I was pretty hard on the Halo Mega Bloks C&C Console, Forerunner Terminal and UNSC Hangar Bay in my recent streak of Halo Mega Bloks reviews. Of course, those reviews didn’t give a full perspective on the value of any of those three sets, as that trio of Halo Mega Bloks sets has a secondary (or honestly–primary) purpose: to combine to form the Halo Mega Bloks Booster Frame vehicle from “Halo Legends”. You’ve been patient, Halo fans, and now it’s time answer the age-old question of “Is the whole Halo Mega Bloks Booster Frame” better than the sum of its individual Mega Bloks components?”

The Right:

To build the Mega Bloks Halo Legends Booster Frame, you’re required to already own the previously-reviewed Halo Mega Bloks UNSC C&C Console, UNSC Hangar Deck and Forerunner Terminal sets.

If you’ve got those three, you already know that they’re not exactly the most impressive sets that MEGA Brands has ever cranked out. But now you can take your revenge, because it’s time to tear all three sets apart, never (at least for me) to be built into their individual diorama components again!

You might be groaning at the notion of taking apart all of your lovingly built little diorama scene pieces, as well as dreading trying to pry the bricks apart–but in actuality, that’s not the slightest problem.

To my surprise, disassembling the three smaller Mega Bloks Halo Booster Frame sets was actually incredibly easy. All of the parts pulled apart with nil effort involved. It was quick, easy and painless. (Of course, this isn’t entirely a positive thing, but I’ll come to that in a bit.)

Now that we have all of our pieces it’s time to build the UNSC Booster Frame vehicle from the “Halo Legends: The Package” anime! I thought that the vehicle’s design was a bit drab, but luckily MEGA Brands has lightened it up with some bright and eye-grabbing red and orange pieces. Utilizing all three instruction pamphlets from the three smaller Summer 2013 Halo Mega Bloks Booster Frame sets (and you will need all three sets of instructions–don’t throw them out!!), the Halo Mega Bloks UNSC Booster Frame is a fast and fun build.

After about 25 minutes (and I am a slow builder), the Booster Frame Mega Bloks set is complete! MEGA Brands had the inspired idea to set up a tilting clear stand that attaches the Booster Frame to the base, so the Booster Frame looks like it’s turning and pulling off a death-defying aerial maneuver. You can obviously modify and reattach the stand to make it stand straight vertically, but it looks super slick with the Booster Frame flying at an angle.

The translucent orange pieces that attach to the back of the Booster Frame are a superb choice, as they look like the thrusters are blasting forward and add a stylish aesthetic to the Halo Mega Bloks Booster Frame’s rear appearance. The big translucent orange base plate is rather peculiar, but I’m willing to overlook that since it does add more color and vibrancy to the display.

For being constructed entirely with the multipurpose pieces from other sets, the Booster Frame Halo Mega Bloks vehicle really does look glorious–particularly with the shiny Cyan Spartan EVA from the UNSC Hangar Deck piloting the Booster Frame. This was an ingenious idea that MEGA Brands had, and I hope in the future they won’t shy away from undertaking similar projects. Although, if they do, there’s one thing I’d like to see improved…

The Wrong:

I can deal with the fact that the UNSC Booster Frame Halo Mega Bloks vehicle is flying over a big blob of translucent orange lava (for some reason), but the one thing about this vehicle that I absolutely can’t come to terms with is how easily some of the pieces fall apart. The clear bricks that connect the Booster Frame to the base have a very loose connection, causing the Booster Frame to topple over from time to time for no reason. In addition, both of the wings have some weak bricks in their build that give out when I move the Booster Frame around, making it very treacherous to play with the Booster Frame at all.

I haven’t had any problems with loose/weak Mega Bloks pieces in a couple years, so I have a theory about why this has happened. My guess is that MEGA Brands wanted to make it easy to pull the Booster Frame apart and build the individual diorama pieces, and vice versa, so they had the factories make the bricks a bit weaker so they’d have more “give” and break apart easier. The result is that sometimes the connections between the bricks are very loose, leading to some issues with gravity and Mega Bloks Booster Frame jet sometimes falling apart.

I don’t know if that theory is necessarily true, but one way or the other, my Booster Frame Halo Mega Bloks vehicle isn’t as stable as I wish it was. Other than that, I’m very satisfied with it.

“Where Can I Buy It?!”

I got all three of my Halo Mega Bloks Booster Frame sets from BA Toys close to a month ago. Supposedly, Target stores and some Toys R Us stores are starting to get these in, but I sure haven’t seen them yet.

Overall: The Halo Mega Bloks Booster Frame defies my expectations again and again. I never expected to see this vehicle in Mega Bloks form, and never did I expect it to be comprised of pieces from other sets (that were almost certainly reverse-engineered from the Booster Frame). The tilting display stand that the Booster Frame rests on is a thing of genius, and I love the colors and design that MEGA Brands came up with the for the Booster Frame. This vehicle looks fun and is fun–the only problem I had with it was an unusual looseness of several of the bricks involved in its build. Overall, I think that the Booster Frame makes up for the underwhelming nature of the three sets that combine to form it. In my mind, the Booster Frame and the three figures that come with its sets–particularly the Promethean Crawler and UNSC Marine Medic figures–justify the $30 price tag of the three sets and make the purchase of all three worthwhile. The Halo Mega Bloks UNSC Booster Frame is a great display piece and earns a recommendation.

GRADE: B+