Triple R- Halo Mega Bloks Wireless Attack Mantis

Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Triple R-Rambo's Rambling Reviews, and today we are taking a look at the Halo Mega Bloks set number 97450, UNSC Wireless Attack Mantis. Now let's take a look at the stats.

Name: Halo Mega Bloks UNSC Wireless Attack Mantis
Maker: Mega Bloks
Parts: 120
Price: 59.99 USD
Figures: One Master Chief with assault rifle
Year:2014
Availability: Limited, some retailers still carry it such as Walmart who have it on their website, while online it is readily available at sites such as Amazon and Ebay.


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Part One, First Impressions.

   The Mantis, also known as the HRUNTING/YGGDRASIL Mark IX Armor Defense System is a mech that first appeared in Halo 4, with the UNSC's boom in technology after the Human Covenant War.
The Mantis is a large and powerful  vehicle, armed with 1 M655 Heavy Machine Gun/Anti-Matériel and 1 M5920 Surface-to-Ground Missile Launcher/Anti-Matérial, has a pilot of one,(Halo Nation) and has the ability to use it's massive legs to stomp the ground, crushing anything underneath it.

    This is the second Mantis produced by Mega Bloks (The original green variant is seen here), with less than stellar results. See, the main gimmick with this thing is that it is remote controlled, similar to the many trains produced by Lego.
For this version of the Mantis, Halo Mega Bloks chose to massively scale up the vehicle, and when compared with the other version, the size contrast is clear. This is even evident with the packaging, the box is over sized to the max. There are many examples of "box bloat"(A term used to describe unused space in packaging). In addition, the Wireless Attack Mantis comes with another version of the famous Master Chief himself, who we will be looking at first.
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Part Two, The Master Chief

    The Wireless Attack Mantis comes with yet another version of the Master Chief, this being the Mark Six armor featured in the game Halo 4. He is molded in a dark, metallic green that really looks rather nice on this figure, as well as gold for his visor, offering a nice contrast. As being one of the newest
Mega Blok figures, he has much more poseability than his predecessors. Arm rotation, numerous joints on his arms and legs makes for a really good figure in his size. In addition, he is also compatible with the Interchangeable Armor system, meaning that most of his armor can be removed and placed on other figures, allowing for numerous customizable options. He also is armed with his classic Assault Rifle. It is molded in black, with no paint detailing.
The figure, while nice, should not be used to justify buying this set.

Let's move on to the Mantis itself.
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Part Three, The "Build"

    For the price point of around $60 USD, the build is straight up pathetic. While it is given that the model has to incorporate a gimmick, this is just sad. The build mainly consists of attaching the feet to the legs, attaching the legs, connecting the cockpit hatch, and adding detail. It should be noted that most of the unit is pre-assembled, with the "head" and "arms" being one piece, as well as the legs
being solid pieces as well. I feel that something else should have been included, possibly a command console, a turret, something else to build. It is in my opinion that Lego beats Mega Bloks in the concept, while the RC portions of the Lego Trains are a key portion of the build, the Trains themselves are built around them, so there still is a building experience, while here, it is overly simplified.
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Part Four, The completed model.

    Ok, so from the get go, there are several issues with the main build. The first complaint I have is the color scheme. The first Mantis was molded in the standard UNSC green, and it rocks those colors well. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why they went with the grey/arctic white for this thing. The green allows the model to be displayed in many environments, while this grey color, in anything other then snow, screams
SHOOT ME PLEASE! Also, the contrast in having multiple Mantises is just..wrong.

    Second issue that I touched on is the size. While technically a little bit more accurate, the contrast with other UNSC vehicles is too extreme for the model's good. For example, the other Mantis is very well to scale with ships like the Pelican Dropship, while this sticks out like a sore thumb. In addition, the model is EXTREMELY top heavy, so care must be taken when adjusting what limited movement the legs can accomplish. 


    Third, the posing options on this thing is a absolute joke. It would seem that Mega Bloks cannot get the Mantis right in this department. While dare I say the previous one was TOO poseable, this thing barely does anything. The legs can rotate 180 degrees up and down, and spread out side to side to do a split. The feet can also ratchet a few positions, nothing to write home about. In addition, there are several small flaps that can be adjusted all over the model, and the cockpit hatch opens to place one figure inside. Finally, there is decent printed detailing all over the model, with one of the largest being the UNSC eagle located under the cockpit. Overall for a vehicle that moves almost organically in universe, this model is very static.


Now, let's move on to the major selling point of this thing, the RC battery powered motion.
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Part Five, The gimmick

    Well, this is the portion of the review that most people where probably waiting for, as well as where the model get it's name. To begin with, this thing gave me trouble from the get go. Upon placing the required five triple A batteries inside both the scaled down  Xbox One controller and Mantis itself, the model refused to function.(Note that I tested the batteries before I put them in, all of them worked fine.) After several more swaps,
I begrudgingly went out and purchased new batteries, and after about ten more minutes of fiddling with it, the model  finally responded.

    Now the model has several gimmicks, the first of which is by pushing the large, silver panel on the frond of the Mantis, it activates a sound, as well as flashing it's lights. This moves the model into standby mode. Using the controller, the mantis's head moves from left to right by pressing the desired directions on the plus shaped area.

    This is where the first set of problem occurs. First, if the button for either direction left and right is pressed too hard for too long, the head moves too fast, the the head hits the end of it's movement arc, and starts grinding it's internal gears together making a clicking sound. The head movement causes another problem. If the model is resting on a smooth surface, like a table/counter/floor, the force of the head movement causes the model itself to move
forward to a visible degree, where it could fall if on a shelf if the movement was activated too much. The up and down movement works fine, with the Mantis raising it's head up and down do a fairly nice degree.

    The next major area of movements is the Heavy Machine Gun. Arguably for me the most entertaining feature of the Mantis that works. It is activated by pressing the bottom green button on the cluster of buttons on the controller. Holding the button activates several things, a machine gun noise, a recoil affect the gun itself, and a circle of lights in sync with the noise. This feature is pretty decently realistic, as well as cool looking. In addition, pressing the button once activated a sort of blast sound, similar to the in game noise of the shotgun. 

    The second major feature is activated by pressing the blue button. When the button is pressed, there is a power up sound and two very nicely and well lit headlights are activated, and let me tell you, these actually look pretty decent in a darkened room. By pressing the button a second time, there is a additional power down sound, and the lights go off.

    The third feature is activated by pressing the yellow button. With a press of this button, the headlights as well as a little portion on the front of the Mantis light up and flash, and is accompanied by the sound of the Mantis performing it's signature stomp attack(Note no motion occurs here, only sounds and lights). A fairly decent and accurate feature, though nothing home to write home about. 

    The last feature is activated by pressing the red button, and here another problem occurs on my mantis. This button controls the rockets located on the right arm, and in theory, with one press of the button, one rocked launches with a accompanying sound with a reload sound plays when the last of the five rockets is ejected, or alternatively, holding down the button will launch all five in succession. This is not the case on mine. Only three of my missiles will launch at a given time, regardless of how many times I press the button, with two missiles remaining in their tubes. They are getting stuck somehow, and figuring out the source would require opening the arm up to see inside, which given the somewhat fragile nature of these electronics, I could loose the function for the entire arm all together. It really takes some of the charm away from one of the major gimmicks to this set.
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Part Six, Final thoughts and grade

    Overall, I am extremely hesitant to recommend this set for several reasons. These include: the price point is way too high for this set,  the lack of a actual build, average gimmicks, size/color issues, and broken electronics that would require internal maintenance to fix or having to deal with the newly revamped Mega Bloks Customer Service to attempt to remedy. Plus, if anything were to happen to the gimmicks and were to say, not function anymore, the set looses display value, seeing that the model itself is kinda ugly to look at, with it's obviously firing missiles and almost clear machine gun. I would really only go after this set if you really like the Mantis itself, or are a collector and trying to complete your collection by just having this set. 

  So my final verdict is to stay away from this thing unless you have a reason to have it, or it is on massive clearance. 
Overall rating: 2/5