NECA Predator 2 Ultimate City Hunter Review

NECA Predator 2 Ultimate City Hunter Review

Predator 2 has a love hate relationship with its fan-base. People will either say it is an underrated film, or it’s a piece of trash that shouldn’t have been made. While I don’t think that Predator 2 is a terrible movie, it definitely has its problems. The whole plot revolves around Danny Glover being a damn, no good, dirty rotten kill-stealer, and the City Hunter Predator going apeshit over this and then plotting his demise. Kind of like an intergalactic pro-Counterstrike snafu come to life. It felt like the director watched several Paul Verhoeven movies at once and tried to emulate his outlandish style. Even if the original Predator is a better overall movie, I think personally Predator 2 has a better Hunter design,. I always had a soft spot for ol’ City Hunter. In a lot of the Dark Horse comics and later Predator films*, they would usually try to emulate the yellow skin with sleek silver mask look of the Jungle Hunter. City Hunter was different, darker with tiger stripes, and his mask looked rusty and worn … which is captured perfectly in NECA’s updated ULTIMATE CITY HUNTER FIGURE. *(I’m aware of the Super Predators and how non yellow they are. Save the comments).

City Hunter couldn’t have come at a better time, as he was one of the few older figures I have been holding out on. The secondary market had every version of him (masked, unmasked, battle damaged, invisible, Sega sprite, or antarctic rescue) for about 75 bucks. No dice. I could pay a little bit more and finally buy an arcade TMNT set with that money! But with high demand, and being the 30th anniversary of the Predator franchise we got an Ultimate version. Man, am I pleased that we got a new release of the best movie Predator at an affordable price!

City Hunter, or as his friends and lazy writers like to call him, CH, has the new standard Predator body that we already got a taste of from the Ghost Predator that was released in series sixteen. It includes updated articulation such as the double jointed elbows, bicep swivels, forearm swivels, and a torso joint. The overall armor hasn’t really changed too much aside from a do over on the paint. His armor has a more weathered or oxidized look to it. Similar to a batch of pennies you would find in a wishing well.

NECA Predator 2 Ultimate City Hunter Review

Accessory-wise he has two heads (masked and unmasked), two pairs of hands (open and closed), one extra karate chop hand with a net launcher (that we saw in Series 16’s Stalker Predator) that can be equipped to his leg, a Gary Busey Death Disc™, a bloody skull/spine, a yellow blast effect that is from the Predator accessory pack, two combisticks (extended and collapsed), and two mysterious pieces of square armor that I had no idea what they were for or where they went. It took me hours to figure out what the hell these pieces were. I yelled into the abyss that is Twitter to only be ignored, aside from the three body building bots and one financial blog that thought it was a good idea to follow me. To what purpose do those exist???? I looked at promo shots to see if I was an idiot. I finally decided to watch the movie to see if I could find out what these were. Those two pieces are an ‘open’ and ‘closed’ part under his left arm for another blaster. Finally, he has a clip on his back so that you can attach a combistick there instead of having it live in the accessory box in your closet.

I may sound like a broken record at this point, but I really wish NECA made the wrist blades completely removable like the AvP figures from a few waves back. If they could do it with those figures why not with this type of mold? I have to be slightly delicate with the right hand when I swap out an accessory or pose so I don’t fear of snapping it off. A few other issues I’ve noticed from other people who have him is that the flap on his left wrist computer is super loose. Mine was actually missing. I’m lucky their customer support was able to help me out, but people outside the United states don’t have that luxury. So give it a look see before you purchase. I also wish his shoulders were a bit wider for his plasma caster. It’s pressed up against his dreadlocks so it seems it will always point far left.

Aside from my issues, CH is a worthy upgrade to the old versions if you have been holding out like me or are a fan of his overall design. The only thing that could improve this figure even further is a voice chip with CH saying his iconic line: “WANT SOME CANDY?

I am not making that up.

FINAL RATING: 7 DANNY GLOVERS

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David Boyce

1 thought on “NECA Predator 2 Ultimate City Hunter Review”

  1. Great review! Mine looks awesome standing in his iconic poster pose but i had quite a few issues with mine. The leg ball joints were some of the loosest i have ever had on a Predator figure, and the hinge for the wrist computer broke after using it once. One of the combi-stick tips also broke immediately after taking it out of the box. That was luckily fixed with glue. The other issues i’ve yet to fix, and i don’t live in the US so i can’t easily replace the figure and i don’t want to waste 30 bucks on another one.

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