Stikfas: Viking, Dinosaurs and Dune Buggy
by Mr. Stinkhead

We saw some great Stikfas at Toy Fair this year. I couldn't wait to get my hands on the Viking, and it was great seeing the dinosaurs in person. After a weekend of chapped finger tips and looking for teeny tiny hubcaps under the coffee table, we got to play with a great slew of recent Stikfas figures.

I'm digging the new G2 Gamma Male body. These stikfas figures are the same scale as older Stikfas models, but feature an extra eight points of articulation by adding a ball to the knees and elbows. It's subtle, yet incredibly useful. The viking and the driver with the Dune Buggy both feature this newer body type. This is the second time in my life I've been so excited about balls. Wait, I was saving that joke for the Stikfas body going through funny changes....scratch that. No, not the balls, the joke... I'll quit while I'm ahead. [Ed note: too late].

The viking follows the tradition set by the Gladiator, in that it he smells incredibly filthy and puts his feet on the coffee table without a care in the world. That and he comes with some incredibly detailed accessories that really make a tight figure. It doesn't abandon the principles set by traditional Stikfas. I love all the gear you get. Included in the box are three helmets, a shield, various swords, spears, axes and a battle hammer, a good looking soft rubber cape and some armor. There was a cool sticker sheet with some wounds and other humorous decals. My only complaint with this set was that the stickers I attached to the chest piece and the shield did not fit very well at all. They were bigger than the surface area you had to stick to. I don't typically use the stickers (I'm a purist), so it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the toy.

The dinosaurs are a new departure for the Stikfas design team. Other than the Dune Buggy, which I'll talk about in a second, they had stuck to a humanoid form for their sets. These dinosaur bones are about as accurate as you can get, but still have a interlocking toy that is fun to pose and display. I love that most of the jaws can open and close. Each of the joints is tight, so you can get some cool, museum-worthy poses.

I thought there was a healthy balance of detail vs. assembly difficulty. Of course the vertebrae could have been broken down into smaller segments, but that would take forever to assemble, and the added articulation would be almost unnecessary. What I would like to see is maybe a deluxe kit that features a T-Rex twice this size with twice as many pieces to put together. The trick would be keeping the ball and socket joints the same size so it would still be compatible with other Stikfas sets. And if it was slightly larger, it would be more in scale to the Dune Buggy when I recreate scenes from Jurassic Park.

One of the coolest bonuses in this series was that the Pterodactyl kit comes with two complete kits, one of which glows in the dark. On top of that, there's this cool connector piece (we didn't quite know what to do with it when we first broke it off the tree) that allows you to connect the wings to any regular figure you already have. SWEET. I think they look pretty cool on my Gladiator here.

Then there was the Dune Buggy, I had just mused online someplace that I wanted to see some interchangeable vehicles that I could customize, they announced this Dune Buggy. I love the intricacy on the shocks. It even has rack and pinion steering (kind of). At first the directions were a little discouraging, I got it together without too many problems.

I'm also digging the extra pieces, such as spikes you can put on the hubcaps, and the extra paneling to protect your driver. I would have liked just a few more accessories, such as a spare tire, a jack, a mountable machine gun, Stow-and-Go Seating™, flip down DVD player for the kids... you know. I'd love to see more vehicles come out down the line, and then mix those with the Motorcycle for a cool Mad Max looking amalgamation.

Overall I liked seeing Stikfas branch out into new arenas, but without completely abandoning their roots. We see toy lines come and go because they A) never change, or B) change and grow too much. Like Stephie DeGroot in 6th grade. Mamma Mia.

Our friends at YouBuyNow.com have all manner of Stikfas toys to pick up. Check em out. You can also search for a retailer through Saizon's web site.

If you want to see some good backdrops you can print out and hang on the wall behind your collection, check out these action figure backdrops. If you dig Stikfas and/or Xevoz, please check out our extended coverage here, and if you're looking to speak with like-minded individuals, aka Stikfas-fanatics, pop on over to Stikfanatics Asylum message board. And, well, you should also check out Stikfas.com for upcoming product details.

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