps the lid secure. Upon opening it, I found that Ambush received one of the best packaging jobs from 3A yet. There’s several layers of molded dense foam between you and your robot, each piece carefully placed to protect all the delicate bits. If you have a Blind Cowboy/Ghost Horse set, you’ll have a good idea of what to expect here.

WHAT’S INCLUDED

For starters, there’s that hard to ignore, giant blue robot, Ambush..

If you ordered yours from Bambaland, you’ll also receive the exclusive little robo-remote. Don’t lose too much sleep if your order doesn’t include one because, while it’s a nice looking accessory, without anyone to hold it, I’ll most likely keep it in the box instead of having it on display.

Bummer alert, batteries for Ambush’s eye lights are not included. However, a small slip of paper on the inside flap describes how to install them once you rustle some up.

THE BREAKDOWN

My first impression, Ambush is one nice looking robot. There are so many gears and tubes running all over this guy, it’s a bit of a marvel that 3A pulled this off so elegantly. He looks, needless to say, very accurate to the film. If he’s not made up of 100% all new parts, he’s at least scoring in the high 90’s. Scanning him over, I can’t seem to find anything that 3A reused from their previous robots. I’m not seeing a Bertie, Bramble or Dropcloth anywhere amongst the detailed assets.

The overall build of Ambush is a mix of solid plastic and some slightly flexible shell-like pieces. On his back especially, there are strips of decorative parts that seem a little delicate, though they do have some give to them that keeps them from feeling overly brittle. Thankfully, they’re not really in areas where you’re likely to put much pressure when posing him.

There’s definitely a lot going on with various layers of highly detailed robo-parts overlapping other highly detailed robo-parts. Everything blends together cohesively and believably. One thing that really impressed me was that there are no visible ball-joints like those found on 3A’s own robot designs. Everything is structured to and succeeds in looking like a believable 1:whatever scale of the actual robot, if he were an actual robot.

Ambush is covered in the Triple Ds, dings, dents and damage. There’s the kind of stuff you’d expect from 3A in terms of scratches and overall molded-in weathering which are, of course, apparent. But what’s impressive is all the dented areas that look legitimately torn up. Beyond his signature dented “snarled” lip, there are various edges of the sculpt that are crinkled and sport believable battle damage appropriate for the not-so-successful fighting robot that Ambush is supposed to be. The asymmetry of the damage also adds significantly to his realism. Take all that and combine it with the paint work and it’s pretty difficult to tell if what you’re looking at is plastic or an actual metal robot.

Speaking of paint work…

The paint application on Ambush is next to none. It’s hands down one of, if not the, best paint work I’ve seen on a 3A robot. I’m not exaggerating. You can tell a lot of time and care went into the detailing. Rust looks good and crusty while stripped away bits of paint show shiny steel underneath. The only parts that do not share the same impressive application are the tiny pistons that support Ambush’s articulation. This was probably a good call to ensure that as stuff moved around, it didn’t become funked up over time. I do wish that 3A went with actual metal rods here instead of the clean plastic ones as I think it’d look better overall, but what’s here works well.

So he’s a marvel to look at but how does he dance?

Well, from a technical standpoint, he’s amazing. For example, when you twist his wrists, 4 little pistons rotate, expanding and contracting with the motion. Similar gears are at work at almost every articulation point and it just looks fantastic. The thing about Ambush is that it isn’t just how he moves, it’s how his various parts work together and how they look when he moves. He’s a plastic machine of independently moving parts working together. It’s a joy to see.

The Good: Ambush has a really solid range of motion in his shoulders, elbows and wrists. I didn’t figure it out until near the end of our shoot that his wrists not only turn, but bend up and down. You can get most of the rock’m sock’m poses you’d want to out of him. He can get a fairly wide stance to help balance his upper body heft. His legs, particularly his knees, ankles and the balls of his feet, work really well to keep him from toppling over, as well as give you a few nice pose options. Some smaller articulated garnishes include his mouth and wee thumbs.

The Bad: The neck joint doesn’t hold a turn. It simply springs back to facing forward when you let go of it. You can move his head up and down as well as cock his head side to side where it stays as it should, but an unmanned left to right position isn’t possible. Despite the fancy neck pistons, I can’t figure out why 3A designed it that way since it appears so similar to the wrist joint in function.

The waist articulation feels a little more limited than I expected it to be. There’s a few sliding parts that overlap each other that gives a nice visual effect when he bends and twists, but I think they might hinder his movement some as well. It’s probably a trade-off. I just wish the extremes of his possible articulation were a little more.. extreme.

Lastly, the hip joints for Ambush are the tightest I’ve experienced from 3A. I held my breath every time I set him up for a shot. I’m not sure if the inherent tightness of the joint was purposeful or not, but thankfully, it looks like 3A used a heavier duty post to support the extra strain. No snapping sounds yet.

The Ugly: I have one last small issue with Ambush. In a way, it’s actually more of a compliment and a testament to how good this guy looks.

Thanks to how well 3A crafted all the excellent, intricate gears and details on Ambush’s body, it can be a little difficult to tell exactly what SHOULD and SHOULD NOT move. His knees, for example, look like they should be double jointed. Trust me, they are not. Due to the stiff joints 3A toys sometimes experience when you first get them, you tend to have to apply a good deal of pressure to knock them free. There are definitely areas on Ambush you might be tempted to apply some pressure to, going off appearances alone, when you most certainly shouldn’t. This, of course, could lead to needlessly breaking parts off your shiny new (and pricey) toy.

My suggestion would be for 3A to include in future releases of their more intricate figures, a small printed sheet that illustrates the various articulation points on the toy. This isn’t out of the question as I’ve seen several other toy manufacturers do that exact thing, so hopefully 3A will consider it.

For Ambush’s photo shoot we wanted to do something special. So my ever supportive wife suggested that we hike up to the “pill boxes” (two lookout posts leftover from WWII) that overlook the beautiful Hawaiian beach of Lanikai and the two offshore islands, the Mokes. I was a little nervous stuffing the big guy into my tiny backpack, but he made the journey just fine. It’s always fun doing location photo shoots and that morning was no exception. With so many details on him, photographing Ambush was a real treat. I do wish I had figured out before we set out for the shoot that there were no batteries pre-installed. There were a few points during the day where I know some menacing looking eye-lights would have been super cool.

THE FINAL WORD

Ambush isn’t going to change your mind about the movie Real Steel, but 3A may change your mind about Ambush.

They knocked it out of the park. He’s definitely one of those toys that you can see where the money went. From paint, to construction, to articulation, he’s really top notch. It’s a true achievement in terms of articulated robotic action figures. So much so, it’s what you’ll want to see in every 3A bot. Admittedly, I’ll probably find myself at least marginally disappointed by future 3A bot releases if they don’t have the same obvious attention to detail Ambush does. I understand corners have to be cut occasionally.. but now that I’ve seen what’s possible, it’s going to be very hard to go backwards.

So the big question is, should you buy 3A’s Real Steel Ambush? Well, to answer that, we have to clear up a few things first.

Do you like toy robots?
Do you like the movie Real Steel?
Regardless of how you feel about the movie Real Steel, do you think the robots themselves look really cool?

If you answered all 3 of the questions with “yes”.. then you probably already have Ambush on the way or you’re in the process of clicking the “buy button” somewhere.

If you answered question 1 as “no”.. then I’m really not sure why you’re reading this article and you are dismissed!

If you answered questions 1 and 2 as “yes”.. then don’t hesitate another second to shell out for Ambush.

If you answered 2 as “no” then see question 3.

If you answered 1 and 3 “yes”, then once again, I’d urge you to confidently hunt one down. I’m telling you, you’ll be very happy with your decision.

My gushing over the quality and attention to detail withstanding, you’ve probably already decide whether or not Ambush deserves a place on your shelf. I’m not here to try and change your mind about that. What I do hope I’ve managed to do is to shed some light on just how well 3A put this guy together. I want to put to rest any fears you may have had about whether or not they can deliver on the goods. Personally, thanks to this experience, I’m really looking forward to Atom being released. He’s easily my favorite from the film, and the prototype 3A teased at HK Venture already looks sick.

If you hated the film, and hated the robot designs, then there’s probably nothing for you here other than some amazingly shot photos (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). On the other hand, despite your feelings about the franchise itself, if you think Ambush is a really cool looking robot, then I know you’ll find a lot to enjoy by having him in your collection.

He’s positively one of the finest pieces 3A has put out to date…

that is, until Metal Gear Rex finally ships. 🙂

PROS:

An incredibly executed, impressively detailed giant robot
Just an astonishing amount of attention went into the sculpt, paint and the design of the joint articulation
Very accurate to the source material
One of the best looking/conceived products 3A has put out yet.

CONS:

The neck articulation doesn’t allow for left to right positions
Due to the high level of details that abound throughout the character, it’s a little tricky figuring out what moves and what doesn’t
The hip joints were/are incredibly tight and difficult to move, but this could be an isolated case
It’s a little thing, but it’d been nice if 3A included the wee batteries already installed so we could immediately experience the eye lights

A big thanks to Kim and Cody for getting this guy out to us! It was a pleasure. ~ knives

Whoa..

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Knives

So THIS is looking pretty cool. Over on ThreeA’s blog they just dropped this product spread of their up and coming Ambush action figure from the movie Real Steel. Check it!

Some really impressive looking piston/gear articulation effects going on with this guy. Big sucker too. I hope the price is right as I’m very tempted. I wonder if we’ll see any other characters down the road.