Pop! Goes the Mass Effect Universe

Note: The description of the figurines may contain spoilers about the series.

Recently a line of Mass Effect Funko figurines were released and included five characters from the game series – Commander Shepard (otherwise known as BroShep), Garrus Vakerian, Tali’Zorah vas Neema/Normandy/Rannoch, Miranda, and Grunt.

Getting these little guys to my house was no small (pun intended) task. After debating them for a period of time, I decided to finally pull the trigger. They were available from a few places on the web at puzzlingly varied price points. (For example, the Bioware Store had them listed for $12.99 a piece, while TFAW.com had them for 8.99, and Amazon
had them for puzzlingly different prices within the same line of figurines.)

Needless to say, I went with Things from Another World (our favorite geek store, which you should definitely check out) for all but one of the figurines as they had apparently run out of Grunt, which was the one I wanted the most. I managed to get this one off of Amazon for not much more than I paid for the others (hooray for Amazon Prime).

Grunt arrived just as 2013 was drawing to a close, so we got to spend New Year’s together. The others arrived the Monday after my birthday a week and a half later.

Enough about shipping and waiting for these to arrive, let’s talk about them.

It’s an interesting assortment and they appear to be based on the Mass Effect 2 versions of them. Garrus comes complete with a visor and a scar, Miranda is still sporting the Cerberus logo, and well, Grunt. I would imagine they were looking for a good variety of characters and these were actually a decent cross section of them. I would have liked to see Liara or Mordin Solus, but this isn’t a bad start.

If you’re looking for exquisite, true to series detail, you’re not going to find it here. Keep in mind you are probably paying less than $10 a piece for these, so for the price, they’re pretty cool.

Shep and Grunt can stand on their own as the figures themselves are well balanced. Tali and Miranda both come with plastic stands, so they don’t topple over. Garrus, while otherwise awesome, does not come with a stand and the bottom half is not as well weighted and could topple over. I expect this won’t be as much of an issue once they make it to their final home on a shelf in my office.

Pros: Cute, inexpensive, and a good variety of characters to start the collection.

Cons: Not terribly detailed, one of the boxes was damaged a little (I am planning to keep them for storage/display).

Verdict: They’re going to look great on a shelf in my office. They’re inexpensive enough that I can build a collection without needing to take out a loan (with careful shopping, the collection I currently have is under $45, I have spent at least that much on a single collectible). I expect that if the series does well, there will be other additions to the crew.

Do you own these? What are your thoughts?

~Myrrick