Sunday, October 7, 2012

NECA Prometheus Engineer (Chair Suit & Pressure Suit) action figure review

The Aliens movie franchise has seen its ups and downs before but so far NECA's offerings have been nothing short of spectacular for the series. Here we take a look at the Prometheus Engineer action figures both in Pressure Suit and in Chair Suit (Space Jockey) forms. The packaging is classic NECA with a quick move bio on the back and some cool 'Weyland Corp' logos on it for homage to the company in the movies that sponsors everything.Out of the package the figure stand over eight inches tall!

Sculpting is fantastic for both figures. The lighter colored Pressure Suit Engineer is done in classic Geiger style, bio-mechanical-exo-skelenton-ish. There's amazing detail in the texture, ribbing, and ports all over the body. The headsculpt is quite accurate to the movie which is basically a bald Roman-esq nosed human. The lower waist is a softer pvc and hides the hip joints while not restricting the articulation.

Sculpt for the Chair Suit Engineer is super detailed with even more texture done in a raw earthen metal style. There's all sorts of segmented bones, scaling, and the headsculpt looks downright frightening. Both the upper and lower torso are covered in a flexible plastic. The snout of the layered snout of the helmet looks really nice and there's hoses running from the back, torso, and legs. The shoulder joints are so well hidden you can't even tell they are there.

Articulation is excellent and -every- joint is either a universal joint or ball joint, no v-cut hips or swivel joints here. You can get 90 deg of motion or better from the elbows/knees of the Pressure Suit and almost that of the Chair Suit. Both have great ball-jointed necks, waists, and ankles. Both figures can be put in a decent sitting position making me hope for a Space Jockey chair at some point, tho it would have to be pretty huge.

Paint work is exemplary for the figures. Pressure Suit has a great murky wash over the entire body that fades out near the hands and head. The eyes and face have painted detail that really makes the ivory plastic look great, almost like real bone. The eyes are especially life-like with a creepy stare. Chair Suit is primarily a black plastic with gunmetal and silver highlights. It's really well done and brings out the rough texture perfectly. NECA really hit the mark dead-on with these paint apps.

Unfortunately there are no accessories this time around. I would have liked to see a worm-snake-arm-hugger or maybe a canister of the ooze but we got two great looking figures and no problems with them. Their joints are very sturdy and most are very well hidden with the sculpt. Scale seems to be in 6" as the Engineers were quite a bit taller than the humans in the movie so these should work well with your current figure collection.

So what's the verdict on these figures? They're solid awesome toys and if you're a fan of the Aliens, Ridley Scott, or Geiger's designs, get them. For around $15 these are much larger, detailed, and exceptionally painted than the regular fare on the shelves. Our Sponsors Big Bad Toy Store and Past Generation Toys has them and on the pegs at Toys R Us.

3 comments:

BlueLobster1979 said...

These look just fantastic!

Unknown said...

Pretty nice looking set, but they'd feel out of place unless NECA continues the series with other characters.

John Mallamas said...

NECA is! They have a really big lineup, eight more characters from the movie. You can check them out here: http://www.figures.com/forums/news/16416-prometheus-trilobite-engineer-2-pack-update.html