Built To Rule - Venom Striker
The only thing more irritating than the fact that Hasbro has such a hard time making the perfect new sculpt G.I. Joe figure is that the one time they've come closest to it, it was in a Built To Rule set, and thus, had obnoxious pegs on his arms and legs.
Yes, to this day I still maintain that one of the single greatest new sculpt G.I. Joe figures to ever be released was the fantastic Built To Rule Firefly that came out with the Sand Snake lo those many, many months ago. From his tight-fitting stocking mask, to his awesome layered body armor, right down to the brick of plastic explosives on this left leg, it was a fabulous update to everyone's favorite sabotour. Not only that, but his proportions were perfect, his design asthetics were spot on...besides those stinking BTR knobs, I could not think of a single bad thing to say.
Well, the figure is still just as successful now, but believe it or not, is made even cooler with this release, in my opinion.
First of all, the Venom Striker vehicle here is miles beyond what the Sand Snake was. Basically the Sand Snake appeared to be a desert based "dragster" of a sort, with a big, bulky cockpit, and slim, sloped front end, designed for speed and not much else. The result left me a little flat.
The Venom Striker, on the other hand, comes out to be a pretty impressive four-wheeled monster, with a nice solid body style, some great, huge tires, and a lot of offensive weaponry...pretty much everything you need for a dangerous COBRA vehicle. But let's break it down a little bit more.
Now this is probably about my speed when it comes to building blocks...something not too big, but not too small...it takes me 10-15 minutes to slap it together, and overall assembly was pretty straight forward and easy. I've never been a big Lego person, and I wasn't as a kid either, so these things don't really come naturally to me. When the vehicle is small and easy to build, that earns it some nice review points! ;)
But, as I've said in other BTR reviews, in the first series, Hasbro seemed to be struggling somewhat with the line between building blocks and fun toys...their focus seemed to be more on the block aspect and not enough on the final product. Well, this second series seems to walk that line pretty perfectly, and it's a shame that Built To Rule petered out right as it seemed they were hitting their stride. Of course I won't complain too much, because I can always hope that the geniuses who sculpt figures for BTR might now be working for Hasbro's main line, which would only mean good things to me.
Anyway...on to the Venom Striker:
As I said the vehicle itself is a nice size...it's big and beefy but not TOO huge, and it fits Firefly very well. The bumpers and armored surface blocks are all used very well, giving you an authentic looking ATV with some accurate trim and interesting details. With a medium sized body, wide and somewhat long, the vehicle immediately has a solid feel to it. Even though as an ATV it probably has little to no armor, it still retains a sense of toughness, whether it's from the nicely angled wheel wells, the front grill, or that great looking rack system on the front, which just so happens to carry a quartet of mini-missiles.
The tires themselves are large and solid, which gives the Venom Striker even more substance, and you can immediately imagine this thing pounding through the forest, over rocks, through water and pretty much anything that gets in it's way. I like how they've done the seat and control system here, too, it's way more effective than some of the other vehicles, which just have empty cavities for figures to float around in. Ultimately, Firefly sits on the seat pretty nicely, and can grasp right onto the steering controls, and it fits in pretty well.
But a COBRA vehicle isn't a COBRA vehicle without some offensive capabilities. This thing does have those four rockets I mentioned earlier, but also has a most impressive right side-mounted missile launching system which just looks frightening. I shudder to think what the recoil might do as your rolling along through the forest, but it's a very nasty looking weapon anyway. So yeah...as far as BTR vehicles go, the Venom Striker is pretty neat. Nothing mind-blowing, but it's a nice little ATV, and definitely better than the Sand Snake...and as for the figure?
Well, come on. It's the BTR Firefly! The figure flippin' ROCKS. In fact, as much as I didn't think it was possible, I think I like this figure more than I like the previous version!
It's no secret that I love my figures to have some color to them...and as cool as that previous Firefly was, he was pretty much just gray and...well...more gray. While most people love that look on Firefly, and it does suit him, I've always loved some more splashes of color here and there on my figures, BTR or not. This version of Firefly covers all bases.
He has that amazing sculpt that we all know about already, with the fantastic head mold, the too cool patterned chest armor, and all of those incredible details that go with it. But now instead of a light gray, Firefly is a deep, dark, dull gray which is a rich, terrific color tone that brings some great life to the mold, but still keeps him rolling as Firefly. And while that shade of gray would be potentially cool enough, Hasbro went and gave him some deep almost blood-red trimming on the body armor, shinpads, and forearm guards. This dark red is a fantastic color! It adds some great touches of detail, yet is still dark enough to work on a covert saboteur, and it really just adds that extra something that makes me love this figure all the more.
And thankfully, this vehicle doesn't have a rediculous second mode...actually, it barely has a second mode at all. :/
Essentially it's just a somewhat modified ATV, and pretty much every modification made sucks worse than the original, so it's barely worth talking about. ;)
The huge monstrous rocket launcher is moved to the front, and the small missiles are dumped to the rear. The seat and controls are both gone, so I have no idea how Firefly is supposed to drive this thing. Overall design wise, it's pretty darn similar to the original mode, so I really have no idea how Hasbro considers this a valid alternate configuration, but it's in the manual, so I'm showing it to you. ;) I personally wouldn't waste the ten minutes converting it, though, it's fine the way it is in mode one!
Altogether, this set is an improvement on the Sand Snake in pretty much every way humanly possible. The vehicle itself is a lot cooler, the figure maintains all of the great points of the original, with more interesting colors to boot, and I'm pretty sure the price tag on this version is about four bucks cheaper. All in all, I think the Venom Striker is a great addition to the second series of BTR vehicles, and I can pretty confidently recommend it, especially for the price (as long as you find it in stores, and don't drop $20+ on eBay).
It's a nice, solid, medium-sized vehicle, and while I'm not sure it suits Firefly all that well, the colors all fit with him, and it ends up being a pretty nice package.
