Review – Combat-R Zero “Adventure”

Manufacturer: Atomic Mushroom * Year: 2007 * Ages: 16+

There is only one single problem with this Combat-R Zero toy by Atomic Mushroom Toys: By buying the robots one at a time as singles I’m now at the point that there’s only one color left for me to buy and I’ll have all four of the basic releases. There’s a fifth color — Plutonium, reviewed at CollectionDX — but it’s only available if you buy a master pack of all five robots at once. So if you like what you see here and haven’t bought any of these just give up now and order the special superset and you’ll be much happier. Damn, I know I’ll order that last color some day but now the glow-in-the-dark robot will never be mine.

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Click to expand the photo in a new window.

What?

Long-time battlegrip.com readers no doubt recognize this Combat-R Zero robot toy design, if only because I’ve already posted reviews of the green (review here) and red (review here) versions of the toy. And since I’ve already rambled on enough about the toy in those two reviews I’ll save you guys some pain and make this mostly a photo review. Basically all you need to know is that these robots are made of pure awesome and they look great as a group.

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Click to expand the image in a new window.

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Ready to Destroy

Like his brothers, Adventure here is well-manufactured, feels excellent in-hand, and is a great deal for a designer toy created and sold entirely by a one-man company. I spoke at length about the pricing of toys in the Panzer Ace review (review here), so if you’re unfamiliar with the whys of the pricing of designer toys see that review. Trust me, this labor of love is worth the $40 price tag; later this year I’ll order that fourth design because these toys look great and because spending $40 with Atomic Mushroom will have a lot more impact on the company than spending $40 on Hasbro toys ever will.

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Click to expand the photo in a new window.

Not that I am trying to say that spending $40 on Hasbro (or any other manufacturer’s) toys is a bad thing at all. What I’m saying is that I really respect and appreciate the work that these smaller companies put into their toys and I know that at their scale every single sale matters. And it makes me really happy to help support small toy manufacturers, because the more I can support them the more likely they are to bring me more cool toys for my collection.

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Click to expand the photo in a new window.

Closing Thoughts

I’ll happily admit that this isn’t really a review that tells you the whole story about the toy. No, since this is the third time we’ve looked at this basic design this is simply photos of the toy and me chatting about why I continue to buy designer toys (including groups of toys like this Combat-R Zero). And if snapping photos and sharing helps Atomic Mushroom Toys sell just one robot toy then I’ve won . . . as I said, every sale they make gets them one step closer to making another robot toy for me.

And I do love robot toys.

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Click to expand the photo in a new window.


Philip Reed ordered this toy and it arrived within less than a week. He’s not only happy with the toy but also the speed that it shipped out, but now he just wishes he had an extra $200 laying around so he could buy the set and get that special glow-in-the-dark version.

5 thoughts on “Review – Combat-R Zero “Adventure”

  1. @Newt – I suspect you would break down and grab one if you ever got to see it up close. The toy is really cool and feels great in your hands.

  2. @Newt: Phil is right! Those suckers are huge! Regularly you would now pay 60$ for such a big boy these days – 40$ is a steal away. And he’s hard vinyl no bath tub ducky vinyl.

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