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Meat and Potatoes; 4.90
Perks; 5.0
Homer Factor; 5.0
The vehicle is approximately 22" long, 12 inches wide at the at the wing-tips, about 8" tall, and VERY hefty. It looks like an MI-24 HInd with the nose of an Apache stuck to the front; there are the large, drooped wings and a troop compartment like a Hind, but the nose has the sensors and nasty chain-gun of the AH-64.
The chopper comes with two removable machine-guns, two large rocket-pods that actually fire, two electronic sounds, and the rotors can spin by pulling the trigger built into the vehicles tail.
Every time I see a new vehicle, I have visions of some guy at the Pentagon going 'Hey... can we make that?' Even in the '80s, the toy-designers at Hasbro dug up every copy of Jane's Aircraft and Popular Science to create vehicles that weren't just fanciful, but veeeeeeeeeery close to what the military either has or is seriously thinking about. The Skystorm X-wing chopper? Actual DOD project. Look it up... and apparently it IS flying. Now Hasbro unveils the GI Joe Vs. Cobra Desert Attack Chopper. So how does this fit in amongst the Defense Department's wish-list? Very, very well.
Meat and potatoes on this piece rock. In this case, 'meat and potatoes' are specifically the sculpt, and also the features that are normal for a helicopter, as opposed to articulation. The sculpt is very, very solid; lots of panel lines and vents cover the chopper, and you even see a few cool rivets on the doors.
What gets me are the subtle details. For instance, the doors on the sides of the chopper slide back and forth, allowing you to fit two more Joes into the chopper. The cockpit has enough space for just one crew-member, but there is space in the behind the pilot's seat for two more passengers. To get to the two spots, the pilot's back-rest bends forward. Big deal? No, but it does give a nice touch to the figure so you don't have to pull the seat out to add the extra passengers. Oh, a VERY nice detail; the control panel has an actual label with a HUD and some controls, and there's a cyclic stick for your figure to hold on to. Details are everything, folks.
Perks are very solid, too. Naturally, you have two huge rocket-launchers, and they do actually fire. The firing mechanism is buried in a retractable handle in the fuselage. Nice and unobtrusive. The same goes for the handle and trigger that spin the main rotor. The handle and trigger look like extensions to the tail, so it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. The piece also comes with some sound effects, like a whirling rotor effect and machine-gun fire. Not bad.
Homer factor? Pretty high. I'm a chopper fanatic, so I'm biased. Just the same, GI Joe vehicles tend to be VERY well done, and a good chopper always rocks.
In the end, Hasbro scored with this one. And rather then just re-hashing the old molds, the creators for Joe rebuilt a chopper and gave the Joes a nice piece of hardware to kick Cobra butt. Yoooooooooooooooooo Joe! (Sorry, couldn't resist. Hehehehehehehehe.)