Mattel Halo Figures (Overview)

Posted in Action Figure Chatter

Was curious about these figs so I grabbed some on sale. Got these two and two different aliens, one which came with a vehicle. I won't pretend I know who any of these characters are, I just like sci-fi stuff.



They stand a little over 6 inches tall, and if they had an unhelmeted head I'm sure it would be 6 inches exactly. The red one (Helioskrill Armor) is like 2mm taller with the foot armor on. They're mostly the same figure with a few differences.

I like what I see, the articulation we've come to expect from $20 figures is all there. The yellow one (Fotus Armor, TRU exclusive) is from Wave 2 of this series, and they made the foot and armor one piece so it looks better and we don't have to deal with that clunky foot armor from the first wave. The armor bits are made of plastic that's rigid enough to take sharp detail but flexible enough to warp without breaking. The chest armors are made of softer plastic so they can stay as one piece and still be removable without damaging the figure.

I read some complaints about the armor looking like "cheap" plastic. I wouldn't say they look as bad as Bandai figures for example, but the effect is similar to when LEGO switched to using a new factory to produce their pieces and they came out slightly less opaque than everyone was used to. A little more paint would be welcome, but then again I don't want it glopped on there, obscuring detail like some of the paint I see on there right now.

The hands are also soft to grip the guns and some of their oversized grips. The laser sword things in particular look way too big.

The heads pop off with a little force, so swapping heads is as easy as swapping armor and hands.

It's interesting that the thighs and shins are hard plastic halves, like the torso. Mattel's, uh, "joint engineer" took advantage of the body's highly detailed techy sculpt to try some funky new shapes for the joints. I like the result, especially because there are no visible peg holes. Well, there are peg holes all over the body to plug in the armor bits, so I guess that's ironic in a way.

Anyway, give these figures a look, the aliens are particularly cool.

Also, sorry if this isn't as in-depth as my old reviews were, video reviews killed the...well, everything I used to write about lol.