Zombie and Dog

NECA Toys, having had significant success with their toy line based on Resident Evil 4, has released a four-figure wave to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the original Resident Evil (I have to say, I'm surprised it's only ten years... I thought that franchise was older than that. Anyway...). The line includes franchise stalwarts Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, HUNK, and the subject of this review, a classic RE zombie. In fact, this is the classic RE zombie - it's the first one you see in the game, when you leave the dining room and wander into a cutscene. A man is lying on the floor, with another man hunched over him. There's a crunching sound, and a pool of blood spreads beneath them. Suddenly, the crouching man raises his head. He turns to look at you, slowly, and you see that he's eating one of your teammates. It's pretty much downhill from there. The Zombie comes in a small, tight clamshell package with some relatively uninteresting graphics which are more than made up for by a bright, blood-pool sticker that boldly proclaims "With removable limbs." I actually think this sort of packaging might look fairly attractive in a MOC collection. Occasionally NECA has some trouble in the sculpt category, but not recently, and certainly not in this case. The Zombie features a fantastic and very realistic sculpt. I'm especially fond of the textures, such as the rough undead flesh and the smooth suit. The suit was a stroke of genius, ensuring this was a purely generic zombie; NECA's only mistake was not offering a few variants so you could build a zombie army. I like the Zombie's lack of a tie; for some reason, it makes me think of an undead Luke Wilson. Or just Luke Wilson. Of course, the sculpt would be worthless if the paint applications weren't dead-on. And they are. This was one area where NECA used to have some issues, but not in this case. Everything's flawless, especially the work on the zombie's flesh. The articulation is interesting. His neck and shoulders are balljoints, and his left wrist and waist are swivel joints. That's it. Ordinarily, that would be an annoyingly small amount of articulation, but the Zombie makes up for this with his pull-apart features. The right forearm, left hand, and left arm (just below the shoulder) are all removable. Rather than just popping off at the articulation joint, a la Mezco's Jake and Earl, the limbs feature nubs of sculpted flesh and bone that lock into the socket, just like on Steve the Victim. This is the best implementation of a pull-apart feature I've seen on an action figure, and better than anything Mezco attempted with their Goon or "Attack of the Living Dead" lines. The Zombie comes with two accessories: a black display base and a zombie Doberman pinscher. Like its master, it's well-sculpted and features a balljointed head and a working jaw to bite off the Zombie's arms. He also stands surprisingly well on his own, despite being sculpted with only three legs on the ground. While many NECA figures lose playability points for their lack of articulation, the Zombie's removable limbs largely make up for that deficiency. At a $12 price point, it's hard to find fault with an action figure this cool. And while I'm not particularly interested in Resident Evil as a franchise, I'm always excited to get a new zombie action figure, and this one is a worthy addition. What's your favorite survival horror game? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.