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a-arkhamknight-blog · 6 years ago

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Chapters: 4/? Fandom: Trollhunters - Daniel Kraus & Guillermo del Toro, 3Below, Team Fortress 2 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Draal/Nomura (Tales of Arcadia), Jim Lake Jr./Claire Nuñez, Nomura (Tales of Arcadia)/Spy (Team Fortress 2), Scout & Spy (Team Fortress 2), Barbara Lake/Walter Strickler | Stricklander Characters: Jim Lake Jr. (Tales of Arcadia), Claire Nuñez, Toby Domzalski, Scout (Team Fortress 2), Soldier (Team Fortress 2), Pyro (Team Fortress 2), Heavy (Team Fortress 2), Demoman (Team Fortress 2), Engineer (Team Fortress 2), Medic (Team Fortress 2), Sniper (Team Fortress 2), Spy (Team Fortress 2), Administrator (Team Fortress 2), Merasmus (Team Fortress 2), Gray Mann, Robots - Character, Miss Pauling (Team Fortress 2), Nomura (Tales of Arcadia), Draal (Tales of Arcadia), Walter Strickler | Stricklander, Barbara Lake, NotEnrique (Tales of Arcadia), Bular (Tales of Arcadia), RED Team (Team Fortress 2), BLU Team (Team Fortress 2) Additional Tags: Mann vs. Machine, Investigations, Dad Spy, Scout is An Ass, Mercenaries, Other Additional Tags to Be Added Summary:

When the remaining Australium Cache has been discovered,the RED and BLU Team travel to the quiet and sleepy town of Arcadia,Oaks...

This is for the story I am writing in AO3′s headcanons about the TF2 Mercenaries going to Arcadia,Oaks for a simple mission which become a battle for the world as the Mercenaries discover the existence of Trolls and only one boy can save them from their impending doom.

-The Mercenaries live in a house next to Jim’s.

-The RED Scout is afraid of Bular.

-The Mercenaries met Blinky and Aaarrrgghh during Chapter 2.

-The RED Heavy kicked the crap out of Draal the Deadly.

-The RED Spy is head-over-heels for Zelda Nomura.

-The BLU Team has forged a temporary alliance with the RED Team,but are still unaware of the Administrator’s motives.

-The RED and BLU Scout hate Gnomes.

-The RED and BLU Team share the same house.

-The RED Team tried to babysit Enrique only to find out he’s a Changeling.

-The BLU Heavy has made a birthday cake for Jim and give him a give him a gift,a male red robin.

-The BLU Spy has been spying on the Museum ever since the beginning.

-Gray Mann and Bular joined forces to fight the Mercenaries and The Trollhunter.

-Draal is scared of the RED Heavy and calls him a ‘formidable opponent’.

-After the Demise of Bular,the Mercenaries got a job as teachers at Arcadia High School.

-The students are having a hard time with the Spy’s French Class.

-The Mercenaries held a grudge against Strickler after Something Rotten This Way Comes and the Mercenaries exiled him out of Arcadia,Oaks and threatened to give him a pummeling if he comes back.

-Nomura isn’t trapped in the Darklands,instead she defected to the Trollhunter’s side during the Battle of Killahead Bridge and stood up against Bular.

-Draal and Nomura rekindle their relationship.

-Claire and Toby held a grudge against Strickler too.

-Aaarrrgghh and The Heavy are good friends.

More headcanons coming your way

#TF2 #trollhunters #headcanon #fanfic

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pikkington · 6 years ago

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Con photos, part 5! This is the end of the ones that turned out decent enough to post. Shoutout to the Super Sailor Dora Milaje, Judy Jetson, Waluigette, Cammy, and sleepytime Soldier 76 I saw, your costumes were great but my pictures weren't. ^^;

If you recognize yourself in any of these and don't want the picture posted, please message me and I'll delete it ASAP.

(There are also captions.)

#lifequest #magfest #cosplay

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lumsel · 8 years ago

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TF2 is a cutting parody of Overwatch and I can prove it

And when I say parody, I don’t mean it as in one of those “Minecraft Parodies” you see on the youtubes where they switch some lyrics around and call it a day without really commenting on the source material, I mean it as in TF2 is a biting deconstruction of Overwatch and everything it represents. Now I’m sure you have all sorts of questions involving release dates and, I dunno, logic, but bear with me here for a moment because this shit runs deep:

Overwatch’s characters have a diverse range of origins and personalities, presented as the best of the best from all over the world. Artists, Innovators, Heroes, Overwatch lets you play as great people who fight for great causes. Granted, there’s a bit of some weird dissonance between how they act and how they play, we’ve all made jokes about how weirdly cheerful Mei is about killing people, but overall they’re just a bunch of lovable goofs. Hell, even the so-called bad guys are impossible to hate, because they just have so much personality baked into them.

TF2′s cast is comprised of foolish, incompetent mercenaries, who are explicitly not the best of the best but rather a bunch of idiots the Administrator got to fight her pointless battles without any motivations beyond the money they earn. They aren’t lovable; entertaining to be sure, but they aren’t exactly the kinds of folks you’d sit down and have a beer with. Examining them at an individual level reveals further criticisms:

The Soldier’s name is a clear reference to the Overwatch hero Soldier 76, and further comparisons can be made from there. Soldier 76 is a disgraced war vet who takes the world into his own hands, travelling the world to fight evils and save people. The Soldier amps it up to 11; a mentally ill civilian who becomes convinced he is fighting Nazis in a war that ended years ago, and is in actuality blowing up innocents. No one man can understand the complexities of worldly conflicts enough to actively fight for the “right side” without screwing everything up, and the Soldier personifies this notion to an extreme, portrayed as not only insane but also highly jingoistic, alluding to an undercurrent of american exceptionalism that exists in 76′s All-American Hero stylings.

Pyro is a take on Bastion. They’re both unintelligible and gender-indeterminate cuties who retain their innocence in a cruel and brutal environment. Of course, Bastion’s dissonance between its purpose and its personality is played for drama, for how tragic it is that this adorable robot is built only to kill. The Pyro, by contrast, portrays innocence in spite of violence as twisted. Compare their promotional shorts: Bastion’s ends with it deciding against its original purpose (and the purpose it serves in gameplay) and exiling itself to the forest to care for a cute bird, while the Pyro’s portrays the violence and innocence as a symbiotic relationship, showing that they hallucinate the carnage they cause as spreading love and cheer. TF2 tells us that the innocence of a DPS character in a shooter is not endearing but terrifying, because the two aspects cannot coexist without extreme cognitive dissonance. The Pyro can delight in violence because, in their limited understanding of the world, they see violence as delightful.

The Medic lampoons Mercy and to a lesser extent every support character in Overwatch. There is something faintly hypocritical about a character claiming to want to help people as they serve as an accomplice to a violent, bloody war effort. Mercy may rarely score any kills herself, but she enables the continued destruction caused by every combatant she heals. The Medic puts up no such pretense of being a good person, he loves the pain and violence perhaps more than his compatriots who actively dole it out. He is no harmless doctor, he is as great a threat as the men with guns, if not even more dangerous - and he doesn’t even have a damage boost on his medigun. The Medic's habit of experimenting on his teammates for shits and giggles is, too, a joke about Mercy, this time referring to her canon involvement in turning Genji and Reaper into killing machines.

The Sniper is, like Roadhog, an Australian who is actually a New Zealander who sounds like nothing like either. I don’t have anything insightful to say here, I just think it’s funny.

But the one thing that binds them - the one thing they have in common? They are all sadistic assholes. Every character has a cackling, evil laugh they let out when they’re on a kill streak, they all bask in the glory of slaughter unashamedly and unabashedly - they are guns for hire, after all. In a way, they aren’t so different to the Overwatch cast in this respect; even the bright and peppy tracer has a host of voicelines cheerily mocking the people she has just murdered with her twin pistols. But what TF2 does differently is make this obvious. The nine classes have no purpose in gameplay beyond causing and enabling murder, and rather than distract you from this fact with charming personalities, it lets you pity them as the mean, cruel bastards that they are. These are no “heroes” to be looked up to, they are the waste product of a world better than them.

Overwatch’s map design is beautiful, to be sure, with a clean, futuristic aesthetic and a wide diversity of metropolitan locales to explore. But when you think about it, the levels don’t make a whole lot of sense. The payload maps are all cities that tend to have only one road in them, they’re peppered with hazardous falls despite being mostly innocuous metropolitan areas, and the architecture is often questionable at best. While some maps have a clear goal that the two teams are fighting over, i.e. Volskaya’s factory, some are just places where a fight is happening for no reason. Illios is the perfect example, you go to a well, a lighthouse and an excavation site but there’s nothing to be won in any of the areas. Of course, asking “why are we fighting here” was a mug’s game to begin with - the gameplay in is non-canon, after all.

TF2′s map design is specifically engineered to draw attention to its own senselessness. The payload tracks aren’t roads, they’re literal tracks, on the ground, which just happen to lead directly to the enemy team’s giant stockpile of explosive barrels. Control points aren’t just game abstractions, they’re giant metal discs on the ground, marked out with hazard tape and set up to display a giant holographic team emblem. One place where they differ is TF2 is not content to allow a map to have no valuable resource in it to be fighting over, even when said dedication raises more questions than it answers. That granary isn’t just a granary, it’s actually concealing a secret spy base. The lumberyard? Secret spy base. Hydroelectric plant, which actually might be tactically advantageous to own? ALSO A SECRET SPY BASE! “Secret spy base” is the punchline to every map’s visual narrative, and serves as a challenge to the philosophy of Overwatch’s design, by implying that those innocuous locales you visit, all those wells and lighthouses, they were actually just secret spy bases this whole time.

Even the art direction in OW’s fascination with a vaguely utopic golden age is reflected in TF2′s usage of idealised 60′s-ea illustration as a clear inspiration. The visual language utilised by a people who were proud of the world that they shaped, despite the festering problems lurking deep within it, is perfect for the ugliness of the TF2 universe. The painterly, illustrative style isn’t used for white picket fences and well-kept lawns, but ramshackle shacks, industrial monstrosities and machines of war. This is no better time nor a better place, it is a war. It is blood and gore and fire and pain and all the worst parts of humanity condensed into bite sized 10 minute matches.

And the war they fight is pointless. Not pointless in the sense that it is non-canon, but that it is canon and yet it still means nothing. It’s a pitiable battle between two brothers over their ancient, useless gravel estate, with all the lasers and rockets only existing to claim more useless gravel. The fights don’t mean anything, the story isn’t important, and the resources aren’t world-changing, they’re just pointless bloodshed for pointless rewards, a hauntingly accurate summation of the philosophy of a competitive shooter.

Overwatch’s world is one like our own, but... different. Set in a fantastic and wonderful future, it portrays a world coming off of the heels of a great robot war. It is populated by robots called omnics, who are either a metaphor for all marginalised groups ever or evil badguy robots depending on the what the writers need right now. In addition, Overwatch likes to add it’s own additional spice to real world locales: South Korea is threatened by a giant badguy robot and has hired professional gamers to fight it, Australia has been devastated in a nuclear holocaust and is now a desolate wasteland, and The Moon has recently been overthrown by sentient gorillas(?) who now rule its colonies. It’s all a bit silly, to be sure, but it’s made with love, and it’s all just so earnest you can’t help but love it back.

In the TF2 community, there is some debate over whether or not Abraham Lincoln inventing stairs as an alternative to the rocket jump is canon information or not. What is definitely canon, however, is that spaceflight was invented in 1900, New Zealand is a once legendary sunken metropolis destroyed by an incompetent scientist, and Amelia Earhart was a hotdog mascot. The world isn’t just quirky, it’s gonzo, with ghosts and charismatic war profiteers and rocks that radiate pure intelligence all being mentioned in the same sentence with nary a wink.

You can tell TF2′s lead, Robin Walker, was an Australian man angry about the nation’s treatment in Overwatch, because in TF2 Australia is a world leader inventing all of the major technologies in the setting and is the main catalyst for most of the world’s politics. Tellingly, you never actually go to Australia in-game, because the conflict that TF2 portrays is as stated earlier completely removed from anything remotely important in the setting. Of course, Australia is also said to be populated entirely by idiots who get in barfights all the time and choose their king by boxing with kangaroos because if there’s one thing that TF2 avoids like the plague it’s the genuine idealism that Overwatch so loves.

And Overwatch’s incredible technology levels, showing the world of 60 years from now being populated by megastructures, holograms and hovercars, is parodied with the setting of TF2 having all the same, but 60 years into the past. Because Australium, you see. The quaint interpretation of global politics is now extended into full-on alternate history wherein the Space Race was just the US and Russia feebly attempting to measure up to Australia’s impossible standards and Musician Tom Jones is murdered by the Soldier for being his wizard ex-roommate’s new best friend. It shows the inherent arrogance OW painting its own picture of what the world is like by painting that picture onto the past instead of the future, allowing us to immediately understand the contrast between how the authors portray the world and how it actually was - and letting us laugh at just how different the two really are.

This theory would be completely perfect with no holes in it whatsoever, were it not for one key issue: TF2 came out seven years before Overwatch was announced.

There is only one explanation for this: this is a case of analogous evolution where the Overwatch team made many of the same gameplay decisions as the TF2 team but TF2 understood the absurdity of said gameplay and decided to emphasise it whereas Overwatch elected to ignore it and justify its fiction through supplemental material, combined with TF2 actively parodying tropes that predate both games that Overwatch somewhat coincidentally indulges in due to the developers of one intending a dark satirical tone and the developers of the other trying for something more optimistic TF2 was engineered by Valve at some point in the future and sent back in time like a videogame terminator to destroy Overwatch before it was ever born in order to ensure CSGO’s dominance in the competitive PC shooter field. Valve failed to take the key moral lesson away from the first Terminator movie, however - any endeavor involving time travel is doomed to fail from the start, as whatever action you take has always been taken and the past cannot be changed. Just like Robot Arnold Schwarzenegger, TF2 not only failed to prevent Overwatch’s existence, it ultimately proved instrumental in the game’s conception when the spark of inspiration (here representing Kyle Reese) made sweet, sweet love to Jeff Kaplan’s brain before dying in a dynamite explosion. For shame, Valve. I thought you would have learned from Skynet’s mistakes.

#tf2 #overwatch #long #txt #you might think i don't like overwatch from reading this but i actually love it #i just find the contrast between it and tf2s tones incredibly interesting #and i think tf2's writers are definitely a lot more self-aware #effortpost

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ucaliptus · 8 years ago

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Games: i. Left 4 Dead ii. Team Fortress 2 iii. Portal 2

Dates: i. November 2008 ii. October 2007 iii. April 2011

Publisher: i. Valve Co.

Creators: i. Designed by Mike Booth, written by Chet Faliszek ii. Designed by John Cook & Robin Walker iii. Directed by Joshua Weier, produced by Gabe Newell, written by Erik Wolpaw & Jay Pinkerton & Chet Faliszek

Summary of Games: i. Left 4 Dead is a first person shooter with online and cooperative/multiplayer elements. It is a horror/survival game in which players must play against zombie hordes in an attempt to survive. ii. Team Fortress 2 is a team-based multiplayer first person shooter. Rather than following any narrative, players play in rounds in which they choose one of two teams (RED or BLU), and then select one of nine character classes to play as. Types of game modes include capture the flag, king of the hill, and others. iii. Portal 2 is a first person puzzle platform game, in which the main mechanic is the player’s portal gun that allows them to form two connected portals on flat surfaces. The player-character, Chell, is trapped in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, a massive underground labyrinth that is controlled by the AI antagonist, GLaDOS. There is also a multiplayer mode in which players play as two Robots, one with a blue portal and one with the orange portal.

Summary of Comics: i. The first comic, “The Sacrifice,” revolves around the characters from L4D. They escape a zombie horde and are taken what they thought was a safe zone. Instead, it turns out to be a military base, where they are being held in quarantine because they are immune carriers to the zombie virus. Before anything happens to them, the base is thrown into chaos and they escape the zombie hordes by train. They flee to a boat, where the character Bill sacrifices himself to raise the drawbridge so they can escape. ii. The Team Fortress 2 section features snippets of comics and articles. Some of the narrative based comics revolve around character interactions or behind-the-scenes NPCs, such as the Administrator, Miss Pauling, Red Mann and Blu Mann, and Saxton Hale. Other pages include fake advertisements for in-game weapons, such as Jarate, the Dead Ringer, and the Cloak and Dagger. Though the comics here are only snippets, they humorously reveal the personalities of the game’s characters. iii. The Portal 2 comic offers a bridge between the events of the original Portal game and Portal 2. It follows Aperture Science lab worker Doug Rattmann, who survives the murder rampage of GLaDOS. He secretly watches over Chell as she is tested by GLaDOS, and later is able to save her by repairing her support systems.

Review i. The L4D comic was very well made. Action packed, funny, and with a gripping narrative, it takes place after the end of the “Blood Harvest” campaign, but before the first installment of the DLC. Even though I have never played the game, I felt I was able to understand the characters and the world very well due to the excellent writing and scripting of the characters. I was also able to get a glimpse of the in-game world, the adversaries, and the challenges that are faced by the characters. Though it was sometimes a little difficult to follow because of the action-heavy sequences unfamiliar content, I still enjoyed it thoroughly. ii. As someone who has played TF2 and is familiar with many of their online comics, I thought this section was the most enjoyable. The humor is fun and delivered well, playing perfectly off of the rich yet simplistic character design. Though the character designs of TF2 are not incredibly ornate, they are very well developed and concise, making it easy to understand and enjoy each comic. The art style also works well here, especially with the “vintage” faux advertisements. iii. Though I have also played both Portal and Portal II, I had never actually read this comic. It was interesting to read about what had happened behind the scenes between the two games. Though there was a touch of light humor throughout the game, this comic was more focused on backstory and action. For me, the most gripping element of the comic was the unique art styles, going back and forth between a more normal style and a very flashy and rough style. It helped to convey the experience of Doug as he operated in the hellish and terrifying landscape of the aperture laboratories.

#blog post #left 4 dead #tf2 #team fortress 2 #l4d #portal #portal 2 #valve #the sacrifice #text #review #valve presents: the sacrifice

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finleymbct · 8 years ago

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Contexts of Game and Play: Readings 1

So, as part of our homework for Contexts of Game and Play, we had to read about four different texts, and so I shall go through them and sort of summarize what I took from them.

MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research

By Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, Robert Zubek

This first one was the most difficult to read, because of it’s use of some quite technical descriptions, especially in relation to the later texts, which were more story and anecdote based. It describes the difference between how the game’s developer and it’s audience experience it, described as Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics.

Mechanics is to do with the systems and rules in place to make the game function - at a base level, the code holding the whole thing together.

Dynamics is (as far as I can tell) to do with how the player’s interactions with the controller (or other pieces needed for the game) work.

Aesthetics is about, according to the text, “ emotional responses evoked in the player, when she interacts with the game system.”

I’m really not sure that these would be the words I would necessarily choose to describe it - in particular, aesthetic, which I generally think of meaning “how something looks” rather than just evoking some kind of emotion. Maybe I’m just a robot though.

It goes on to describe various different parts of the “Aesthetic” that the game might use, so how it plays, what kind of people it’s meant to attract and feelings it should evoke, using 8 different attributes, which makes sense.

1. Sensation Game as sense-pleasure

2. Fantasy Game as make-believe

3. Narrative Game as drama

4. Challenge Game as obstacle course

5. Fellowship Game as social framework

6. Discovery Game as uncharted territory

7. Expression Game as self-discovery

8. Submission Game as pastime

Different games are can have both different and similar aspects to them: both Quake and Charades have challenge to them, but they’re otherwise very different, as the paper notes.

PILGRIM IN THE MICROWORLD ch. 1

By David Sudnow

This one read more like a story or anecdote, describing the authors experience with Missile Command, a game about shooting down ICBMs which threaten several cities. It discusses the reaction of the author and onlookers to the context of the game, which is obviously preventing a nuclear holocaust.

The author describes finding it almost entrancing, and going out to buy an Atari and colour television the next day after the party at which he was first introduced to it. The author compares it to other forms of human expression, from calligraphy to the great pyramids.

Cutting Corners: Networking Design in Journey

By Nick Clark

This article talks about the process of integrating a form of multiplayer into Journey, in such a way that doesn’t allow for griefing, is seamless enough to appear to transition smoothly from singleplayer, and connects as many players as possible.

Journey functions in such a way that at random points other players can appear in your game, and interact with the world in a way that doesn’t do anything to your own avatar. They had to mess a little with player movement to keep it as smooth as possible - unlike competitive multiplayer games, accuracy was not necessarily preferable for this game. To prevent griefing, they made sure that it wasn’t possible to deny other player’s resources - any power up collected would be shared by both of them. They also worked to prevent player model collision from being used to stop someone’s progress by making the remote player’s model move when there was a collision, even if this didn’t appear on their end.

The article finishes by discussing laziness as a virtue - when it comes to creating the most effective solution. He states: “Being lazy wasn’t easy and required constant introspection as to whether we were actually traversing the shortest distance between two points.”

Bow Nigger

This one was weird to me, it read like a short story about one player sticking to some online code of honour and coming up on top over a douchey player. To me it seemed like more of an inspiring tale of treating people with respect online than a deeper look into little rituals that people go through in multiplayer. People do wierd things, like teabagging in games like Halo, constantly weapon switching in games like CS:GO, only experienced players taking helicopters in Battlefield or crouch walking forward to show that you’re friendly in TF2.

It also touches on how people are so capable of being pricks online. In the example, the author’s opponent is constantly hurling slurs, and trying to mess with them. In my own experience in CSGO, you can get flamed pretty hard just for using your mic if you:

sound like your voice hasn’t broken yet

sound like you’re not white

sound like a girl (though, it can go the opposite way and have people getting real friendly)

Some places on the internet, and particularly in multiplayer gaming, could really benefit from people being nice to one another every now and then...

Zubek, R., LeBlanc, M., & Hunick, R. (n.d.). MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research. Retrieved from http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf

Sudnow, D. (1984). Interface. In Pilgrim in the microworld (pp. 14-24). Retrieved from https://annarchive.com/files4/Sudnow_Pilgrim%20in%20the%20Microworld.pdf

Clark, N. (2014, March 12). Gamasutra: Nick Clark’s Blog - Cutting Corners: Networking Design in Journey. Retrieved from http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/NickClark/20140312/212936/Cutting_Corners_Networking_Design_in_Journey.php

Boyce. (n.d.). church of phocks Bow Nigger [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://phocks.tumblr.com/post/2976413342/bow-nigger

#ARDN611 #Readings #ContextsOfGameAndPlay

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emilythedog661-tf2 · 10 months ago

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Teaching About Violence

Based on a incorrect quote i found on youtube 😁

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thatlombaxkaiber · 8 months ago

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Das Villän

Reminder that this isn't even their canon height difference. Emperor Nefarious is 12' and Medic is about 6'1".

#ratchet and clank #rift apart #emperor nefarious #nefarious #tf2 medic #medic tf2 #crossover #robin atkin downes #robots #crackship

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foxtrot-reviews-blog · 8 years ago

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World of Nintendo 4″ Fox Mcloud Review

Note: What follows is the first review I ever wrote for this blog, unedited, in all its amateur glory!

We need your help, Star Fox! Andross has declared war!

Ah, Nintendo, the video game giant I have the softest spot for. But with such a rich history of games, the company has always been very secure on their IP. Nintendo games remain on Nintendo consoles, with very few PC typing games in the 1990s, and a few TV shows that died out long ago. But what about merchandising? It’s where the real money from the game is made! Unfortunately the company has been very secure on that too, up until recently when president Tatsumi Kimishima announced that the company needs to shift focus from games to all types of media, and expand their IP. The result is a deal with Universal Studios, an Animated Movie studio, and Jakks Pacific’s fantastic line-up of Nintendo toys covering all their hit games. This line covers everything Nintendo, from Animal Crossing to Metroid.

Star Fox 64 is a classic rail-shooter, with lovable characters, solid gameplay, and a unique charm that only a Star Fox game can accomplish. The game screamed for a TV Show, comics, and toys, but ultimately stayed in the realm of games. Toy-Site tried it once in 2000 with a proposed Fox figure and future Star Fox line-up, but it was ultimately cancelled before release. But Jakks Pacific has re-taken the throne to crank out Star Fox figures with the World Of Nintendo line-up. (The entire team is nearly out!) How does the anthropomorphic pilot hold up as plastic? Let’s find out!

Fox Mcloud comes with 13 points of articulation, a colorful paint job, and an accessory. He’s based off his appearance from Star Fox 64 3D, which I feel was the best possible option. It’s his most iconic N64 look, but without the blocky graphics. It’s colorful and also can represent his SNES look or Smash Brothers look as it doesn’t fully dedicate himself to N64 visuals. It’s classic yet updated to a modern design. I really appreciate that the design was kept to the chunky form as it’s timeless, versus Star Fox’s Zero’s new realistic look. But the figure isn’t all basic. Upon close inspection the figure has incredible detail.

The paint aps are fantastic. There isn’t a splotch of paint messed up anywhere on the figure! He even has his nicely printed “FOX” nametag. The quality on the paint is so high quality I’d say it looks like a sample you’d see at Toy Fair and say “Man, I wish the finished product would look like that!” (see: Neca’s TF2 line. But that’s another review...)

As a matter of fact, the prototype on the back looks worse! His undershirt is all-green on the mock-up, yet painted accurately in black in the final figure. This was a toy no doubt done by fans who wanted the highest quality product out there, to ensure such final accuracy. The detail is insane!

The quality is some of the best I’ve seen on a normal retail figure in some time. I really appreciate that each ridge into his headgear is sculpted. Fox’s legs, whether they’re robotic or just some heavy duty boots, are a very detailed sculpt, with a grey streamlined finish. It’s detail makes it pop out from the rest of the figure, which is done on purpose to replicate the game’s silver striking boots.

in regards to Articulation, the figure has 13 points of movement, with a nice bonus tail-joint. This is just a great bonus I wasn’t expecting, especially in a world of cheap Hasbro and Mattel figures where all we get is 5 POA. There are however, drawbacks. His legs do not allow a sitting position, so he cannot sit in the ship cockpit he is destined for. So if you want to display Fox in a custom Arwing or re-used Star Wars cockpit, it ain’t happening. Ball Jointed articulation is wonderful, but I do feel the Star Fox figures should have legs that allow them to sit. Maybe I was too just hopeful for a giant Arwing for the figures, but it still would have been nice. But Fox here is clearly meant for some ground combat.

to the left, CZ-4 from Star Wars, and to the right a Pop Vinyl Robin.

Fox measures up to 4″, so he’s a tad taller than the average Pop Vinyl and a 3.75″ Star Wars figure. He’s big and bulky though, so it makes him looks much bigger and more impressive. His proportions are short which are accurate to Fox. He’ll fit in any shelf and make it stand out.

Fox also came with a secret “Mystery item”, a fun gimmick for the WoN lineup. Now, if the box was based off the Supply Crate ROB sends you, it would have been a fantastic little touch, but I’m not complaining because what was inside was something I did not see coming.....a miniature Arwing! I was totally expecting a Smart Bomb or Gold Ring, but this? This is an awesome pack-in. It’s like a Micro Machine! It’s unique and feels like a 2nd item I would have bought alone, so it makes the figure even more worthwhile of purchase.

Even after defeating Andross Fox could not handle the all powerful Tricky...

Final verdict? 64/64. Fox Mcloud is beautifully done with phenomenal paint aps and accuracy, simplistic yet striking design, and average articulation that looks amazing compared to more modern toys. The Arwing is a rad bonus too!

Star Fox doesn’t have a alot of available merchandise, so I highly recommend picking this up. It should be noted that this figure is in high demand, and rare at the time of writing this. I checked many Walgreens (best stocker of Nintendo product) and Targets yet I had to resort to Ebay. Fox runs for $15-25, and is well worth every penny.

Next up is Falco! Wait, he’s rare too?! Dang, alright time to pray Slippy becomes a peg warmer. Just kidding, he’ll be rare too. Seriously though, if you see any Star Fox figures from this line, buy them while you can and support this IP. I’d love Jakks to make more characters. Peppy is on the way, but could you imagine all of Star Wolf? A large scale Andross? Or even Krystal or Tricky? There’s a long line-up of characters to make, and I’m ready to continue pursuing these high quality figures. Thank you so much Jakks Pacific!

Bonus Photography below!