Update: Since I wrote this original post, Mega Brands was bought by Mattel, which caused some restructuring of the brands. What was once Megabloks is now known as Mega Construx, with the Megabloks brand being used for the more child-like knockoff of Lego’s “Duplo” brand. For the sake of this article, I’m sticking with the original name for reference, as it was in late 2016.
Sometimes when you’re like me and you’re bored in a department store, you tend to wander around to other sections to find some amusement or cheap deals. In my case, I browsed the clearance section of a toy aisle. Suddenly I found these little beauties:
These were originally $8 each. Somehow they got even cheaper than this. Don’t know how, but hey, discounts are great.
They’re Mega Bloks tie-ins for Halo and Call of Duty. Since I hadn’t messed with Lego (or its derivatives) for years, it felt like the perfect time to rekindle my interest in brick-building toys. It also gives me something to do when not sleeping all day.
I used to have a lot of Lego as a kid. One of my birthdays I ended up getting about several Lego playsets, with the only non-Lego thing being a VHS copy of D3: The Mighty Ducks. Though my interest in Lego waned as I got older, we still have the bricks around somewhere, in a giant tub somewhere in the house. One of my dreams is to rebuild the old playsets, but that requires time and money I don’t really have.
So these are made by Canadian company Mega Brands. If Lego is Coca-Cola, Megabloks would probably be Dr. Pepper. They’re both fairly known, but one is more iconic than the other. Megabloks tends to get the video game licenses more than Lego does, likely more content with making playsets off much bigger properties and telling TT Games to churn out a new Lego tie-in game every year. Any major video game franchise you can think of in the past few years has a Megabloks play set associated with them: In addition to Halo and Call of Duty, I’ve seen ones for Assassin’s Creed, Skylanders, and several others. Mega Bloks basically has the video game brick market covered, something I don’t see Lego really tackle these days.
This box was beaten to hell. I should’ve asked if I could get a deeper discount on damaged goods. So much for the resale value…
So let’s dive in. The Halo Megabloks features a covenant guard riding a Ghost, one of the iconic vehicles of the franchise. It’s no Master Chief in a Warthog, but it’ll do. The Covenant guard also has pieces that make them resemble Jul ‘Mdama, a character introduced in the current 343 Industries Halo games. Alas, my only experiences with Halo was some of the earlier Bungie titles and no later, so I don’t know if this character has any importance to the series’ plot.
Imagine the hassle I had keeping this motherhumper upright to take a picture.
The Covenant guard is a posable figure with very, very tiny pieces of armor to put on them. The pieces are so tiny that you could lose them easily if you’re not careful. The figure itself isn’t very flexible, there were several times even getting this picture where they’d fall over much like an over-encumbered soldier. It also didn’t help the legs would pop out of their socket, requiring me to forcibly put them back in so my Covenant guard didn’t look like Torso Boy.
Fun fact: My Halo knowledge is so bad that I confused this with a Banshee at first. Then I realized it was missing the hind legs, and deduced it must’ve been a Ghost.
As for the Ghost, it wasn’t too difficult to put together. Though the instructions were difficult to figure out since their printout made dark purple and black look identical on the page, I was able to figure it out and put it together. There’s little grip studs for the covenant guard to attach to and fly with properly, which means you could put any kind of figurine in that spot, not just the Covenant Guard.
Man, this “playset” has nothing to play with. Unless you wanna fly the drone around and have it shatter into pieces after you throw it once.
Now onto the Call of Duty Megabloks. A lot simpler, featuring a drone and a dog. The dog is presumably Riley from Call of Duty: Ghosts. Yes, the dog which became an endless resource for jokes actually has a name. As for the main object being a drone, I will never not be amused at the world’s fascination with making automated flying robots be shooting people from above. I guess my dad was right about something.
The bags the pieces come in. There isn’t really any guidelines to what pieces are in which bag, which would make building things easier.
Thankfully Riley already came built, only requiring me to put on his “gear.” Whereas the Halo one didn’t have a lot of small pieces, the Call of Duty drone had a bunch of tiny pieces, some of which seemed redundant and only used so they didn’t have to make many specialty pieces. On the bright side, the rotors on the drone can actually move and twirl.
The rest of the set involved putting small debris on a pre-made base, and putting clear tubes on the drone to make it look like it was flying. It’s not as interactive as the Halo one, forcing it to be little more than a backdrop piece.
All things considered, for the prices I paid for these – about $5 per set – I can’t be too annoyed. They were good to make and build, and reminded me of the old days of building stuff. If you find these in your clearance aisle, give em a try. They’ll at least take away an hour or so of your time building.
I leave you with this dumb comic chronicling the adventures of covenant commander and COD dog I made. I made this as kind of an homage to Dinosaur Dracula‘s old comic journeys with figurines. Dino Drac is one of several influences on this site and its dumb content, and I figure this homage would be nice, even if the content isn’t that good. Enjoy!
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: I’m a writer, not a graphic designer.
