Ghostbusters Playscale figure in hand review...

First up, link to the Matty Collector page about this series ...

http://collecting.mattycollector.com/Pages/MuseumTypes.aspx?Id=19

These are selling out now faster than when they were first released, and harder than ever to find as the scalpers have been sucking them up.

Matty Collector gave a few peeks into these pieces on their website pages, but lets look a bit deeper.

There are 2 series of these figures, this one in review is of Series One, the single figure sets. These come in a plain white box with minimum markings, but often the stores are stripping off the white box to reveal the diorama packaging, so look around closely for both display styles.

These figure are on the big size, DC Direct Heroes, Power Team Elite size. They are also muscle bound big, lots of massive joints, rigid neck with swivel head ala Medicom RAH style. The neck is unusual, in that it has the contours of the real human neck, not all straight up and down as so many other companies handle the neck / head interface. Auggie Romero of BGT fame, just was telling me that one of the problems he finds so often with making clothes to fit figures, is because of the inhuman depiction of the neck of so many makes of figures. Just know here, the neck doesn't move, only the head.

These figures also have a very heavy and complex mechanism for chest and shoulder articulation. They have double joints at the knees and elbows, joints at the toes, ankle, and in the shin, plus a swivel joint at the waist, and a folding joint in the breastbone area. The foot assembly can be removed, as can the hands. I almost feel that in this case, there is too much articulation, but you decide after you look at what we are dealing with here.







See the huge shoulder blade joints, and know that allows the arms to open wide, and cross the chest in a crushing move.

Now see the huge limbs, and the massive joints, and the contours of the neck.



Behold the leg, the foot mechanism, and how they plug in and work. If the lower leg popping off starts to bug you, a bit of some rubbery glue can still give some extra foot rotation, while not letting the lower assembly fall off.





A look at the hands, notice their mounting pins. You get bare hands, and gloved hands. The pins are huge, and lock tightly in place.



How does it work when all buttoned up?











Every figure in this series gets basically the same gear as the rest, like the walkie talkie, the complete Proton Pack, the Trap, 2 pairs of hands, but then each gets it's own special items. Winston here gets 2 building blue print rolls, and a newspaper / envelope combo. One other figure gets a PE meter, another gets goggles, the last seems to get no special item.

The trap springs open if you hit the spring loaded red button, the doors close and lock if you push them back in place. the pedal moves, but does nothing more.





Despite what the instructions say, the battery operated Proton Pack only lights up, by lighting the 4 LEDs in sequence by pushing the button on the bottom, but no sound it makes.





The photo above shows where the yellow hose should attach, it's the naked silver pin on the right, took me a while to figure it out, as the hose was just tucked under the pack mount board (the Proton Pack just snaps into 2 pins on the mounting board ), and not connected to the pack prime as I conclude it should be, not like I tried as you see in some of these photos, slipped on from below over the brown plastic tube hanging down from the top rear left.



You can tuck the Proton Gun down into the loop mount of the belt, but that is really for carrying the Trap. The Proton Gun actually fits on the odd shaped plug up on the top right side of the Proton Pack, as shown in these photos.





The fit and finish on these is overall pretty nice, and clearly a bit of real fun, made by people that dearly loved this Movie. The 2nd series of 1/6 figures come in 2 packs, some different gear, head sculpts, uniforms, and the name patches can be moved to other figures. If you want to change names on this series, you will need to make patches to install for yourself.

So, not perfect, but in my eyes what you can get these for now at retail (if you are lucky), not only are they a bargain, but real fun for play, and even the packaging can be used to make plenty of props and diorama backgrounds. Just know once you cut into the package to free the items, there is no going back, as Mattel really wanted to protect these figure sets for the MIMB collector. But if you do go for it, it will let you play well for your trouble.