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As every one of us has by now noticed, Lego seems to think that every one of
its "action figure" lines (yes, this is a stretch for RoboRiders, but it's
not like I can think of a better description, and that *is* how they're
marketed) will die immediately if it does not contain an ice character
(Ski/Frost/Kopaka), a fire character (Torch/Lava/Tahu), a plant character
(Amazon/Swamp/Lewa), and a desert character (Granite/Dust/Pohatu). For some
odd reason, I managed to end up with all three of the ice ones, so I figures
I'd do a comparison.
Ski is mainly white, with joints and his head in two shades of blue (this
looks really cool). His left arm is a throwing arm, while his right arm
ends in a skipole (scaled for a Technic figure--who, incidentally, would
hold the opposite end of the pole). I don't see how this can possibly make
for good balance while he skis, but to each his own. His legs (which
really do imply skiing, BTW) end in the weird pieces used to make the
segments of the Star Wars battle droid's arms. They slide around quite well
on carpet--not as well as the Technic-scale skis that were used in Ice
Planet sets, but on par with the minifig-scale skis and better than the
average Technic beam. A gear on his back makes his head and shoulders turn
upward or downward. He can't look left and right, but that's what turning
around is for. Includes two throwing discs, one of them belonging to Scuba.
Instead of a standard Throwbot faceplate, he has a black version of a visor
from a Technic figure's helmet (it looks great on his head, though my
favorite use for it is creating the Technic Blacktron Figure). Oh yeah, and
he and Jet are the only two Throwbots with decent package photos. When
folded to fit in the case, he gives the impression of a tank or snowmobile
(depending on how you rotate the skis). He's useful for building
Throwbot-style characters. His parts don't appear to be much good for
anything else at first, but to the trained eye they can be used creatively
(I once built a helicopter using parts from Electro and Amazon, plus some
extra axles and pins, and a few plates for rotors).
Frost has more dark gray parts on him than white, but the way they're
arranged makes white the predominant color. He has two trans light blue
spears at his sides, but they don't do much good just sitting there as they
don't extend past his front "bumper". There's a couple of white hoses
extending backward from them to his hips (more on that later), so it looks
like he fires them off using air pressure. However, after two shots he's
unarmed, as he can't get them back--he has no arms (Power is the only
RoboRider with arms). But enough about that. Frost's core is a dark gray
Throwbot torso, with the foreward half of him replacing the head and arms;
the funky parts that hold his rear wheel are attached where his legs would
be--and actually, the same parts are used for legs when you combine Onyx and
Power, so it's easy to picture a modified Frost with arms and feet. His
wheels are trans blue. With his Throwbot torso, he is one of the few
RoboRiders that are useful for building anything besides RoboRiders, but
Throwbots are about his limit. His face is ugly and cannot be removed from
his head.
Kopaka is by far the tallest of the three, mainly because of the longer
pieces used for his legs; his colors are white, light gray, and a few black
bits. His torso is larger than than the pieces used for Ski and Frost. He
has a ball on his sternum for some reason. His online profile mentions him
skiing, but his feet don't end in skis like Ski's (talk about confusion).
His left arm is a Throwbot arm turned backwards (unlike Pohatu, Tahu, and
Lewa, who use Bionicle legs for their nongeared arms) and ends in a 6x6 dish
representing a shield--which would be useless against Frost's spears, but
would block anything Kopaka is likely to face on Mata Nui. His right arm
ends in a sword (but since he doesn't have a second joint on his arm like
Ski, Amazon, and Scuba, he's a bit limited in what he can do with it), and a
gear on his back (mercifully much larger than Ski's and Frost's) gives him
sword-swinging action. If you have two of him, the swords would make nice
rotors for the helicopter I mentioned in Ski's description. His mask is
removable, but unfortunately the standard Bionicle head is much uglier than
a Throwbot head, though Frost's face still reigns supreme over the land of
ugly. He's a virtual clone of Tahu or Lewa, but that kinda works for him.
His one major shortcoming is his parts--I have yet to think of any alternate
use for any of them, besides the sword, shield, and standard Throwbot parts:
the legs are a bit too long for most purposes, for instance, and the torso
is very SPUDish.
Conclusion: If you want relatively useful parts or you like the color blue
at all, search for Ski. If you need a really ugly robot face or you want to
make a dark gray Throwbot, get Frost. If you're buying based on the model
and not the parts, get Kopaka. Of course, sooner or later the third will be
your only option, so...
-Andrusi &&
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Snow Comparison
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| (...) I agree. These "action figure" seem to thrive on psuedo re-makes of past lines. The Throwbots, though interesting, were completely inadequate as action figures. The Bionicals are the closest things to that end. Initially, when Throwbots came (...) (23 years ago, 4-Jun-01, to lugnet.technic.roboriders, lugnet.technic.slizer)
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