Hey all,

I have had my Tunnel Rat with Demolitions Gear for a few weeks, but since still so few people have found the figure, Justin asked me to do a guest review. Here it is:

With this current wave of soldiers, Spirit: Temple Tracker, Kamakura: Airglide Ninja, and Tunnel Rat with Demolition Gear have all been added to my Sigma six team. This wave was pretty interesting because there’s not a specific figure in it that everyone was salivating over, nor were there any new characters. In fact, many of us were not too excited about this wave because of how strange some of the figures were.
This is a figure line geared towards kids, and that is a fact that you’ll just have to keep in mind when Hasbro releases figures like this. Kids like gimmicks and action features, so that is what Sigma 6 will get. As an adult collector (a title which anyone who collects toys should use probably use with some hesitation) this aspect of the Sigma 6 line appeals to me. Many collector’s lines get boring. Sigma 6 is willing to think outside the box and I like that; it’s a philosophy that is shown with Tunnel Rat with Demolitions Gear. The big feature of Tunnel Rat is that he comes with a little can of play dough which is meant to be used as a plastic explosive. All in all, I think it’s definitely a unique take on Tunnel Rat and his special skills.

The Figure:

The body and head sculpt are the same as those of the previous Tunnel Rat figure. Tunnel Rat's hair is now red though, as opposed to brown and he has some cool eyeliner under his eyes, which helps differentiate him between the previous figure and gives him a cool covert ops look. One of the earliest dilemmas of this figure was the color of his Sigma suit. Looking at him over the past few weeks, I think his suit is actually pretty neat. The green on it is almost metallic, giving the idea of a body armor of some type. A major disappointment in this figure however is Tunnel Rat’s belt. The full web gear harness of the original figure is missing. We now only get the belt portion, but with the bottom portion of the shoulder straps. It looks really odd, and would have looked better if Hasbro had decided to remove the straps altogether. One other thing I’ll point out is that Tunnel Rat does not include any goggles, even though the character portrait from the cartoon shows the Tunnel Rat wearing them. Clearly some costs were cut on this figure.

Accessories:

The accessories here are a real mixture of good and bad. Not that there are some good accessories, and some bad ones. Each one is a good idea but is executed rather poorly. The biggest accessory is Tunnel Rat's blast cutter, which is a big drill with three interchangeable bits. I can see this being a really useful accessory for Tunnel Rat's character. I always envision him crawling through little tunnels and passage ways and such, and some sort of tunneling device would be necessary. The spinning mechanism on the drill is awful, however. It is not operated by a spring, but uses a gear system where a little green bar on the drill is pushed across the teeth of a gear. I just don’t like it. The drill bits which can be attached are actually pretty well designed. The largest one is actually supposed to be a “tunnel cutter,” and it has teeth all around it and some head lights in the middle. The other two are a drill auger and a riveter, but the riveter actually looks more like a gun barrel to me. Tunnel Rat does not come with any accessories that can be used for defense, so I assume many a kid and collector will use the riveter as a tri-barrel for Tunnel Rat’s enormous machine gun.

The barrel of play dough that Tunnel Rat comes with is packaged in a little brown plastic tub that Tunnel Rat can wear on his back. While it is kind of strange, there is a cool decal around the side of the tub that says “Warning: Explosives” and is labeled “Plastique.” It definitely makes it look better. The dough itself is white, and actually resembles what it is supposed to be, polytherm compound. It even comes with a little detonator that sticks into the compund and looks pretty nice. It has a countdown feature, too. When you turn the sides of the detonator, a little window goes from grey to red. Nothing big, but a fun little detail.

The last accessory Tunnel Rat comes with is a pair of suction grenades. The grenades themselves are a bit dull, but would be a decent accessory if the enormous suction cups didn’t really kill them. The suction cups are large and are not removable, and thus look ridiculous when the grenades are attached on Tunnel Rats belt. If you wanted to, however, you could just cut the suction cups off. The grenades have a little plastic peg at the bottom which is meant to be an attaching point for some of the polytherm compound.

Overall:

I like when a toy company thinks outside the box. Too many toys these days focus on name recognition alone to sell them (I've been a Star Wars fan for years, but when was the last time Hasbro really innovated that line.) Sigma 6 has done some insanely cool and unique things, but occasionally when trying to be innovative, something falls flat. This figure could have been amazing and innovative, and I do applaud Hasbro for attempting something new, but some dumb choices really hurt the overall figure. He still can look good if you display him uniquely, but if you’re only picking up the cream of the Sigma 6 crop, then you probably want to pass on this one.

The +'s
--I like the coloring
--Using play dough is clever, and it really resembles polytherm compound
--The detonator accessory is pretty cool little extra

The -'s
--Exclusion of full harness and goggles just feels cheap
--Drilling mechanism on the blast cutter could be much better
-- Grenades are really hindered by SUCKtion cups