G.I. Joe Desert Patrol Squad

Page 2

Toy name: G.I. Joe Desert Patrol Squad
Assortment: N/A
Price: MSRP $19.99
Availability: October, 2004- Toys "R" Us Exclusive

So far, so...what? Not-so-good? Yeah, I guess that would cover it. I'm pretty underwhelmed by what I've seen of the Desert set to this point. It seems haphazard in design, concept, and execution, which is definitely not a good combination!

However, there are a couple more bright spots, or somewhat bright spots in this set...so let's continue on.

Now I did say there were more bright spots, right? Tunnel Rat is a toss up as far as that goes...he's not bad, but I'm not real wild about the Tunnel Rat mold, and I've seen enough of it for a little while.

I like the Tunnel Rat character...he's got some great personallity, a cool specialty, and has some terrific potential. That being said, I wasn't really crazy about the '87 mold, quite honestly...and well, I haven't really liked any mold since then either. :/ It's not a bad mold, just not real exciting. A basic shortsleeved shirt, bell bottom pants...it's nice, just not fantastic.

The original Tunnel Rat mold does have a pretty decent military look to him. His shortsleeved army shirt and gunbelt really look cool, and I like how he meshes with the Gung Ho figure. His torso sculpt is nicely busy (but not too busy) with some well-sculpted wrinkles, the aforementioned gunbelt, as well as a great grenade and holster with pistol.

All of these items are very nicely detailed, and add a LOT to the figure...the other small additions like the bandana around his neck and the straps (complete with shoulder pad on the left shoulder) all look very nice, and are translated pretty well here...but there isn't anything here that I haven't seen before...too many times before, when it comes to Tunnel Rat.

And honestly, the coolness kind of ends once you get to his lower half. The ankle-length pants and shoes just don't really work for me...they never really have, but especially not as desert camouflage. I had the same issue with the Night Force figure, and it holds true here. These pants just do not look right in a camo pattern.

The rest of the figure's paint apps aren't too bad, and as I said, he mixes with Gung Ho pretty nicely. The off green/gray of his shirt looks okay, and the trim of the straps and such works well. The red color on the bandana adds some nice flair to the figure that isn't really evident in any of the other figures in this set. The combination of this, the machine gun belt, and the camo pants really makes this figure mix it with Gung Ho very well.

Color pallets are consistent throughout all of these figures, which is hit or miss. Some guys look good in the colors chosen (like T-Rat and Gung Ho) but some look pretty dumb (like Dusty and Ambush). Part of it might be a long-sleeve/short-sleeve type of thing, I'm not sure, but what works for some of these figures definitely does not work for others, which doesn't make for a very cohesive set.

Now we're getting somewhere...

Well, kind of, any way.

I was wondering how long into the review it would take before we finally got a figure that we haven't seen within the last few years. With the last couple of exclusive sets, maybe we were spoiled, but we got some surprise molds that didn't get much exposure. We had Flak-Viper, Scrap Iron, and to a lesser extent Night Creeper in the Urban Set...Barricade, Charbroil, Roadblock and Mutt in the Anti-Venom set...and the Ninja set is giving us the '84 Storm Shadow and '88 Storm Shadow molds, which haven't been in wide release real recently. So I figured maybe chances were good that some of these figures would be a pleasent surprise.

Well, not really...besides Stalker's head, this figure is the only real new mold figure that we haven't seen since 2000. Pretty much all of these others were pulled from the Real American Hero Collection pool, which is okay, I guess, but I just hope Hasbro isn't running out. Personally, I'm pretty psyched to see this version of Snake Eyes in some form, although I can think of other forms I would prefer besides this one.

I say with relative confidence that this version of Snake Eyes is one of the more underrated versions of him out there. It's a great, GREAT figure. His skin tight mask, goggles and mouthpiece are extremely reminiscent of the '82 version...his flak vest/web gear and combination of military and oriental styling is expressed to near-perfection. Like Ambush and Dusty, he has a generous helping of some quilted material which looks great and ties him in pretty nicely to those figures in the set.

However, he does suffer somewhat from being shoe-horned into this desert set...especially since this particular set is somewhat haphazardly put together.

The colors from the waist up are fantastic. You really cannot go wrong with black and gray when it comes to Snake Eyes, and they use some nicely different shades of the colors to express the different materials evident. It works well. I love the green tint to his goggles as well...really makes them shine as "Night Vision" type gear with that cool shade they use.

However, like so many other figures in this set, as cool as the desert camo is, it just doesn't look like it belongs on the legs it's painted on. Snake Eyes is meant to be wearing some sort of skin-tight commando outfit in this mold, and it just does not look right in chocolate chip. It's kind of a shame, since Hasbro does do a great job with the applications of this pattern, however on pretty much all of these figures, it either doesn't mesh with the rest of the character, or it's painted on material that just does not look right. As such, none of the figures are exceptionally successful, some are just sort of okay.

This version of Snake Eyes falls in the pretty cool, but not great category. I'm quite pleased to see this mold surfacing, and really hope Hasbro can find some other ways to make it work...in this case, it just doesn't do what it's supposed to do and ends up a little flat. This is pretty much the underlying theme of this entire set, unfortunately.

So is there anything about this set with some sort of merit? Any sort of redeeming quality? Anything to make it worth $20.00?

Well, let me say right up front...I don't think this set is worth $20.00. There are a few fugly figures in here, a couple okay ones, and only one figure that I would consider completely usable. That figure is this one, but even this one has it's drawbacks.

First of all, this figure uses the ever-popular '92 Duke mold that a few figures were using during the RAHC days. A lot of people didn't like this...personally, I didn't mind, because I really, really love that mold.

The armored flakvest has an awesome material look to it...combined with those twin vertical straps, loaded with gear, the torso looks exceptionally functional as well as downright cool. The grenade rounds, other little gadgets, along with the chest holster and pistol are terrific!

One problem I do have is the legs...they look very cool, but always seem a little tight and gimpy...just not really playable. I'm not sure what makes them this way, but they are, and that detracts slightly from the overall figure, whichever figure it may be.

In this case, the figure is Stalker, and this mold combined with the head from the '89 version looks really, really damn cool. I don't even mind the desert theme so much, especially since in this case, they actually camoed the whole figure! The chocolate chip pattern looks great from head to toe here and blends quite nicely with the light gray straps and belts throughout.

Just the right touches of silver on the buckles, grenades and other little trim all work great, although I'm not sure what Hasbro was trying to accomplish with those arm bands that are actually supposed to be sleeves. They look pretty weird.

Unfortunately, I guess the Desert Patrol Squad wouldn't be the Desert Patrol Squad if they had a figure that was perfect...so they decided not to paint Stalker's moustache. :/ This is an annoyance, but only an annoyance, since a quick brush of black on a toothpick will take care of this problem. Still, it seems like such a silly little thing to be missed, yet it gets missed.

I still can't quite fathom how a set like this ends up on the pegs next to a set like the Clan of the Ninja set, which is pretty fantastic. It just looks like Hasbro can't quite get their systems straight and ends up with some great sets and some lousy sets.

Again, it could be a lot worse...we could be getting substandard sets all over the place, and I suppose I should be very happy that we are getting a number of quality items, which we definitely are. Part of me is slightly nervous that the big "H" may be running out of classic molds...this really scares me, when I consider the future of the TRU exclusives as well as the future of the comic packs. Perhaps I'm too alarmed...perhaps this isn't even an issue, but it does make me nervous.

When it comes to this set, it just almost seems half-finished. I do realize that Hasbro has a budget to allow for, and it might not have room for advanced paint apps throughout the entire figure. That's fine...I just wish there was some why to meet things halfway and end up a little more successful than we are here. I do applaud them for their attempts at this advanced camouflage pattern...the application does work very well...I just wish we could get some better over all execution and end up with some more complete and usable figures.

I really can't find myself recommending much about this set, to be completely honest. The paint apps are choppy...the molds are either overused or mis-matched...heck, even the accessory compliment is shoddy. There is only one real figure in the set I'd strongly consider using, and a second one (Snake Eyes) who is really interesting. The others all seem slapped together and rushed to market. One redeeming quality is how the figures all look together. Setup as a team, they really do kind of look like a nice cohesive unit on the battlefield...it just starts to fall apart when you look at each figure on their own qualities.

I'm hoping this is just a slight downturn and maybe 2005 will bring us some new and exciting TRU six-packs, renewing my faith in them and what they represent.

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