Star Wars – Force Friday Toy’s: Elite Speeder Bike

Next up we have the Elite Speeder Bike with a special edition Storm Trooper and side arm. I have to say I think this is the coolest vehicle in the series. For a speeder bike this one has a lot of updates. “Reserved for the most experienced scouts and high-risk missions, these Elite Speeder Bikes have been upgraded with heavy blasters and powerful new engines.”

The Pros:

• (5) Blasters, (2)Heavy Blasters: mounted, (2) Medium Blasters: adjustable, (1) Light Blasters: adjustable
• A bedroll behind the seat(non removable but its so cool that its there!)
• Very detailed toy
• Unique Storm Trooper with bendable legs(at the knees) and arms are molded differently than the standard storm trooper
• Open the instrument panel to reveal the engine(maintenance time!)
• Awesome paint scheme: Gloss Black, Red-orange, greys and Silver and a painted instrument panel
• The Speeder also separates in the middle to continue the exploding theme for the vehicles

The Cons:

• The figure doesnt fit very well on the speeder, kind of a half standing pose
• Like all of this series of Storm troopers his legs dont move very far and you wont be able to sit (L  shape position)
• The figures hand doesn’t fit on the speeders handle controls (I think I got one hand to hold on but didnt want to push it because it might break a thumb off like the old days)

Ratings:

Rodney – 4.5 out of 5

Is it perfect? No it isnt, but over all I really like the design of this speeder and the look of the storm trooper. From a collectors stand point this will look awesome on a shelf with the storm trooper threatening some poor deluded alien.

My son – 4.5 out of 5

From his point of view he thinks its a cool speeder but was a bit annoyed at the trooper not fitting on the bike. It was fun watching him load a trooper on to the front of it like a stretcher. I think he wants a troop transport!

#forcefriday #forceawakens

Star Wars – Force Friday Toy’s: First order Special Forces Tie Fighter

 

For our second review we take a look at the 3.75 First order Tie Fighter w/ Pilot. We had the x-wing already so you have to have an enemy vehicle to fight with. This ship retails for $39.99 which I think is a reasonable price for a toy this size and it looks pretty good. So lets break it down:

The Pros:

• Very detailed vehicle with figure and room inside for a co pilot
• Front and rear view ports (rear gunner seat) – Plus you can look through the ship to get the pilots view point! My son loved that.
• Each wing can be launched off the ship via buttons on either side of the cockpit. (battle damage feature)
• (2) launch-able missiles from one button
• Very nice pilot figure with removable helmet and side arm

The Cons:

• Spring loaded connections for the wings are rather touchy, bump one or just having the fighter sitting on the floor a wing would fall off.

Time to tell you about our issues with the Tie Fighter, so far we have gone through 2 ships( returning the second one today).

1st Tie Fighter – Left wing would fall off the ship if you tapped the upper or lower edges of it and sometimes it would fall off as you are “flying” around. Now granted the release button for both wings are easy to accidentally hit do to there location on the bottom of the toy. This one clearly had a defect in the connection point. Also there is a movable antenna on top of the ship, on this one the plastic which the antenna snaps into was weak and broke.

2nd Tie Fighter –  On this one the wing connections appear to be working better than the first. Unfortunately the button that launches the missiles kept catching on something internally until the missiles wouldn’t fire at all.

Keeping fingers crossed that when I exchange this one today the new one will work properly. For those of you worried about the wings, I found that if you press the button to jettison the wings and reattach them a couple times they seem to hold to the ship a bit better.

Ratings

Rodney – 3 out of 5

I really want to love this Tie Fighter but it does have flaws, plus I dont like my toys to fall apart! But a new generation and new series of toys. I will admit I do like the idea of the “exploding Tie fighter”, I just wish they had designed the wing connections a bit better.

My son – 5 out of 5

“I love this one! Shooting the missiles is the best!” Once again he makes me realize that kids have the best perspective on toys. If they are fun to play with, it doesnt matter how much you spent on it or if a piece of plastic broke. Thats called battle damage! Just remember its a toy and if you buy it for your kids they will love playing with it as much as you did when you where a kid.

 

Update 9/5/2015: So I picked up the 3rd Tie Fighter and this time everything is working properly! The wings fit snug and dont feel like they will fall off if you bump them. The missile launcher works as well. I wish this was the one I had picked up first, I would have given it a 5 out of 5!  I know some of you arent as pick as me but I figure if you are going to spend $40 you should get your moneys worth.

Star Wars – Force Friday Toys: Poe’s X-wing

So the other day I thought to myself, “Self, you need an X-wing”. Well my mind wasnt wrong, I have never owned an x-wing from any release of the toy line. In fact the only ship I ever got was the Snow speeder from the Empire strikes back(I still own it and it works great!). After reading about all of the new toys I decided it was time to spend some money and I have a six year old boy who agreed with me completely. For a complete list of toys check out this link .

Part 1 – Poe’s X-wing Fighter w/ Poe Dameron

First up is the Box art which is amazing on all of the new toys, features a very cool painted battle scene, its very eye catching. The X-wing itself is very simple and has a nose cone and laser cannons that are designed to come off the craft if it takes “Damage” (i.e. the boy drops it or smashes into something).

The Pros:

• A very nice redesign of the classic X-wing with the new BB-8 astromech behind the pilot
• Cool new paint scheme, although having it look like the x-wings in the trailer would have made more sense.
• They use the same mechanism to open and close the x-foil wings as previous versions
• Poe Dameron comes with a removable helmet and side arm which fits nicely into a hip holster.
• It has a fire-able missile on the bottom of the fuselage – Good range!

The Cons:

• The X-wing has no sound effects
• It took us a while to get the canopy closed while Poe had his flight helmet on, but if you move his legs further down it will close. The figure fits very snug in the cockpit( i didnt mind but my son got mad a few times because he couldnt remove him from the x-wing.
• I wish the front landing pad was spring loaded like the old school snow speeder. This one has a simple pull down model.

Ratings:

Rodney – 3.5 out of 5

This is a solid fun toy, but it does have a few drawbacks from a 42 year old mans point of view. I would have like to see some electronic sounds, spring loaded front landing gear and a few more stickers for the body. At $49.99 you dont get much for the price, that being said, if you can get it for $40 buy it.

My son – 4 out of 5

He doesnt like the sculpt of Poe’s face “hes got an ugly face and the guns are all bent. They wont shoot straight!” But other than that he loves his X-wing!