Cyberpunk’s Last Hoorah
Unknown Robocop toy line, 199X
Part man, part machine, and all cop, Robocop is an iconic figure in the cyberpunk genre. It’s a story of struggle for one's personal identity and integrity in the face of an increasingly impersonal and disposable world.
Background
The Robocop franchise has enjoyed sporadically great success, but typically fell to the wayside about as quickly as it appeared. This was certainly the case with this toy line that came out some time after the release of the third movie. There had been Robocop toys before, but they were more exaggerated as they were based off the cartoon television series rather than the live-action movies. While Robocop 3 was the lightest fare of the three theatrical movies, the darker tone was still represented in these action figures by means of their greater detail, greater realism, and higher quality materials.
The story of Robocop is that of Alex Murphy, an honest cop, who is killed in the line of duty. He’s then turned into a cyborg police officer, but stripped of his identity and elements of his humanity. Aside from the trilogy of movies, there have been several television series (including the aforementioned cartoon series) and a few straight-to-video films. A reboot is rumored to be in the works, but where the franchise has really survived is in the realm of comic books where its popularity has waxed and waned but never really fallen away. These toys are clearly meant to appeal to fans of the comics and the movies as much as the younger fans.
Appearance – 3 out of 5
The appearances of these toys are unremarkably good. They have a nice texture and definitely resemble the character, but there is nothing outstanding about any of them. The color schemes are good and simple, the accessories look the part, and the figure itself is a good representation of the character from the movies. Unfortunately, their appearance is a bit generic, which makes telling the different figures apart a little difficult.
Construction – 4 out of 5
While the toys aren’t anything to write home about appearance-wise, they are solidly made. Action figures typically aren’t the sturdiest of toys, but these prove to be the exception. A very high quality plastic was used and it gives the figures some heft, making them feel very solid. These toys are noticeably heavier than many of their peers, allowing the to stand up to the proverbial – and sometimes literal – beating that comes from frequent play.
One distinct characteristic of note is that the toys, having very simple sound effects, come with batteries. The batteries are generic watch batteries and the slot for them is closed with a screw. This is a godsend. You don’t have to worry about the port coming open during play and the batteries are easily replaced. This kind of forethought makes for a good toy.
Movement – 2 out of 5
If there’s anywhere that these toys fail, it’s in movement. The toys have four joints total – shoulders and hips. There are no elbow or knee joints. The shoulders and hip joints move along a single axis, making the figure almost incapable of taking any pose. Replicating movements or postures from the movies or the cartoons are pretty much out of the question.
It’s worth nothing that each figure can remove both forearms to allow the equipping of a gunpod accessory that comes with one of the figures. Unfortunately, there’s an obvious lack of versatility to this as there’s only one weapon that can be changed out and it’s only available with one figure. This makes this hand-removing feature more of an oddity than anything else.
Extras – 3 out of 5
Each action figure comes with Robocop’s signature gun (a modified Beretta) and a different set of accessories: a jet back and stabilizing arm guards, a recharging station, or a collection of several additional guns. Not only that, but each figure has a button on the central chest that activates a sound effect corresponding to the accessories (gunfire for the guns, a computer processing sound for the recharging station, and a take-off sound effect for the jetpack). The accessories are all completely interchangeable and it’s possible (read: extremely likely) that you would use all the accessories on just one Robocop action figure.
Since its pretty clear that the action figures are meant to be interchangeable in using the accessories, it’s a bit disappointing that the accessories weren’t better designed with each other in mind. For example, Robocop can’t stand in the recharging station while wearing the jetpack. That’s not a big deal and makes sense, but it would have been nice for the recharging station to have some kind of harness to hold the jetpack while Robocop’s recharging. Likewise, one of the action figures comes with four guns and it’d be nice if the recharging station had a place to hang those guns. This lack of compatibility is all that keeps this rating from bumping up to 4 out of 5.
Packaging – 2 out of 5
There was nothing special about the packaging for these toys. The back information was pretty much identical and the front cover was just about the same: a hand-drawn image of Robocop using whatever accessories came with the particular action figure pretty much made up the front. There wasn’t even a particularly good explanation of the character, the world, or the story.
Overall – 3 out of 5
These action figures are beautiful illustrations of getting some things very right and some things quite wrong. The construction value of this toy is clearly very high and the accessories are all rather nice. Unfortunately, since the accessories don’t work together and the toy is almost immobile it’s so stiff, there’s really only so much you can do with these.
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