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Power Team Elite Campfire Set
"The
following is a guest review. The review
and photos do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Michael Crawford
or Michael's Review of the Week, and are the opinion and work of the
guest author."
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Sam is back tonight with a look
at another of the Power Team Elite sets - take it away, Sam!
It's Christmas season again, and that only means one thing: fruitcakes
hard enough to chip your teeth on. No? How about new toys? I don't know
about you, but I love discount stores. They're like thrift store,
except you
don't have to worry about kids having barfed on your stuff before you
play with it. And every year retail chain Big Lots goes balls out with
their toy section. And I love it. One of my favorites is the Big Lots
brand Power
Team Elite. I discovered them a few years back, but they only stock
them over the Christmas season.
PTE is a generic military man line that could be called a GI Joe
knockoff. And while their plastic quality and paint apps are far
sub-par, I will give them this; they're improving. The first few waves
had 11 PoA. These latest
ones seem to have improved, with ball jointed neck, sounders and hips,
hinged elbows, knees and ankles (!) and swivel biceps, waist, thighs
and wrists (!) I know at least the wrists and ankles are knew, and it's
a much
welcome improvement.
But anyone can have GI Joe KOs. Why would you buy something as
expensive but less quality. One word. Accessories. PTE has a crap ton
of accessories. Just look at all these sets and the goodies they come
with!
The set I will be focusing on today is the Campsite set. It comes with
1 generic soldier man, 1 rifle, a camp fire, bed roll, cooking sticks,
pot, kettle and windbreak. Past sets have included watch towers,
shattered walls, barbed wire, barrels, mines, sand bags, more broken
walls, tanks, planes, secret HQs, jets, boats and a horse. Yes, a 3
3/4" scale horse.
The camp set is very nice. The fire is acceptably painted even if the
wood and dirt are the same colors. The pot and kettle even manage to
have some nice weathering on them. The generic soldier man is generic
soldier painted, though I do have to give them props for painting the
chin strap very nicely. A lazier person would have just used flesh
tone, but mine has 2 different colors, one for the strap and one for
the chin pad.
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The bedroll in
just a rolled up piece of foam. I'm not even going to
open it, as it'll just unroll on me. I would have actually preferred a
molded bed roll, but I suppose if you wanted him to actually sleep on
it this is fine. Just not my cup of tea.
The windbreak is actually amazing. It reminds me of those old Lego wind
board sails, with the pegs going through the holes. The wooden stakes
have this really cool snapping system going on almost exactly like the
Transformers C-clip system. I love it. The fires stakes have that going
on too.
So how do these things hold up? Really really well. You need to pick
your poison, but it depends on what you want to do with them. The
accessories are worth the price of admission alone. But choose your
accessories wisely. Some sets come with more soldiers than parts, and
the parts they do come with are tools. Which is cool, but I personally
would rather have the diorama equipment. PTE is absolutely perfect for
a GI Joe fan, as well as any other 3 3/4" collection. Do they fit 2"
Minimates? Yes. Again, some better than others. I'm sure the horse
wouldn't work well. But the equipment is always a welcome addition. Not
bad for $5 Up next, if I can find it, the Watch Tower.
Score Recap:
Packaging - ***1/2
Sculpting - **
Paint - **1/2
Articulation - **
Accessories - ****
Fun Factor - ***1/2
Value - ****
Overall - **** |
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This product was purchased for the review by the reviewer.
Photos and text by Sam Ford.
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