Review and photos by Nathan ‘Takama’ Morris, edited by amargasaurus cazaui and Suspsy
To coincide with the home media release of Jurassic World (which just came out as of the time of this writing), I decided to collect the “Bashers and Biters” figures that were released back in May 2015. Ironically, the one I chose to review first is one of the newest models to be released for the line.
In addition to repaints of the Tyrannosaurus rex and Stegoceratops(a fictional hybrid) models, Hasbro recently released a new Velociraptor for their “Bashers and Biters” line. This on is a bit different from the rest because the tail serves only a single function. The toy’s second function is a detachable spring loaded net gun to give kids more play value.
We all know that the “Bashers and Biters” line of figures are among the worst merchandise we saw released for any of the Jurassic Park films, and it seemed like Hasbro barely cared about the quality of the products. Out of all the “Bashers and Biters” at my local Walmart, most of them had been broken by careless shoppers/employees. Thankfully, the only Velociraptor they had was in working order and so here it is for today’s review.
The Bashers and Biters Velociraptor is based on the character Blue, who was the beta for the flock of raptors in that movie. The pose is almost the same as the one used for the “Growlers” model of the character, and the only difference is that the flesh wound is reduced to nothing more than three scratches. Also, there’s a transistor sculpted on to the neck, which ruins the natural appearance of the animal when the strap-on gun is removed.
Like most of the other B&B models, you use the tail to operate the head. About the only thing this model can do is turn its head to the side and open its mouth. To do this, you simply push down on the tail. Unlike other theropods in this line, you can’t make the head look up or down.
I’m not even going to bother explaining the scientific accuracy of this figure because we all know how bad it is at depicting the real thing. So with that said, it’s time to take a look at the other feature this toy has to offer.
The model comes packaged with a spring-loaded projectile encased in plastic on the floor of the toys display platform. Removing it was as simple as ripping the casing off of the floor of the cardboard platform it came with.
In terms of playability, this model is decent, though I imagine the most rowdy of kids would break it within a few days. The toy cannot stand on its own two feet and must use its arms as support. In fact, the legs do not align with each other, so one leg is raised higher than the other. The gun works fine, but can get in the way when you’re trying to manipulate the tail to activate the gimmick in the head. In terms of detailing, this model is not too bad. There are individual scales sculpted on the head, but the rest of the body is sculpted in wrinkles. This model does have screw holes on its side, and yes, they do detract from the sculpt. Thankfully, this model only has three of them, and one of them can be covered by positioning the arm in the right place. The colors on this figure are not blue, despite what the character is named. It is military green with black stripes and a big white JW logo on its thigh. The transistor and the straps on the gun are brown, while the gun itself is dark grey. If you were to flip this toy on its side, you can see that the bottom of the figure has a cream colored line running from the tail to the neck. If there are any flaws to the paintwork, it would be the fact that one side of its head has black markings while the other does not.
Overall, I can’t say I recommend this version of Blue. It’s made cheaply and costs as much as a better product made by the likes of Safari, CollectA, and Battat. If you must have a figure of this character, I recommend the Growlers version as it seemed to be better made and a lot more solid. As a kids’ toy, I still can’t recommend it, as I’m sure most kids will break it within a week or less.
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No blue on Blue either.
[…] make this review short and sweet, all you need to know is that this model is the same sculpt as the Bashers and Biters Velociraptor toy without any removable gear, except with a brand new head sculpt and paint scheme. This new toy’s play feature works […]
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The funny thing is, the dino damage wound is only tolerable because Hasbro screwed up the paint app for it. Red was left unpainted and what should’ve been white got painted red instead.