Canister

This year’s canisters are creative but unlike most previous years I was unable to find a sort of collectable holder for the squid ammo, and even this years sets had some sort of features, such as light up tool and ammo holder/display, and the PIRAKA had two spots for holding, though almost uselessly, two zamor spheres. If you will notice the canisters are shaped to look like a whirlpool of water shooting from the rock. This interesting look also disables stores (or yourself) from stacking them on top of eachother. The canisters are quite clear on the sides and it seems the stickers won’t be too hard a challenge to remove if you think it’s improve displaying. Each one has a colored rocky part from which the canister rises, and as nice as it would be it seems to lack connection studs or peg holes to let you use it as an element in building, which would be a creative use to those of us who refuse to throw out a canister…like myself, half buried in my room with them. Opening the canister is easy enough compared to the INIKA canisters. The LEGO® company continues to use an overlapping sticker design. This year’s stickers aren’t too obnoxious, and in fact when you pull off the lid the sticker stayed in tack without ripping at the perforated edges, so you may want to use something to cut the sticker at the point it was intended to tear or risk exposing the sticker to dust and such when you pop the lid out.

Details

BARRAKI PRIDAK is intended to be a sort of shark creature, by my understanding. As such he does look pretty streamlined and aquatic for swimming sake, and is so far the only BARRAKI to feature an articulated waist. He includes what I think to be the best new weapon out of the ’07 villains. His face and the blades on his back and arms are mixed with red, though I must point out while he is probably naturally that red mix color, it reminds me of the color of blood, on top of that, the red is where you’d expect him to get blood on himself. Some of his storyline even mentions him having bitten off NOCTURN’s arm so we know it’s possible that could be blood on his face not to mention blades, while the one on his back seems to be intended to add to his “shark like” similarities. To be honest, he doesn’t look much like a shark set. Mantax looks like a manta ray, Takadox like a mantis, Carapar like a crabish thing, while the only thing that makes you think shark is the style of his head and even there you might not think of it as shark like. It took a bit of looking to realize this, but the red parts on his blades are rubbery plastic while the rest is stiff, comparable to the toa HORDIKA tools. The secondary color seems to be black, and while it looks good with white, having red in there too seems a bit too much. I’d like it if they had something in place of the black, like perhaps some more red/white mixed parts.

Construction

He’s very simple and wont take long to build. He’s pretty symmetrical with the exception that his left hand is built differently to hold the squid launcher and blade at the same time, with his right hand built with grips to hold the two squid he comes packaged with. On top of that the squid don’t fit very well in those grips.

New Parts!

The majority of the parts included are ones that have already been on the market, with his feet, blades, face eyes and mandibles being the newest of parts along with the squid and squid launchers. I suppose you can count the short blades on his arms though they came out with the small sets in silver close to a month ago. The rest of the new parts are the old shapes in new colors. I especially like the four white double sockets and the white “scalpels” on his shoulders. The feet are almost ridiculously long and will probably be very useful to some MoCers, and in fact when you combine them with black pegs on the underside it can make an interesting short blade.

Eyes

On the subject of the eyes, they are similar to what I had guessed earlier, but instead of having a stud inside the eye socket that the eye plus over, the eye has a peg that goes into a hole in the back of the eye socket. So far there are only red and blue eyes amongst the barraki, but this part would have been great if it came in more since the part holds up better compared to it’s counterpart that plugs overtop a stud.

Mandibles

As unique as each barraki is the only things that tie them together are the squid launchers and the mandibles, without them You’d never realize they were part of one group. The mandibles are pretty much used as a mid point to plug the barraki’s face into and then connect that to the hordika neck. The mandibles are nice and sturdy, while at the same time the base isn’t made stiff. I don’t know if this is why but in my testing it, I found you can squeeze them to bite closed, o top of that each barraki has the clearance around the mandible to do so, but I saw nothing in the instruction manual about it, and feared it might break the mandible, but as I said it appears to be made for that purpose. Other than that you won’t find any moving parts on the heads.

Squid Launcher

This is quite possibly the worst projectile system to ever hit the BIONICLE® toy line, it could be I’m just using it wrong but it’s hard to use, and on top of that the launcher is made of RUBBERY plastic! While I admit it makes it easier to hold and aim it while still plugged into a barraki, to actually pull of a decent shot with it is nearly impossible, especially when half the time the squid squeezes out of the front and snaps back at you, and two thirds of the time when it doesn’t backfire it either gets stuck in the front or the angle causes it to shoot straight down from the barrel when you launch it. The squid themselves seem to hold up pretty well, though they have the tendency to grab and get stuck on pet hair and other random particles meaning you might just buy some more. The details on them are interesting but not great, and I wonder if they just called them squid for those of us speaking English? They seem to have two eyes on the side of the head with what is either a row of teeth or a small mouth on the front, and they do look more like a living cancerous polyp than a squid. Those of you who haven’t seen it, your supposed to use the launcher to hold the squid’s top half while you pull back on the tail end like a sort of rubber band launcher, where letting go fires it. There is not trigger or anything, but at this point I’d dare say I wish they had Zamor launchers instead.

Head

The head is kind of an oversized crescent moon slapped around a bug eyed face. I say oversized because it’s almost annoying how big the extra fins are, though they do work well with his overall design. It also makes his head seemingly the largest, only rivaled by Mantax’s wide and long head. While his blades were rubbey plastic at the red parts I can’t tell if they are the same here as the plastic is in a shape that I cannot bend to test. Pridak is also the only barraki who has to use a sort of extension to fit the mandibles and neck on due to the contrast in shape compared other barraki who essential have a hallowed bowl for a head.

MoCing value

Pridak has some great parts. I know a lot of us like the colored double sockets, and this set introduces four white smaller double sockets, along with the two white short scalpel thingies. He features a new foot design that will be very interesting to work with, and the three red and white tools look great, though the colors may force you to use them with a red and white MoC.

Display

Pridak will be a challenge to use as a room decoration or to sit him up in a pose on a shelf, the main issue being his upper torso isn’t supported well, meaning once he starts to wear out from play he will flop over, plus its another point to focus on when posing him. Another reason display will be trickier is that his torso is lacking in design and looks neglected. At the risk of losing diversity I wish he had better detail for the torso, especially when they lack any light up eyes and such for a ten dollar price tag. Your challenge in display will be getting him in a pose that hides the torso, but then again his head and tools will make that easier. His long feet and articulated torso could very well be a benefit to some nice poses on the other hand.

Play

Hmm, not the best set to play with, VERY articulated …To be honest I can’t figure out why he just doesn’t seem as fun as the other barraki. Perhaps his proportions and weird build just make him seem less like an interactive toy?

Overall

He’s an alright set though I think for design he may just be the worst set of the bunch. If you can only afford one or two, don’t go for this guy without seeing him on display out of the box or something. The other Barraki are much more fun to play with in my personal opinion.