{"id":7585,"date":"2010-07-13T11:44:05","date_gmt":"2010-07-13T16:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=7585"},"modified":"2010-07-13T11:46:37","modified_gmt":"2010-07-13T16:46:37","slug":"vault-review-gi-joe-hiss-tank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=7585","title":{"rendered":"Vault Review:
GI Joe HISS Tank"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>A little over a year ago, the IAT crew trekked to Kansas City to cover the annual G.I. Joe convention, Joe Con. During the Hasbro panel, the convention room was treated to a surprise: the unveiling of the brand new H.I.S.S. Tank. After a year of waitng, I finally got a chance to purchase one.<\/p>\n

Last week, I was wandering through Toys R Us. I was checking in on the the Transformers and Star Wars sections, both sporting new figures for the War for Cybertron and the Clone Wars, respectively. As I wandered past the old Joes, I noticed a new box, one I\u2019d never seen before. It was the Wolf Hound, and behind it was the HISS Tank! I quickly grabbed up two of my favorite vehicles from the old line, finished up my TRU tour to make sure nothing else had come out, and headed for the checkout lanes. <\/p>\n

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The new HISS Tank is a modernized movie version of the original. This vehicle is the driving reason behind the Pursuit of Cobra toy line. Continuing from where the movie left off, Cobra Commander and Destro escape. The Joes have also learned of various Cobra instillations around the world that are working on a new weapon. Ultimately, the Joes track this new weapon down to Cobra\u2019s secret desert instillation, in hopes to stop its creation. But they are too late, and are forced to fight head to head against this new powerful vehicle, the HISS Tank.<\/p>\n

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The H.I.S.S. stands for HIgh Speed Sentry, and this version lives up to its name, at least in looks. The Tank body has a nice, sleek design. It\u2019s almost like the Cobra Engineer Vipers took the body of an experimental airplane, chopped off the wings, and mounted it on a tank. The cockpit area is angular and entirely covered in armor, giving a stealth feel. There are no windows on this bad boy, the driver and gunner sees everything with electronic monitors (stickers). Cobra\u2019s all about the future, and there\u2019s nothing that says 19th century more than panes of glass or clear plastic. I\u2019m just hoping the tank has some EMP shielding, or there\u2019s going to be a lot of crashes. The front of the cockpit also has a rotating, twin-barreled gun. <\/p>\n

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Of course, who has to worry about crashing when you\u2019ve got giant treads to crush everything in your path? I am happy to report, that after all these years of HISS Tank toys, we now have moving treads. I was excited when I saw them at Joe Con. Finally, no more pretending the treads turned as my kid brain tried to forget about those dinky little wheels underneath. Now nothing would stand in the way of my Cobra Army\u2019s destructive force, right? <\/p>\n

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The treads themselves look great. They\u2019re made of real rubber and stretch between the turning wheels. The problem comes in when you try and push or pull the tank. The treads tend to get stuck on the tiny \u201cwing\u201d area just behind the cockpit. This happens because the base of the tank is flexible. When you push or pull, you are also pushing down on the cockpit which makes it easy for the treads to get caught. Sadly, this isn\u2019t the only problem.<\/p>\n

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You can try to push the tank from behind, underneath, where the base is, but that doesn\u2019t work well either. The second problem is that the rubber treads don\u2019t work well with the plastic of the wheel frame. When pressure pushes the treads down onto the plastic, the rubber begins to catch and drag. These two materials are incompatible, unless your goal is to create massive amounts of friction. Continue to Page 2…<\/A>.<\/p>\n

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Behind the cockpit sets a large gatling gun and cannon. The cannon can fire a large red missile about three feet, which isn\u2019t bad considering how wimpy springs usually are in firing toys nowadays. The Gatling gun also has an action feature; the barrel of the gun can spin like its being fired. There is an ammo belt that can be attached to the Gatling gun from a sculpted canister on the back of the tank, but similar to the Iron Man 2: Movie War Machine, it has a hard time staying in place. I\u2019m going to just leave mine off; it looks better that way. Both guns can rotate, but they can also be simultaneously controlled by a small red lever that sets between them. Pushing the lever right faces the guns left and left faces the right. Pretty cool.<\/p>\n

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On the bottom side of the tank, is a second cockpit. This is where the gunner sits, or where the future HISS Drone can be stored. The odd thing about this seat is that the gunner is expected to sit in it upside down. There\u2019s a roll bar, like on a roller coaster, which goes over the gunner\u2019s head to hold him down. I can\u2019t help but think this is one of the higher risk jobs at Cobra. There\u2019s nothing like being trapped in the rear end of a burning HISS Tank, just underneath the heavy explosives. You know that HISS Driver isn\u2019t coming back to let you out either. He\u2019s high tailing it out of there before the whole thing explodes. That\u2019s if he even survived. Hopefully there\u2019s hazard pay involved.<\/p>\n

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The biggest action feature of the new HISS Tank is its ability to elevate for an attack. By pressing the gray and red button between the cockpit and guns, the entire upper section lifts on four legs. In this mode, the entire cockpit and rear gun area can be rotated 360 degrees. This is a really neat feature, but it also has a couple problems. First, if you turn the cockpit around, it becomes heavy and easily falls backwards. This isn\u2019t that big a deal, just a minor annoyance. The bigger problem, and much larger annoyance, is that you don\u2019t have to press the button for the cockpit to pop up. Like I said, the base of the tank is very flexible, and the latch can easily become unhinged by just moving the tank around. It also becomes unlatched if you press down on the tail area when you\u2019re playing with the guns. I\u2019m glad it doesn\u2019t pop up while just sitting there, but it\u2019s still annoying that you can\u2019t really play with it without the action feature going off.<\/p>\n

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Last, we have our HISS Tank Driver. The taxi driver of Cobra, this poor guy doesn\u2019t even get to be called a viper. This viper is built with the 25th Armored Cobra Commander body in burgundy & black, and the standard HISS Driver head. He also includes the chestplate and backpack (sans cables) of \u201cPilot\u201d Destro from the Resolute 2pk. It looks like the Tailor Vipers just gave him whatever was left lying around.
\nTo make things worse, he doesn\u2019t even get a weapon. Sure, his job is to drive around a giant gun, but what happens when he has to get out? Like I said, he\u2019s going to high tail it out of there. The backpack looks somewhat like a bomb though. Maybe this poor guy\u2019s expected to go down with the ship. After all, Cobra can\u2019t let their new weapons fall into the hands of GI Joe, can they?\n<\/p>\n

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Overall, I have very mixed feeling about the new HISS Tank. It retails for about $25, which is reasonable. I love how it looks, and the action features are cool, if not somewhat unnecessary. I can deal with the cockpit popping up. I\u2019ve learned what to do and not to do to make that happen. What really disappoints is the sticking treads though. That was the one part that excited me the most. Over time I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll learn to live with it, but for now I\u2019m still a little put off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little over a year ago, the IAT crew trekked to Kansas City to cover the annual G.I. Joe convention, Joe Con. During the Hasbro panel, the convention room was treated to a surprise: the unveiling of the brand new H.I.S.S. Tank. After a year, I finally got a chance to own one.