- Manufacturer: NECA
- Released: 2017
Welcome to the third and final NECA item released for ALIEN Covenant in their range of 7 inch figures. Here we have the Creature pack. This is an assortment of scaled creatures from the movie that can serve as accessories to any other figures you own or simply just treat it as a stand alone item. It’s a cool little set and contains some moderately good content.
Included in the creature set, you will find 2 eggs, one of which is opened; 2 facehuggers, one adolescent neomorph and the chestburster that emerges from Captain Oram after David manipulates him into becoming a host for his latest Creation. The selection is great and if you already own NECA’s neomorph and xenomorph figures then this will complete the creature list as depicted in the movie, minus the mutated puffball fungi and spores.
The entire package is included in a box featuring a wraparound window with all the contents seated into a plastic tray making every item easily returned to its place should you desire to do so. It also features the Dane Hallet concept art that identifies these boxed items as a set. Thanks for this packaging NECA. It’s much better than their standard clam shell arrangement they have used elsewhere with their ALIEN series. This is welcome. More please.
Considering there’s half a dozen items in this package, it’s easiest to tackle the selection in pairs and individual items. First up is the 2 eggs. One is closed and the other is open. There’s not really much to say about these except the face huggers can fit easily inside the opened egg. Actually, even the adolescent neomorph will sit inside comfortably within it. So it’s a roomy ova. The bases are a little small so they can wobble a little. A good flat surface is recommended. They’re screen accurate, so that’s a good thing.
As for the facehuggers, they’re both exactly the same figure. I was hoping that one of them would be different as we know David was experimenting with them and alternate samples with many more legs can be observed to be on display in his laboratory. In which case, including one of these variant facehuggers in the pack would be a unique peek into what else David was making and would still have been screen accurate. Sadly, this is not the case. We get 2 facehuggers that are exactly alike and have seen before. It’s just a wasted opportunity here.
These spindly legged little creepy crawlies possess minimal amount of articulation. This takes the form of a wire core prehensile tail that permits them the flexibility to pose as you please. Other than that, there’s no other articulation present on them. The pieces are well cast and detailed and the underside is the only place where any paint work is present. They’re your basic, rudimentary ambulatory penis variety facehugger, serviceable but nothing special
Next up is Captain Christopher Oram’s chestburster. Talk about tiny and finely detailed, this figure certainly fits that description. It stands at around 2 inches tall and it for its size it’s impressively detailed, especially considering the limbs are narrower than one sixteenth of an inch. It’s a grubby looking, blood coated thing already displaying many features and characteristics of the adult xeno/protomorph it will soon become.
The big expectations with this tiny figure is where it fails to deliver. There’s absolutely no articulation on it – which is understandable due to it’s inherently minuscule stature and thinly crafted limbs – so don’t expect to be able to set it up to mimic David’s greeting with its arms outstretched. You’ll just snap them off. The real disappointment is the fully opaque finish it boasts unlike its appearance in the movie. The emergent xenomorph in the movie features transparent body parts. This fellow doesn’t. Too bad; and that’s another wasted opportunity that could have improved this set to have this figure cast in translucent plastic and then be streaked with blood. Now that would have totally sold the little parasite as far as I am concerned.
The final creature in the pack is the largest and most substantial. It’s the adolescent stage of the neomorph that escapes from the lander to later assault the expedition team during darkfall on the surface of Planet 4. It’s bigger than its ‘toddler’ version included in NECA’s other neomorph figure and is easily the most detailed and rewarding item present here. It’s too bad then that the bloodied appearance looks slap dash and poorly applied with broad brush strokes that look like, well, broad brush strokes. Other than that it’s a reasonable figure about 5 inches in total length.
It’s also the most articulated of the set as well, The head, both arms and both legs rotate upon spindles at their points of attachment and an additional joint is provided at the knees. Although, I didn’t have any success with manipulating the knees, the rest of the small scale figure worked fine. An easily adjusted wire core tail can be posed with ease completes the figures ability to be set in a limited range of poses. Yes, that’s correct. Limited. While the figure does permit a decent range of movement for its size, it’s not exactly going to allow much variety in stance.
It’s unfortunate the paint work on the adolescent neomorph and Oram’s chestburster is as sloppy and haphazard as it appears. It’s only barely passable as blood running off of their surfaces; and equally disappointing is the lack of any translucency on Oram’s chestburster.
I would have been happy to see a fully translucent version of the little bastard be included instead. Alas, this is simply just not the case. The eggs and facehuggers are nice inclusions, but they just feel like they’re added to bulk out the content of the package. At least the eggs are screen accurate and differ in appearance to any other NECA items you may have.
This creature pack is intended to be used a set of accessories to compliment your extant collection of figures, so while they are complete and stand alone just fine, in order to really play to the pack’s strengths you’ll want to combine them with other figures, Humans, Aliens, Predators, Terminators, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Barbies (Everyone knows Barbie is the true malevolent android of the ALIEN Universe.).
SCORE: 7/10
A packet full of fun stuff bursting with all the charm of nascent horrors. It’s all just a little under cooked to really be thought of as a ‘must have’ item.
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