Catching up with Minimates

It's been a long time since I've bought any Minimates. In fact, it's been a pretty long time since I've bought any non-vinyl action figures. I'm guessing it's been about 2-3 years. But before that it, I was pretty much knee deep in block figures.

I prefer Kubricks (which I can't find) and Palz (which I miss terribly), but Minimates are kicking some serious square ass right now. The shelves at Toys R' Us were seriously stocked yesterday, and I saw a bunch of new(er) Minimates for the first time.



If you've been out of the loop like I have been... READ ON!


Calico Jack's Pirate Raiders is Diamond Select Toys new line of non-branded but somewhat recognizable characters. If Calico Jack wasn't so Fabio blond, and if Tom Brown wasn't so chesty, the kiddies might think these were new Pirates of the Caribbean toys. A mistake that Diamond Select Toys would love for you to make.

As you would expect the baddies are much cooler looking than any of the good guys. Old Dad The Cooper (weirdest name ever) looks way better than he sounds.

But I think all of these suffer the same issue that I find in most of my Minimates:

The sculpting on their clothing is way too soft!

I know these are very inexpensive, but it bugs me so much. I will definitely say this again later when we get to the Halo figures.

Here are the rest of the Pirate Raiders! There is an AWESOME Toys R' Us exclusive pirate ship that I need for my Captain Bitchin' custom playset.

As promised, I will now rant about the Halo Figures. 

I just think getting the Kubrick's first was what did it for me. The scale is a little bigger and the sculpts are much sharper, but the Minimates have been going really strong. The Minimates Warthog vehicle is the cutest thing ever, so I may give these a shot sometime. Anything is better than the Megablocks. I'll save that rant for another time.

The Ghostbusters lines have been going strong as well. I'm not too sure about the Sam Haim and Egyptian Ghost set though. Sometimes the custom molding gets a little out of control. If those were packaged each with a human shaped figure, I'd feel completely differently about it.

I was kind of shocked to see all of the video game related figures. I like the Uncharted ones a lot because it's almost like getting figures of regular people. Chloe Frazer's torso piece is really well done too. I'd prefer the paint to a soft sculpt any day.

I was shocked to see Resistance characters, but then even more shocked to see Jak and Daxter, and Ratchet and Clank. I'm not 100% familiar with the games (NES Fanboy) but I know the characters well enough o almost walk out with the Ratchet and Clank figures.