Turbo Board Axel, Contents: Axel figure, Helmet, T.A.G blaster, Turbo Board, Missile.

A couple of reviews ago I looked at the Action Man ATOM TAG blaster, a role play toy that I thought was great. So I decided to take the plunge and try some of the main line proper, so I splurged a little and got the main character, Axel, and his car, the XT-9000… sounds swish. Something to note, the character biography Axel is a master of Martial arts, something heavily supported in the cartoon.

Axel himself is a good looking guy, standing 5 inches tall with plenty of detail and a dead ringer for his cartoon counterpart. His suit evokes an extreme sports feel mixed in with a race suit. Axel's outfit has baggy trousers with zippers detailed all over, no utility belt for this guy! His paint applications are well done, bringing out the detail moulded in. One thing to note, is his over sized hands and feet, apparently making these larger give the person more emotive. Video Game beat 'em ups routinely use this trick to make their characters look better.

Axel's accessories are a helmet, TAG blaster, turbo board and missile. His helmet fits snugly on his head, and fits in well with his race outfit. His Tag blaster, the standard sidearm for the line is nicely detailed, enough to see the details that are present on the larger role play toy (fig. 3). The Turbo board is essentially a jet powered skateboard with oversized wheels. There is a peg mounted close to the centre of the deck to help with any figures stability. The jet engine is mounted at the rear of the actual deck, with a little jet flame shooting out the back. It's a small detail, but a nice one.

Upon closer inspection the engine is actually removable (fig. 4) just slide it forward off the board. The wheels have brake discs moulded into them, a nice detail, but the effect would be better if the discs were attached to the deck, and have the wheels spin around them instead. The missile is made out of translucent plastic, and has electric effects detailed into it, so its less a missile and more a taser shot. When loaded into its bay at the front of the board, a button at the back fires it.

Axel has (at my weird way of counting) 18 points of articulation. His upper torso is very well done for a 5 inch figure. His arms have 10 of those 18 points, and his head 2. This means his upper torso can be made to do lots of decent poses. His lower torso is another matter though, he has no waist articulation, and his legs only have 3 points of articulation each. Because his legs at the hips only swing forward, it really limits the sorts of things he can do with his legs. This is a shame, his lower half really lets the figure down. Considering this figure is from a Martial arts oriented show the lack of lower posability is disappointing.

I think the Action Man ATOM line is solid, and despite the lack of lower posability, still good fun. One thing I'm not too keen on is the £8 price mark, that does seem awfully steep for a 5 inch figure.

 

XT-9000, Contents XT-9000, Missile, Label sheet, Instruction Sheet

The XT-9000 is a supercharged sports car, loosely based upon a Lamborghini Countach. This car does have lots of differences, the side doors swing open differently for starters. Also there is an extra spoiler which I thought was curious, until I looked at the instructions. The extra spoiler is supposed to be used as a handle, which does make it easy to pick up and activate the toys main feature. When held by your right hand, your thumb is close to the cars fuel access, which doubles as the feature activation. Before I continue, I should mention that this toy's action feature is virtually identical to (the now defunct toy company) Kenners Firefly from they 80's M.A.S.K toyline!

When the button is pressed half way the side doors swing out, when the button is pressed fully the wheels wing out and form wings, instantly turning the car into an aircraft. The toy only has 1 missile launcher, mounted on the right door. This launcher is exposed when the doors open, and a switch on the back of the door will fire a hidden missile. However I find that this missile switch is on the wrong door, if the button was on the left door then you could access it with your thumb while held by your right hand. But on the right door you need to switch hands, it just seems odd that this was not taken into consideration. One thing to note is the missile was stored in the launcher while the toy was in package.

The exterior detail on this toy is nice, and a lot of detail is added with the addition of stickers. The stickers do depict a lot sponsors, but they don't seem to be real companies (I looked on Google, nothing!) so it appears a lot of effort gone into creating these different logos, which is nice. The interior level of detail on this toy is impressive, the cabin is fitted out nicely. The steering wheel is fixed to the console, which has little dials moulded into it, the interior even has speakers moulded into it! The car seat doesn't have any restraints, seat belts or anything, but more on this later.

The roof of this car can swing open, which allows access for ATOM action figures, they can't actually get into the car from the side doors. What I found a bit disconcerting was the fact the roof comes off very easily, but I suspect that this may have been a deliberate (but undocumented) feature, it can make the car a convertible! This roof can be reattached backward, to keep the car as a convertible and keep the roof attached.

Nice as this toy is, its not perfect, because of its size, some aspects of the XT-9000 feel quite flimsy, especially in jet mode, with the wings out. The interior of the cabin has limited headroom, the Axel figure needs to be slouched a lot for the roof to correctly sit. The lack of seatbelts or restraints also mean that any figure inside is loose, and only held in place by the figure holding on to the steering wheel. The other thing is that TAG blasters are standard with all basic figures. The interior of the cabin could have a rack or a mount for Axels TAG blaster.

Also, straight out of package there was a weird oily residue over whole areas of the car, presumably a manufacturing remnant. Nevertheless it made sticker application difficult, the stickers didn't take to any areas where this oil was present. Lastly the springs are not quite tense enough, which means the missile door sags from the extra weight, and the wings swing back in when the car is at certain angles. These are small problems to be sure, but I mention them because they do detract from the toy, and would be easily solved, tenser springs would solve any problems with the doors, and a locking mechanism could have been built into the wings, so they lock in an outward position.

Despite these critiscms, the more time I spend with the XT-9000 the more I like it, I guess the turbo charged supercar formula appeals to the boy racer in me. I'm not sure its totally worth the £18 price tag, for £18 I would expect some sort of electronics in there as well, lights and sounds, that kind of thing.

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