Given that it took me approximately one-gazillion hours to build the brand-new Halo Mega Bloks UNSC Pelican Gunship 97129, I want to be sure to give its review all of the time, detail and attention that is deserves. As such, I’m splitting the Mega Bloks Halo Pelican Gunship 97129 into two parts, with the first part focusing on what many people will consider the central element of the set: the Halo Mega Bloks figures. Though this set includes just three Spartans and an enemy, all four of the figures in this set are recognizable and highly-demanded ones…

The Right:

If there’s one area where the Halo Mega Bloks UNSC Pelican Gunship 97129 gets a resounding “A+”, it’s in the character selection for the included figures. The set includes four figures, all of which are exclusive to this set, and two of which are molds not available with any other set in the entire Halo Mega Bloks collection.

On the UNSC side, we get three Halo 4 Spartan-IV figures: a Silver Scout Spartan, a blue Covert Ops Spartan Operator and a blue Covert Ops Spartan Pathfinder. Of course, these aren’t just any Spartans–they’re the “not quite” figures of Sarah Palmer (Spartan Scout), Tedra Grant (Spartan Pathfinder) and Carlo Hoya (Spartan Operator) of Fireteam Majestic from the Halo 4 Spartan Ops multiplayer mode.

While the deco on these figures could be improved (I’ll talk about that in a bit), I am overjoyed to have them, as MEGA Brands is now the only company to make Halo action figures of any of Fireteam Majestic besides the Play Arts Kai Sarah Palmer.

As of now this set is the only place to get a Halo Mega Bloks GEN2 Operator Spartan figure, which adds a real air of exclusivity to the set. I’m sure we’ll get some Spartan Operator Mega Bloks figures in 2014, but for now you’re going to have to buy the Mega Bloks Halo 4 Pelican Gunship 97129 if you want your first Operator figure.

The Spartan figures in the Pelican Gunship Halo Mega Bloks set come with more weapons than I can ever remember Halo figures in a vehicle set including before. Included with the set are a DMR, a Shotgun, two M6C SOCOM Pistols, two M6D Pistols, and four frag grenades for a total of 10 weapons. Even if you attach a gun to each Spartan’s back, that’s still more weapons that the Majestic Squad trio of figures can hold! Just a fantastic assortment of included accessories.

On the antagonist’s side, we’ve got one all-new figure: the Promethean Knight Battlewagon! I was really pleased with the subtle differences of the Promethean Knight Lancer I reviewed last month, but the Knight Battlewagon figure is far more different and unique than the Lancer is from the normal Promethean Knight Mega Bloks figure.

My favorite new detail on the Battlewagon Knight, hands-down, are the translucent hard light spines on the Knight’s back. They don’t photograph all that well, but the translucent orange spikes look really good in-person. I was also pleased to see that MEGA Brands filled in all of the orange energy detailing on the Knight Battlewagon figure’s back, which makes the figure feel much more detailed and vibrant than any of the three Spartan figures included with the set.

The Mega Bloks Halo 4 Promethean Knight Battlewagon action figure is wielding an energy blade arm on his left arm and a Binary Rifle on his right arm. For some reason I thought that Knight Battlewagons only used Promethean Scattershot guns in the Halo 4 video game, but the Binary Rifle is an all-new weapon exclusively available with this set, so I’m not going to complain about it.

The Wrong:

I can see what MEGA Brands had intended with the way they designed the Promethean Knight Battlewagon figure, but for me, the execution just doesn’t fly. The biggest stumbling block is the head sculpt. Whereas my favorite aspect of the Knight Battlewagon’s design is the helmet that covers its eyes, MEGA Brands chose to go with an unhelmeted head sculpt that would utilize an electronic feature and show off the Knight’s glowing, skull-like head instead. The result, well…

With his eyes painted black (they should have been yellow) and his glowing orange head, the Halo Mega Bloks Knight Battlewagon head looks more like a badly-painted jack-o-lantern to me than anything else. The electronics are motion-controlled and only activate for a couple seconds when you move the figure around, so you can’t even turn the light on and display the Knight Battlewagon Mega Bloks figure lit up whenever you want. I would have much preferred a regular Knight Battlewagon helmet alternate head and a more accurately-painted unhelmeted head to the head we actually ended up getting with this figure.

My other big disappointment with the figures that come with the 2013 Halo Mega Bloks UNSC Pelican Gunship is the paint deco–or lack thereof–on the Spartan figures included in the set. The fact that this set is coming with facsimiles Sarah Palmer and two of the Fireteam Majestic figures is a big deal and a major selling-point for the set, so you’d hope that MEGA Brands would go the extra mile and really make their figures feel well-detailed and special. They don’t.

The Spartan figures are all molded in colored plastic and have very little deco on them at all. While the Mega Bloks Sarah Palmer figure is in no way anywhere near the level of detail of her incredible Halo 4 Play Arts Kai figure (and I absolutely would not expect it to be in the 2″ Mega Bloks figure form), the Silver Scout Mega Bloks figure at least has some little red arrows and designs on the armor. The Covert Ops Pathfinder and Operator Spartan figures get zero designs on their armor–no stripes, no shading, no nothing.

“Where Can I Buy It?!”

My Halo Mega Bloks UNSC Pelican Gunship set came from BA Toys, where I ordered all of my Summer/Fall 2013 Halo Mega Bloks sets.

Overall: I gave these figures a bit of a hard time in this review, but I really am glad that MEGA Brands decided to make all four of them. The Knight Battlewagon, Sarah Palmer, Tedra Grant and Carlo Hoya were all high on people’s wish lists of characters, so it’s nice to see them appear less than a year after the Halo 4 video game’s release. I do think that the deco on the Spartans could be improved (get to it, customizers!), and I’ll look forward to a version of the Knight Battlewagon without the crazy light-up flaming skull being released down the line. These figures aren’t perfect, but I imagine quite a few Halo fans (including me) will consider them essential to their collections. Recommended.

GRADE: B-