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Mega-morph Ghost Rider

 

"The following is a guest review.  The review and photos do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Michael Crawford or Michael's Review of the Week, and are the opinion and work of the guest author."

Phil Foster steps up tonight with a review of the Ghost Rider Mega-morph - take it away, Phil!

I don’t know why but something strange happens when a new Marvel film is released – I get obsess. It happened with the Punisher and it happened with Spider-man. Something comes over me and I feel the need to buy as much merchandise as possible. So now I have numerous Punisher and Spider-man figures, comics and DVDs that I can only attribute to the excitement of seeing my favourite characters on the big screen.

The same thing is happening with Ghost Rider! I’ve always been a fan of Ghost Rider, so when I heard of the film I did a little jig in my room (not really but you get the idea). Trouble is, none of the film stuff has been released in Blighty yet, so I’m been reduced to picking up anything I could find. Tonight I’m reviewing the Ghost Rider mega-morph, which kinda gave me mixed feelings. On to the review!







Packaging - ***
Well first things first – it’s huge! Like twice the size of a normal figure box, which is fine seen as most of the room is taken up, so there’s not much wasted space. At first I thought it was a clamshell, but it isn’t. It’s a card/bubble combo with a cardboard banner across the top. Now you can remove the banner without tearing it, but you’ll have to do some damage getting into the box. Unfortunately there are a few twisties, but not enough to make you want to abandon the packaging before you’ve even opened it.

It’s labeled as transforming from ‘Ghost-bot’ into ‘street blazer’ so lets see how well that works out!

Sculpting - ***
Hmm I don’t know how to rate this section. It’s a Ghost Rider figure, but it’s a huge morphing robot, so it’s not like it has to be based on anything from the comics. I gave it *** because, although its a robot/humanoid thing, it does actually look like Ghost Rider. The skull head is designed very well and has an interesting look to it. The chest plate is again shaped like a skull and looks amazing, giving off a very ominous look to it. They’ve kept to the Ghost rider tradition by having spikes coming from its wrists and knees, and having two flames shooting up from two cannons, i guess, either side of his head. Overall it does look fairly impressive and is immediately recognizable as Ghost Rider.

Paint - ****
What little paint there is, is done very well. The flames are painted a mix of orange and red and, while they look obviously plastic, do capture the look well. The head is clean with no slop or bleed and the only other section I can see are the eyes on the chest skull, which are done very well indeed.

Articulation - ****
For a figure that morphs the articulation is absolutely excellent. I’m not sure about other figures in the series but it has articulation that is A) useful and B) doesn’t hurt the sculpt. I don’t know what some of the joints are called but he has: limited ball jointed shoulders, elbows, wrist, individual fingers on the right hand, his head swivels back and forth, leg joints that allow forward and back movement, swivel knee joints, a type of shin joint that’s need for the morph but allows the foot to go back and forward and finally the ‘boots’ can move to allow the wheels to roll when it’s in bike mode.

While most of that articulation is need to make the transformation to ‘street blazer’ it actually works really well while it’s in standard ‘Ghost Bot’ mode!

Accessories - **
Er, well he comes with a small comic book, a disk shooter and 6 disks, as well as a 2cm Ghost rider figure that ‘unlocks’ the ‘secret power’! Basically it’s like a little key, and it’s pathetically unnecessary! The little GR itself is fairly well done with cut arms and legs, and the paint is fairly well applied for something so small, but it’s honestly not needed.

The disk shooter is a good idea but the cable from the pump to the actual shooter is too stiff and keeps disconnecting, meaning that if you actually try and play with this toy, you’ll spend most of your time holding the cable in place.

The comic book again is a good idea but its part of a ‘megamorph’ story, meaning you have to collect all 6 to finish the story. If you only want one or two of the figures in the line it’s pretty rubbish!

Morphing Ability/Fun Factor - **
I’ve combined these two together because I assume part of the intended fun for this toy is in the transforming. 

Well it’s not fun, not in the slightest. In fact it’s downright infuriating. Sure you get instructions but if you don’t understand one of the pictures then you may as well be blind because nothing is obvious! When I finally got it transformed into ‘street blazer’ it didn’t look anything like the picture on the box did – it was all out of line and wouldn’t stand up. Needless to say it was much more fun posing it during ‘Bot’ mode, and I think that’ll be the way it’s staying too.

Value - ***
Here’s the real reason I bought it – I got it in a sale at ASDA, for £5 (about $8/9). If they’d still been at the usual price of £12.99 there’s no chance I would pick them up and you can take * ½ off this score. The infuriating transformation process is just not worth the effort, and the score is due to the exellent sculpt and paintwork, meaning that I can pose it in it’s non transformed pose and it will look good enough.

Things to Watch OUt For -
I can’t think of anything. Breakages perhaps, and loss of the disks would be my main concerns.

Overall - **1/2
I’m really disappointed with this, the box made the whole idea look so good. I’ve always been a fan of Transformers and now there was a line of Marvel figures that could morph into a character related vehicle. Unfortunately it just doesn’t add up to that much fun and will probably sit on my shelf for a while before I decide to give it another try!

SCORE RECAP:
Packaging - *** 
Sculpting - *** ½
Paint – ****
Articulation – ****
Accessories - ** 
Morphing Ability/Fun Factor - **
Value - ***
Overall - ** ½


Figure from the collection of Phil Foster.

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