In a world full of big toys, Mega Construx is a smaller toy line that packs a lot of punch despite the size. Allowing for a broader array of vehicles and playsets, it’s a more space efficient way to play.
I got a set of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles MC figures a while ago and have been pretty tempted to start a collection of the Masters of the Universe line, but I’ve resisted the temptation so far. Despite my hesitation, they’re fun to fiddle with, so getting a chance to look over the Halo Master Chief set has been a pretty neat excursion back into the Mega Construx line.
The set presents all of the various Master Chief Armors that have spanned the Halo video games all in one box. It’s been a long time since I played the very first Halo game on a PC that could barely handle the graphics at the time, but I remember enjoying the game quite a bit. Since it’s been so long, I haven’t kept up with the entire storyline, but I know the basics: Master Chief, Mjolnir armor, an AI called Cortana and a whole lot of shooting.
Being an SDCC set the presentation is a part of the overall package, and this one in particular is pretty eye-catching. The outer packaging looks like the chest piece of the Master Chief armor. Once you slice away the tape, the outer sleeve slides off, and underneath you find the figures themselves. This set is presented in a very fun light-up display. There’s a separate microchip-styled activation piece that slides into a slot in the front that activates individual hidden spotlights that focuses on each of the separate armors from the various games, plus a separate light for an even smaller little Cortana. In an almost completely darkened room, the box end up being surprisingly bright, and it’s a fun way to display what is essentially a “hall of armors” type of situation.
Once you slide the figures out, you’re given some reference material for which weapon goes with which armor. You can mix and match any or all of them if you want, but for the purposes of this review I kept them each with their respective weapons.
As I said, the figures are very tiny, but the sculpting is surprisingly good on them. The armor detailing is across-the-board sharp, with strong details. The most surprising part is the paint. Alongside the requisite coloring of the armor itself, each armor features some very nice weathering detail, with some armors looking dirty and grimy like they’ve been through an actual battle and have burn marks, and other armors have some scraped metal and scoring like the paint job has been through a ton of battles. It all adds a heightened touch of realism that plays against the deceptive size of the figures.
The Mega Construx articulation scheme is pretty good for the size. You get a decent range of shoulder and hip motion, a ball jointed head, swivel/bend elbows, swivel wrists and a single jointed knee. It’s minimal, and the armored Halo figures are on the bulkier side but you can still get a pretty good amount of poses out of them, as long as you adjust your expectations. The less bulky the armor the more you’re able to position the arms so they can handle their weapons more naturally.
The C-clamps hands are universally-sized, so all the weapons are interchangeable. I’d imagine this is the same across any of the lines, so you can give one brand’s weapons to another in case you wanted Master Chief to invade Eternia and steal the Power Sword or something. The weapons all have a larger grip for the hands to grab onto, but once they’re in there they aren’t falling off no matter how much you shake them.
Overall this is a fun set of figures for anybody who’s both a Halo fan and a Mega Construx fan. There are upcoming sets that have some of the halo vehicles like the Warthog so I’d imagine those will add even more play value to the included figures. The size of these figures always reminds me of figures like MUSCLE or Battle Beasts that I had when I was a kid, except with a lot more posing options.
*Thanks to the Mega Construx team at Mattel for providing this for review!
