With a header like that, you just know this isn't going to be a favourable review.
And as much maligned as the Mole-pod is, there is, in my opinion, something else out there that is truly worse......the ugly red-headed bastard step-child of the GIJOE toy-line.
It makes the Road Toad look like a Formula One race car.
Beware...........I present to you:
The Neutralizer.
Such deep spite I hold for this thing, this review will be sans photos. This toy doesn't deserve pictures.
Found in 2004, in the Valor vs Venom line, it slunk in alongside the Battle Hornet, another toy that got little love, but for some reason doesn't scrape the depths that the Neutralizer hits.
Now........I admit..........I bought this thing. I paid full retail for it..........cash. And I got it home and the lustre peeled off it like layers off an onion. The longer I held it and stared at it, the greater and more profound the buyer's remorse grew.
The ONLY good thing about this set was the figure, and then only the helmet the figure had.
The rest sucked........bad.
The vehicle is just.......weird. Not goofy weird, in that special, beloved GIJOE kind of way, but a weird "I-don't-know-what-the-hell-I'm-doing" design kind of way.
Lets dissect this thing starting from the ground up.........
Its got this track system with these HUGE road wheels--like something out of WW2. This vehicle is barely a 2-man job and its got road wheels that are better suited for a vehicle the size of the Patriot Grizzly. Over-engineered. Much.
Then right above those is the main gun...........a FIXED main gun. Not a turreted gun, but fixed to the hull........meaning that in "real-life" the tank ( a term used loosely) would have to steer to aim the gun. Worse, these guns do NOT ELEVATE. Not only do they not swivel, they do not raise or lower either.
Ouch.
On top of THAT are two separate gun emplacements for two smaller machine guns........each in their own mounting.
Think about that for a second.
The firing position is for ONE person, and there's two SEPARATE weapons mounted at that position that can swing about to engage the enemy.
So...........which one do you pick? Get it now? They are not mounted together, so you swing one or the other.
Why is that there?
Then there is the cab. Y'all remember the STUN.......the HAVOC?? The poor sod sitting waaaaaaaaay up there, in the line of fire to everyone in sight? All that weaponry and armour underneath him? The Neutralizer does the same thing.
Armoured from the waist down, the driver/gunner is exposed from the waist up--there's not even room for them to sit down lower in the thing. They stand out there naked to any decent sniper..........but their nethers and their ankles will survive to fight on in another battle!
That's how it should be, no??
There's a rear facing seat, another dopey gun facing back, a radar dish, and...................look, this thing is what happens when a bathtub thinks its a tank.
Its a product of "no bad idea left behind", a true mechanical mort.
Let me brazenly say that I bought it, so you never have to.
I know you are curious now, I figure that some of you are even intrigued.
Don't be. This one truly sucks.
