Pros: Nice Sculpts, Detail, Weapons - true to the game
Cons: articulation is so-so, figures aren't in scale
The Bottom Line: They aren't McFarlane, but they aren't as expensive and they're really cool, especially for a one-shot company.
Blizzard are the gaming company that, by now, every gamer and his dog should know back and forth without fail. The legendary creators of some of the greatest games ever, Warcraft II, Diablo and Starcraft, all of which are played continuously on Battle.net day after day. With some fricken awesome characters at their helm, Blizzard considered some companies to make action figures of some of the more popular models from their games, but decided none were good enough, and created their own company to do it, beginning with two characters from Warcraft II (a Human Footman and Orc Grunt), and then representations of the main races from Starcraft (Protoss Zealot, Terran Marine, and Zerg Hydralisk). These figures had decent sculpts and articulation, but the culmination of the forces coincided with the release of a sequel to the most popular Blizzard game to date, to be released as Diablo II earlier this year.
Diablo
The Lord of Terror, banished to the mortal realm, left a trail of fire and destruction in his wake, using nightmares to weaken and corrupt those who can best serve his dark purpose. Diablo employs illusion and fear as his greatest weapons in his tireless battle against Order.
The main demon from the excellent Diablo and Diablo II, Diablo is the big mutha not to be messed with. Although I can't remember the exact story, the end of Diablo had you entering the darkest pits of hell to fight him, and even after killing him, you can't control his power and impale your own head with the gem from his forehead. Nasty.
The figure comes carded on a well decorated card, with some pictures and a character description on the back, some details on the other figures in the line, plus Blizzard video games and instructions for the figure. All of it's decorated with the same colours and imagery as the Diablo game boxes, so it's very nice and fits the material.
Out of the package, Diablo stands 7" tall, decorated in hellish dark red, blacken horns and a slimy underbelly. He's dead-on to the game, detailed well all over; no sloppy paint application here, he's all good. Everything is shaded well, the horns look deadly and claws mean; even the gem on his head is decorated with red-fluorescent plastic. His tail, packaged separately, snaps onto his back so he stretches a full 6" from front to back. He looks mean and represents the big D from the game very nicely. He stands well, with a good center of balance. All in all, it's a five star sculpt.
His articulation isn't so good - with a mere six spots: arms, midsection, tale, head and legs; and none of them are even ball joints. He has few poses, only one of them really fitting to the sculpt. While this doesn't render Diablo useless, it subtracts from his overall appeal; but the articulation ensures some play value, even if he only has a couple of decent poses. Sadly, he comes with no accessories, but because he's a big nasty demon, he doesn't need anything but his demonic powers.
The big problem with Diablo lies in his size and scale. Diablo is huge in the game, and yet stands just as tall as the rest of the figures in the action figure series. This guy really deserves to be honoured as a box set, where he can be as big as the Violator Movie Boxed Set from the Spawn Movie series. Diablo isn't going to tower over anything, and it's a shame, since he's got a very nice sculpt and detail. He's still very kewl, but these improvements would make him an icon needed on every gamer's computer desk.
Both figures are very nice, but the real kicker comes with their value; when these figures were released, they retailed for a ridiculous $9.99, which was definitely not worth the asking fee. However, while Mr. Diablo sold out and became something of a collector's item, he was later part of a promotion where you can purchase a Diablo game and get him for free; now that the games are cheap, you can get Diablo for about $5 and the game to boot. It's a nice purchase, and you shan't be disappointed. On the other hand, if you find a store doing this promotion, a little chat with a friendly staff member and you should be able to get him to sell you one for a good price (a buddy and I talked this kewl guy into giving us one free with a discounted purchase of Heroes Might and Magic 3 at a Myers Store - the gift of the gab is very useful, my friends).
Overall, I think these figures are excellent and worth the asking price; although, I'd much like a huge boxed set of Diablo with more articulation and scarier sculpt, this guy will do for a display. The third figure in the line, Barbarian, is also very nice, and worth a pick up if on sale. I recommend these figures, and also suggest fans of the game look for the Warcraft and Starcraft figures for their collection or just for display on the computer desk to play with while waiting for Battle.net to load. Hopefully, for the second Warcraft sequel, there will be more figures like this created.
These definitely aren't McFarlane, but they are awesome for the price.
