I’ll be giving the buildable Halo Mega Bloks Booster Frame vehicle its own review, but before I get there, I’ve got to review each of the three smaller summer 2013 Halo Mega Bloks sets which combine to create the UNSC Booster Frame. I started off with the passable Forerunner Terminal set (with awesome Promethean Alpha Crawler figure), and today I’m moving onto another set where the highlight is definitely the included figure: the Mega Bloks Halo UNSC C&C Console 97131…

The Right:

If there’s one thing that MEGA Brands did right with this trio of Halo Mega Bloks Booster Frame combinable sets, it’s the figures that come with each set. With the Halo 4 Mega Bloks C&C Console 97131, we get a classy-looking Halo 4 UNSC Marine in red and white colors. I’m not sure if this is meant to officially be a UNSC Marine Medic, but that’s what I’m going to call the figure. Even if the figure isn’t officially a medic, that’s clearly the feeling evoked by having a UNSC Marine in white with red stripes on it.

I thought the black Halo 4 UNSC Marine action figure was outstanding when it was released in the UNSC Ammo Pack I at the start of the year, and I’m surprised to find that I like the mold even more repainted in white and red. The UNSC Medic Marine figure just looks plain cool, and adds something new to the battlefield that we haven’t previously seen: medical aid for wounded UNSC troops. This UNSC Marine Mega Bloks figure reminds me of the G.I. Joe Lifeline that I loved so much as a kid, but with an inverted color scheme.

Front and back, this Halo 4 UNSC Marine action figure is well-painted and looking good. Nice work, MEGA Bloks.

In addition to the Marine figure itself, I like the choice of guns that come with the Halo Mega Bloks 97131 UNSC C&C Console set. The Railgun and DMR are both new weapons that got their first releases earlier this year, and I don’t even mind having another Assault Rifle to equip generic UNSC Marine figures with. Note, however, that I made a point of saying that I liked the choice of guns and not the guns themselves. See, it’s a moot point that the weapons chosen for the set are good ones, because things go terribly astray from here on…

The Wrong:

Before I talk about the Mega Bloks UNSC C&C Console itself at all, let me cover what I absolutely loathe about this set: the guns. I can deal with weapons lacking paint detail like the ones in the Halo Mega Bloks Forerunner Terminal I reviewed a few days ago, but for the weapons in this pack, MEGA Brands chose a bizarre smokey grey translucent plastic to mold the included Railgun, DMR and Assault Rifle in. This choice makes no sense–none.

We have had some grey translucent Spartans figures released in past sets, but there’s nothing like that in this set–or even the Halo Mega Bloks Summer 2013 wave as a whole! You can’t even put the translucent grey guns with regular Active Camo Mega Bloks figures, because it looks too ridiculous. There’s no reason for this poor UNSC Marine figure to be saddled with weird, ethereal quasi-clear weapons. This was a poor design choice for what are otherwise some great weapons. Now I need to cannibalize weapons from other sets to arm the UNSC Medic Marine figure, because I just can’t deal with the otherworldly looking weapons that he comes with.

And now I need to address the elephant (no, not the UNSC Elephant) in the room: the Mega Bloks UNSC C&C Console itself. There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it: the UNSC C&C Console looks like a jumble of mismatched pieces that a child just stuck together. There’s no “console” here at all–there’s no screens or keyboards or monitors or buttons–nothing. Maybe if MEGA Brands had included some decal stickers or something this could maybe pass for a real UNSC Console, but as it is it looks like more like a droid head wearing an orange fez hat to me than anything else.

I was hoping desperately that the set piece would look a modicum better from the back, but it just looks like a pile of parts from any angle. I’m not trying to be down on MEGA Brands here–I absolutely adore the idea of building the Mega Bloks Booster Frame vehicle from pieces of other sets. Unfortunately, the idea has been executed very badly in this triad of Halo Mega Bloks sets–it’s glaringly obvious that MEGA started with the Booster Frame and then tried to break it up and make up random environmental dioramas. It worked slightly better for the other two sets, but the UNSC C&C Console 97131 is pretty much a total failure.

Overall: Basically, this is one of my least favorite Halo Mega Bloks sets released in the last few years. I really like the medic-colored Halo 4 UNSC Marine Mega Bloks figure, and the selection of guns (DMR/Railgun/Assault Rifle) is pretty terrific, but the rest of this set just doesn’t do it for me. The grey translucent plastic used on the weapons is very jarring and basically ruins them, and the UNSC C&C Console itself looks more like a bunch of bricks tossed together by a toddler than a purposeful design choice. I think the Booster Frame itself is going to be a nice vehicle and I do really like this UNSC Marine Medic figure, so I can give this set the absolute mildest recommendation possible, but this is far from MEGA Brands’ best Halo offerings.

GRADE: C-