The Duke Nukem Action Figure By Resaurus

    Those of you who have played any of the Duke Nukem games know about the character I'm talking about. The rest of you, however, are missing out on an excellent set of games and should at least go forth and grab the shareware versions to see what all the ruckus is about.

So Who is this Duke guy anyway?

Duke Nukem can be easily summed up as a guy with attitude, unbreakable will, a big helping of political incorrectness, and several large guns. You know, with the exception Duke's irreverence he parallels the Decepticon leader Megatron, but that is another story. Later on, check out Raksha's Con-Quest essays that will be found in the topic related links section at the end of this review.

  Duke Nukem at a glance...

Figure:	Duke Nukem (main character and hero in Duke Nukem 1-4)
Approximate height:	6.5 to 7 in. (16-17cm)
Accessories:	Machine guns (two), knife (bloodied up a bit), and Devastator weapon. (The retail 'chase' version will come with a freezethrower. The internet/direct order version comes with the freezethrower and an exclusive shareware CD-Rom)
Points of articulation:	12;  head, shoulders(two), elbows(two), wrists(two), waist, hips(two), and knees(two)
Accessories:	9    (Scale of 1 to 10)
Sculpting:	6    (Scale of 1 to 10)
Paint Job:	7    (Scale of 1 to 10)
Innovation:	6    (Scale of 1 to 10)
Packaging:	8    (Scale of 1 to 10)
Overall:	7    Recommended; (Highly recommended for fans of the Duke Nukem games)
Estimated retail Price:	$8 to $10(US)
Direct order Price:	$13(US)+ $5(US) shipping (Ohio residents must also pay sales tax)
Retail Locations:	Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and possibly computer specialty stores like Electronics Boutique, and Babbages

More Thoughts...

Service with a smile

      First of all, I want to thank Peg at Resaurus for giving me some extra information about their Duke product, estimated retail price, and where he'll be available.  I'd also like to thank the Resaurus folks for getting my order out to me in a speedy manner.  From warnings given to me by their web page and Peg when I ordered my two Duke figures, I expected to see these on my doorstep around early to mid-January at the latest.  Instead, I got the box from the UPS folks before Christmas, and I sent a personal check.  Now that is good service!

The Figure

     Overall, I like the Duke Nukem figure as is.  I did however find a few things that either struck me as odd or just didn't appeal to my taste in action figures.  The first problem was getting Duke to stand up straight so that he can look straight ahead instead of towards the ground.  It is possible as long as you don't have any of the larger weapons on his back.  if you do, you are going to have to lean him against something.  In a more realistic sense, you can justify the slightly hunched over look because he has this enormous gun strapped to his back.  On the other hand, this pose does work well when he's equipped with the devastator weapon and/or the freezethrower, since both are two-handed weapons.

     To view a picture of Duke in his packing bubble, click the following link:
          Duke Nukem in Package: (JPG/HTML 40kBytes).

     The second nitpick is related to scale.  Duke's hands are huge; if he could lay one hand flat, his hands would be bigger than his feet.  And actually, making his feet a bit larger might improve that stability issue I mentioned above.

" You know what they say about a guy with big feet don't you? "
" They wear big shoes. "  --My co-worker, and fellow sick puppy, Jeff Bell

" The last thing to go through your mind is going to be my size 13 boot... " --Duke Nukem; from the end of episode #2

     I also found the head to be somewhat off.  I can't place the problem specifically.  It has the Duke snarl, cool-shades, and crew-cut all look good to me.  Perhaps it's his chin, or maybe a lack of white paint so that he shows some teeth while kicking butt.  These nitpicks aside, Duke is the gung-ho engine of destruction that fans are bound to love.

     The last of my nitpicks is really one of personal preference, and that is the lack of actual elbows on the figure.  The elbows do have a rotator joint that allows the figure to reach outward or across his body.  After posing duke in various ways, I understand why Resaurus chose this approach.  Without the rotating joints at the wrist and elbow, Duke can't properly hold the freezethrower or devastator weapon.  While a more lifelike elbow joint could easily increase the figure's range of poses, I think it would be a nightmare for the designers, and the current approach is probably the best compromise.

Accessories

     For those of you who did not know this before, I am serving notice right now.  I am an accessory freak!  A figure can look cool, but if the included accessories are boring, or are so horribly disproportionate that wielding them is an impossibility if the character was a real entity, I will cast those bits aside and throw them into storage.  A well detailed accessory is an even more rare find.  Resaurus did an excellent job overall with Duke's selection of weapons and attained a decent amount of detail in their sculpts.  Ironically, the one weapon I wish that was done in a different fashion is my favorite unorthodox weapon, the freezethrower.

" I like big weapons! " --Lo Wang; Shadow Warrior

     One problem that most toy collectors have, is the bucket of extra accessories that they acquire.  This bucket is usually formed when you get so many extra unwanted parts for your small army of figures.  Playmates' Star Trek line is notoriously bad about this.  (Did you know that one Star Trek figure in my collection included a 20's style standing lamp?)  Some figures are fairly self-contained, Kenner's Beast Wars line manages to keep weapons self contained in one or both modes making it easier not to lose those parts.  Resaurus did just that with Duke; the well detailed machine guns are silverwashed and have a nice look.  Resaurus did a similar silverwash with the devastator weapon and added silver accents. The included knife also has silver detail and a healthy smattering of someone else's blood on it.

" Hey!  That jacket has soaked up a lot of blood in its day -- usually somebody else's. " --Lobo; Guy Gardner Reborn: DC Comics

The freezethrower has a similar silver wash on its barrel, some exposed components, and the handle grips, of  course, the fill-cap is red just like in the game.  Also of note is Duke's removable chest harness which is accented with copper paint on all the pouch snaps and on the radiation hazard emblem which is painted on the buckle and on the back.

     My nitpick about the freezethrower is actually about how Duke wields this weapon more than anything else.  To me, this should be a one-handed gun that would be gripped from the bottom or by a fairly inconspicuous handle.  I also had the impression that the freezethrower would be a bit more curvy and flowing in spots.  It is however, nice that you can snap the freezethrower onto the bottom of the devastator weapon to give Duke a frightfully enormous gun at his command, or you can snap both items onto the backpack which is part of the chest harness.  This leads me to my next nitpick.

     Small pins are bound to snap off.  The machine guns, knife, devastator, and freezethrower mount onto Duke using an ingenious array of small pins.  At this point, I have not snapped any off accidentally or on purpose.  This is the tradeoff that was made in order for Duke to be the self-contained figure he is.  I just want to mention ahead of time that you should probably use some care when inserting or removing any part from it's respective place.  Hopefully this note of caution will save some folks a bit of unwanted grief.

Packaging

     Since Duke is the only figure in the line available it is unknown if Resaurus will develop new card art for each toy.  The front of the card itself is quite plain with a Duke Nukem banner on top and some small graphics from the video game itself.  The remainder of the package is a large mushroom cloud.  On the other hand, the back of the card is far more interesting.

Click here for a picture of the card back  (JPG/HTML 49kBytes).  The card blister has a large sticker displaying the introduction picture from the Duke Nukem 3D game.

The Included CD

     As I mentioned before, if you order the figure directly from Resaurus, you also get shareware versions of Duke Nukem 3D and Terminal Velocity.  Both shareware games are a lot of fun and easily introduces you to the rest of the planned cast of characters.

Summary

     Overall, despite his minor flaws, Duke is a well done figure.  It also appears to be the first humanoid action figure Resaurus has ever produced; their primary focus appears to be towards dinosaurs.  Please also make a note of the variants to this figure and avoid being fooled by the generally seedy secondary market.  If you have not bought or downloaded the Duke Nukem shareware version, and like the figure, I strongly suggest you buy this toy directly from the company.  It's also interesting that the chase figure includes an extra weapon.  As one of the many out there who detest quite a bit of the secondary market 'toy scalpers', I am torn.  The good news is that you can easily get the extra weapon via the mail or play the rat-race game against the dealers.  At least you aren't hunting for a totally unique figure, in which case I would be making a lot more noise than a slight grumble about the lack of a weapon that disappointed me slightly.

-Hex.

Topic Related Links:  (which can be found in the "Box O Links" section)
Resaurus  --  Producers of the Duke Nukem action figure
3D Realms  --  Creators of Duke Nukem 3D
Raksha's home page  --  Editor of Con Quest and the keeper of the Decepticon flame.

 Questions?  Comments?  Snide Remarks?   Send me some mail!

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