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.
The Unraveler
The Unraveler is a character specifically from Diablo II, and he resembles something between a CGI mummy-monster from The Mummy Returns and a rotting corpse from He-Man. His fleshy, mummified body is suited with remains, bandages and cloth, with a tangle of live snakes encasing his midsection; his head is a crocodile skull, adorned with an Eqyption headdress, fit with the snake sceptre he holds in one hand, an enormous bone scythe replacing the other. He's a joy to look at, and he doesn't seem at all tacky like He-Man's Skeletor.
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.
The sculpt is well decorated and painted, everything in a darkened colorscheme and decorated in a marble tint. He stands 6" tall, with colorful snakes and appendages and a bare ribcage. Although not as well made as Diablo, he certainly looks cool and fits the source material.
Unraveler is articulated far better than Diablo; ten spots; arms, wrists, legs, midsection, and three different pieces for the head. He has heaps of threatening poses and a whole lot of play in him, an excellent contrast to the scary but dulling demon. The mouth of his skull opens and shuts, and his sickly worm tongue can be posed as well. The midsection joint is nicely sculpted to allow him to rock back, lean and move, almost balljointed. Unraveler also comes with a nice few accessories- the headdress can be removed to reveal his bare skull, and the nicely painted sceptre can be removed and held in different spots due to the pegs on each side. Both are painted and detailed nicely.
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, the Unravelers remained unsold, eventually being marked down to $2 at Electronics Boutique. With $10, you can get a minor army of these excellent figures, that can be used in anything, from your Spawn display, to a nice scene from a Mummy film. Plus, the customisation possibilities are endless.
Overall, I think these figures are excellent and worth the asking price. 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.
An army of Unravelers, anyone?
