If you asked me what my most-anticipated toy lines of 2012 were, McFarlane Toys’ Halo would be floating around the top of the list. And why not? McFarlane Toys had announced many Halo figures from Halo 3 and Halo Wars that I’d been dreaming of for years for their Halo Anniversary Series 2, including Mickey from the Halo: ODST squad, the Spirit of Fire Spartan Red Team from Halo Wars, and my absolute overall favorite character from the Halo games: Guilty Spark 343. Regrettably, every figure so far from Halo Anniversary Series 2 has disappointed me in some way besides the amazing Halo Legends “The Package” Master Chief and the Halo 2 Mark VI Spartan. As much as I love the quirky Guilty Spark and his Forerunner compatriot, they’re as plagued by problems as the majority of Halo Anniversary Series 2…

The Right:

Holy crap, it’s Guilty Spark 343. Dude! I seriously thought McFarlane Toys would never, ever give us a Guilty Spark toy, and certainly not a Forerunner-built Sentinel to accompany him. But McFarlane Toys has really upped the ante this year in the breadth and depth of their Halo action figure lines, and this is the result. The inclusion of fan-demanded figures we’re getting in this wave like Guilty Spark and Captain Keyes is marvelous and a testament to how much McFarlane Toys believes in its Halo brand. Huge “Right”.

The Halo Anniversary Series 2 Guilty Spark 343 and Sentinel figures are both all-new sculpts with 100% new tooling. That’s no surprise, as McFarlane Toys hasn’t tackled any characters even remotely close to these before in the Halo 3 or Halo Reach lines, so they’re new sculpts by necessity. Both figures are molded in a silvery-grey plastic that has little glittery specks in it, which really makes the figures look technological and futuristic. There isn’t a ton of paint detailing on Guilty Spark 343 or the Sentinel, as they’re pretty drab machines in the games, but McFarlane Toys has added cleanly-done paintwork wherever appropriate on both figures.

The coolest feature of the set is definitely on Guilty Spark 343. Guilty Spark is packaged as his usual, mild-mannered blue-eyed self. But! If you want Guilty Spark 343 to go into rampancy and ruthlessly start killing your Spartan figures or Sergeant Johnson, his eye can be rotated around to reveal his “evil” red eye! The reversible rampant eye is seriously fun, and it makes it worthwhile to buy multiples of this set so you can have both “good” and “bad” Guilty Spark 343 figures on your shelf.

I was very iffy on the scale of these figures as soon as I took them out of the package, but after doing some research I’m satisfied with the size McFarlane Toys chose for both toys. The Sentinel seemed too small to me, but supposedly it should be about eight feet long. The Halo 3 Spartans McFarlane Toys released are all about the same height as the length of this Sentinel, so I figure it’s sized appropriately for that Halo McFarlane Toys line. As for Guilty Spark 343–he looked absolutely huge to me until I went back and looked at some screencaps and cutscenes from the Halo trilogy. Once I saw how big Guilty Spark 343 appeared even when being held be a hulking Brute, I was pretty confident McFarlane Toys did him right. And I think Guilty Spark has more leeway with scale than the Sentinels do, so I think he’ll fit right in even next to the larger Halo Reach action figures.

According to the Halo Anniversary Series 2 bubble insert, there are 15 moving parts on these figures. The articulation on these figures is far from conventional, so I had to hunt a little bit to determine exactly what those 15 points were. The first is obviously the aforementioned rotating change-o-eye on the Guilty Spark 343 figure. That leaves 14 points for the Sentinel. Well, he has a hinge joint at each end of his arm-like appendages, and swivel articulation on each of his four grapple fixtures (“fingers”), plus a hinge joint for his curved undercarriage (which emits the dreaded Sentinel beam). That’s 10 total points among the two figures. I’m not sure exactly where McFarlane Toys is counting five more points, but I sure can’t find them, nor am I sure where these figures would even need any more articulation. The Guilty Spark 343 and Sentinel figures have all the articulation that they need, and can do just about whatever they can in the games. No complaints here.

The Halo Anniversary Series 2 Build-A-UNSC-Logo right wing piece is included with the Sentinel & Guilty Spark 343 two-pack. This is the last review of the series for me, so I included a snapshot of the completed UNSC Logo. It’s good-looking enough for what it is, and fits together tightly, but it just doesn’t hold much allure for me. I don’t mind having the UNSC Logo as a freebie,  so I’ll stick this at the back of one of my displays.

The Wrong:

I guess if there weren’t any quality-control issues, these just wouldn’t be McFarlane Toys Halo figures. The Guilty Spark 343 toy is thankfully free of issues, although that shouldn’t be much a surprise since he has only one moving part (his eye). Unfortunately, the Sentinel didn’t fare as well. The hinge joint for his undercarriage is too weak to support the undercarriage, so after being moved a few times it can’t be kept up anymore–my Sentinel is now permanently prepared to unleash his Sentinel Beam. In addition, the little plastic grappling fixtures at the ends of the Sentinel’s appendages are warping badly and bending all over the place. As a result, the Sentinel kind of looks like a mess from the front.

The Ridiculous:

In case you didn’t notice yet from the pictures, Guilty Spark 343 and the Sentinel are both forcibly held on steel rods an inch apart from each other on a Halo 3 logo base. No, seriously.

I can’t begin to comprehend what they were thinking of at McFarlane Toys when they designed this “two-pack”. I put “two-pack” in quotes because it’s hard to call this two figures when the figures are both connected to the same non-removable base. It makes zero sense to me to force a Sentinel to hover near the ground level next to Guilty Spark 343, and it ruins the possibility of posing Guilty Spark 343 next to Sergeant Johnson or the Master Chief. I was so frustrated with this that my wife boiled the whole conglomerate until she was able to remove the Sentinel’s rod from the base.

Unfortunately, even removing the Sentinel entirely from the base doesn’t make things better. The rod is stuck so hard into the Sentinel that it couldn’t be removed even after boiling, so I’m going to have to create a new base for him out of clay or something. Meanwhile, Guilty Spark 343 is now levitating on a Halo 3 logo that has a hole in it where a rod used to be. Not exactly your standard terrain. These aren’t insurmountable problems, but they really do cripple my enjoyment of the set.

“Where Can I Buy It?!”

The Guilty Spark 343/Sentinel two-pack of Halo action figures is part of the Halo Anniversary Series 2 case assortment that is shipping this spring to all major retailers. I haven’t seen the set at retail yet myself, but I assume it will hit Toys R Us and Target first.

As far as online options go:

Amazon has the Halo Anniversary Guilty Spark & Sentinel Two-Pack in-stock from a variety of sellers at right around retail price (and some even below retail price!), many of which are offering free shipping.

BigBadToyStore still has the Guilty Spark & Sentinel pack available for just $11.99, as well as the Halo Anniversary Set of 5 for $58.99.

CMDStore has the Sentinel & Guilty Spark for $17.95 in-stock now, as well as having the complete Halo Anniversary Series 2 available for just $59.95.

And if you want to try your luck, there’s always ebay, where you very likely can get a good deal on the Halo Anniversary Guilty Spark & Sentinel Two-Pack. You can check out the current listings for the Guilty Spark & Sentinel Two-Pack on ebay by clicking here!

Overall: It’s really painful for me to have to critique this Guilty Spark 343 and Sentinel set, but not as painful as my realization was that this set was just not very well-executed. At all. Both figures have terrific paint and sculpting and I love Guilty Spark’s rotating eye, but these Halo toys are riddled with problems. The cheap, rubbery plastic of the Sentinel is already warped and part of his articulation is wonky. The idea of Guilty Spark and the Sentinel hovering right next to each other like BFFs a couple inches off the ground is pretty dumb, and the Halo 3 logo for a base makes the whole thing even stupider. Without heavily modifying this set and removing either the Sentinel figure or Guilty Spark 343 figure from the base, this simply doesn’t fit into any Halo display or diorama. I want to recommend this set because I’m so passionate about these characters, but the ridiculous design of the set prevents me from doing so. If you’re like me and must own a Guilty Spark 343 you’re going to want this set, but anyone who doesn’t absolutely love these characters will not be impressed with this Halo figures two-pack.

GRADE: C-