Dave's Resaurus Rant: Quake II: Tank Sigh...it broke before I could even review it. Kinda takes a bit of the excitement off things. CAPSULE: Huge toy, good poseability, some nifty gimmicks and it's only $6. Does have some problems with standing up on its own, so don't stand it near any ledges, like I did. Oops. Strongly recommended, even if you don't know a Strogg from a Strugg. $5.99 at Target RANT: When I first saw this at Mid-Ohio Con, I asked if it was a double size prototype or mockup for display. It wasn't. 8" (20cm) tall at the head, add another inch or so for the shoulder-mounted missile launcher. When I saw this in the store today for six bucks, my first thought after "mine!" was "Resaurus is gonna get a horse's head in its bed for this." I mean, really...proving you can sell a huge toy for only six dollars? For shame. AGAIN! And make no mistake, Tank is huge. The store was out of Marines already, so I can't say how much he towers over the humans, but I did find my arm getting tired from hauling it around the store. Turns out Tank tips the scales at 596 grams! Or for those of you without the metric system, one pound and five ounces. VERY heavy for an action figure, especially a six dollar one. Unlike a lot of huge figures, however, Tank is not a five-points-of- articulation brick. Hips, knees, ankles, shoulders, elbows, torso twist and neck...12 points of articulation, just on the figure! True to Resaurus form, they're all swivels and hinges (one elbow is a swivel while the other is a hinge, interestingly), but ball joints really wouldn't cut it in Tank's weight class. As it is, he's hard to keep standing...he does tip pretty slowly thanks to his high mass, but if you don't catch him in time...sigh. Fortunately, most of him is made from a more rubbery plastic, so he can absorb damage. Oh, and he has no actual hands, just weapon ports...but this isn't really a problem, IMO. All he needs is a helmet to be a total mecha. All this, and he also has some nice gimmicks. His ankles have shock absorbers which actually work, although he's not heavy enough to compress them all the way just by standing there. His left leg has a blast panel that comes away to show a bunch of gears which move when you bend his knee, pretty neat. Unfortunately, the panel is made from rather rubbery plastic, and it's tricky to get all the pegs into their holes without bending one away. Finally, the really nifty gimmick is the missile launcher, which is mounted with a belt or gear (I'm guessing belt) so that when you turn the figure's head, the launcher tracks the direction Tank is looking. Unfortunately, this mount is the single piece of really breakable plastic on the toy, and it snapped off the first time I failed to catch Tank and he fell to the floor. There's now a metal bit rattling around inside as well, and the inside half of the peg got pulled a little closer to the head, so I can't just glue it back on. Can't open up the torso either, it's glued. Oh well, I had fun with it before it broke, and (pause to pick up Tank from the floor again) if I really want an unbroken one, they're only $6, presuming I ever see one in the stores again. Another point on the missile launcher. It looks like they originally planned three separate missiles, as the mechanism is still there for all three. But the "10 and older" label must not have been enough legal hinder-covering, forcing them to make the too-short missiles somehow child safety compliant at the last minute. Binding them together in a block too large to swallow was probably the easiest/cheapest alternative. Unfortunately, with only one spring launching three missiles plus linkage, it only goes a few inches. The launch spring is inside the missile, by the way, in the same way the Mystic Knights Lugad's missile works. A side note to Transformers fans. Tank is the size of a combiner team, and big enough to take on Optimal Optimus. In fact, for the same price as OpOp, you could outfit a squad of Tanks. And now that it's already broken, I may just kitbash Tank into a fully mechanical form, covering up that icky face and so forth. Overall: If this were a $8-10 toy I'd still be generally pleased with it, but a bit more critical of its flaws. But for six dollars, it not only meets my criteria for a fun toy, it well exceeds them. Buy it on sight, just don't stand it near any long drops to hard floors. Dave Van Domelen, sending Tank over to beat up on the suddenly-very- small-looking Resaurus T.rex (Resaurus rex?)....