NECA have always been very slick in their promotional photography and convention booth displays, with professional looking backdrops and diorama's in which they showcase their figures. Now, we as fans can get a little bit of this with the release of the Alien Xenomorph eggs.
The eggs arrive in a very "tongue in cheek" cardboard egg box. On the front of the package is a Weyland-Yutani logo in what looks to be a thick black factory stamp. To the side is an expiry date of 3rd June 2122, which fans may know is the date the Nostromo first encountered the Alien Eggs on LV-426. On the top label is the text ALIEN and the subtitle of LV-426 FREE RANGE EGGS. There is a hazard panel showing a human silhouette looking into an Alien Egg, and then series of consequences of this with the final silhouette being an Alien Big Chap. The final panel is some nutrition facts, which are smeared with what looks like slime.
The one thing to say is that if you saw these in a store and weren't a big Alien fan then you would overlook these and have no idea what they are - they could, to certain people, look like those cheap Alien Eggs you find in the £1 stores.
Only when you peel back the label as directed do we find the image of the actual eggs themselves, as well as an advertisement of other NECA Alien figures - including the soon to be released Alien Isolation figures.
The pack should be sealed with a strip of plastic, and once opened you should find 6 eggs in the pack. On the inner lid you will also find some handy safety instructions, including the brilliant line "Discard broken, cracked or open eggs & run far,far away".
Of the six eggs packed into the box. three of these are unopened. The other three are open and inside should be a small baggie in which you will find a Facehugger. Putting the Facehuggers aside, the eggs themselves are nicely sculpted with a flat bottom that means they sit fine on a flat surface display. The egg is textured with what I can best described as a dried riverbed cracked surface and this is then painted in varying shades of green and brown. On the open eggs the pink egg flaps are peeled back, and between each flap on the outside are strings of goo which are painted in a creamier colour. The inside of the egg is decorated in a "brain" texture which is painted pink with a cream wash.
Onto the Facehuggers, of which you get 3, and these are sculpted really well and in scale with the 7" figures. From the 8 spider like legs, to the two air sacks, they are really well done and then painted in a brown with a darker wash to bring out the details on the spinal tail. Articulation, as such it is, is delivered by a flexible tail which is achieved by the plastic being sculpted over a metal bendable armature. The Facehuggers all come out of their eggs with their tails bent under themselves. Be careful when straightening them as one of mine simply saw the plastic break when put back into a flat shape - this is unfortunate that they are so brittle.
This weakness in the tail without similar pose-ability in the legs will leave fans who want to display these attached to their figures disappointed. Once you over that disappointment then there isn't much issue in getting these to look like they are crawling, or even jumping, out of their eggs.
Once lined up in a display alongside the NECA Alien figures, then this is where these items come alive. They look brilliant alongside the Alien Queen, or perhaps in a diorama with the Alien crew in spacesuits - for example having Kane, who already comes with Facehugger attached, posed above an open egg looks awesome.
Cost wise these vary between £22 and £25 which I know will be down to the cost to bring this to market as a niche item. It does feel a bit too much for what you get, but then again this is almost a unique release in terms of a diorama item rather than a figure and for those not skilful enough to make their own diorama effects then these fill that hole really well.
If you don't fancy investing in the full 6 eggs, then bear in mind you can get one opened egg and one Facehugger with the Queen Attack Bishop figure that has also just come to market. I am hoping that NECA may consider throwing a few more of these eggs into Alien releases going forward, and I also hope that this is a sucess for them and that they can give us more diorama packs for their Alien range and beyond.
Rating wise, this is a difficult item to score as there is simply nothing else to compare them against. The packaging is great in terms of a sense of humour, the items are solid and decent enough in terms of sculpt and paint. The Facehuggers are well done, but it is a pity the flexible tails seem to be so fragile. I am still also not sure that paying £25 for 6 static eggs is good value for money in today's toy market. All that being said I am going to come in for now on a 4 out of 5 scoring.
