Day 265

Day 265 September 22^nd

Review of HALO M12 FAV “Arctic Warthog” and exclusive white Spartan Mark VI minimate

            Venturing into the awesome vehicle side of minimates I will take a look at the comic shop/specialty exclusive Arctic Warthog from the HALO video game line.  I have not played any of the HALO games and nor am I versed in the universe of HALO at all.  I don’t collect the minimate line outside of a few bits and pieces that I think look cool.  That being said I do buy the vehicles because minimate scale vehicles are awesome no matter what the property is that they belong too!

Packaging – The packaging on the minimate vehicles has got to be some of the biggest packages for minimates yet.  It is a huge blister card and frankly I am surprised it even stays on the card!  That being said I love it because it really gives you a great look at the vehicle from all sides!  As a consumer it is nice to be able to see clearly what it is your buying and a casual fan or new to minimates buyer or even non minimate fans might be enticed by getting a really good look at the product.  The write up on the back does a great job on filling me in on what this vehicle is all about since I wouldn’t know otherwise!  Inside the package the vehicle and the minimate are secured to the inner plastic tray with those loathsome twist ties, but at least the one for the vehicle only hook around the wheels and not go through the body like some other vehicle releases have.

M12 FAV “Arctic Warthog” – Basically the same as the other warthogs already released I did notice one change when I set it up beside one of mine other ones.  The place for the feet to go in front of the seats seams to be extended giving a bit more room there which is a great idea in my books!  The colour scheme is pretty obvious given the arctic title; it has a white main body with black and grey accenting.  There is great detail put into the windshield to look more frosty and even the tires and the under carriage look like they have been driving around in the snowy terrain.  The light anti-aircraft gun on the back looks good, is easy for a minimate to hold the handles and rotates nice and freely around.  The wheels roll smoothly and the vehicle is sturdy enough for some moderately rough play.

White Spartan Mark VI – The one main complaint heard around the HALO line is the large number of paint colour variants of the Spartan.  While this is somewhat the main playable character on the games and from what I can see is variable in a myriad of colours I can understand DST getting as much mileage out of the molds as possible.  The sheer amount of sculpted armour pieces on this minimate is astounding!  Even though I don’t collect them I can be impressed with how the minimate looks and how well they did translating the armour to this scale.  As with most of the Spartans, I do believe all; but I have not looked too closely through the mighty Minimate Database (http://www.minimatedatabase.com/default.php) to be 100% sure, have come with the MA5 assault rifle so does this one and it looks pretty good at this scale as well.  The head under the helmet is plain black which means not much to me since I don’t know if they should have faces under there for sure or not and under the chest armour you can see some more armour detailing printed right onto the torso block.  All in all for a minimate that is for a property I do not care for this is a nice looking minimate.

Overall I am happy with this vehicle.  Yes it is a repaint of the previous one but given that I live in a snowy climate a good portion of the year I cannot wait to get this outside in the snow banks this winter for some fun photos!!  I give this a solid 4.5 out of 5 and will likely get more of them if I come across them, especially with the arctic ops M.A.X. minimates in the works!