Bit of a delay here folks, was being patient before I reviewed my next figure so I wouldn't be zipping through them so fast.
Good news, found a G.I.Joe Trooper.
Bad news, this is not that review. :lol
5) Conrad 'Duke' Hauser Figure Review:
a) Packaging: Again we've been through this, it's bland, it's terrible, it's just plain boring.
b) The Figure: By now many fans of Joe have grown sick and tired of the numerous versions of Duke Hasbro continues to push down our throat.
It's gotten to the point where most reviewers tend to gloss over a Duke release in favor of someone more impressive and exciting. I'm going to do my best to treat this review as an impartial observation of the figure and not a
I am sick of Duck Bitch Fest 
This figure includes standard Retaliation Articulation. He has ball jointed shoulders, elbows, hips, neck and single jointed knees with swivel elbows.
The sculpt work some might call unoriginal, or perhaps something that doesn't fully stand out. I share some of their sentiments, however I feel that this Duke's sculpt is fairly decent and looks like a suitable upgrade to the Reactive Impact Armor from RoC.
He's pretty much dressed in regular army greens with silver body armor and black belts to break up the monotony. There's even some detailing where you can see the armor has been scuffed up with dirt and wear. Really, if you ignore the fact that this is just another Duke the figure sculpt is highly impressive and could almost work as a generic soldier's body.
The head sculpt bears passing resemblance to Tatum, it isn't as exact as some of the RoC figures, for one thing it doesn't look as screwy as some of the Duke figures looked in the RoC line. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, basically it's kind of a hybrid facial design that looks almost as close to Tatum as possible while retaining the more angular cheek bones of the PoC Dukes.
Here's where many of the complaints come into major play. The accessories, granted he doesn't come with a lot, but a lot of fans seem to think he has the weakest and least impressive accessories of all the first wave, with possible exception to Roadblock and his molded in weapon holding hand.
First up, he has this big honking multi-round weapon with a hollow chamber and a grenade launcher molded into it, all in all an impressive weapon, if it weren't for one glaringly obvious problem. Whereas most of the Retaliation figures recieved ordinary colored plastic weapons, or plastic that at least could fit in without being too obviously out of context, Duke has his weapon in a brilliant shade of orange.
Seriously, his weapon is orange, and not even a bright neon Orange, but more like a puke colored half-tan, half-orange hybrid that is a dull russet tone. Basically his gun would fit in great next to the Joes of the 90's and their neon plastic arsenals of the bright blue, green and yellow variety.
I can't fathom why Hasbro would do this, the sculpt work on this piece is sheer brilliance, it looks and feels like a real world gun. If it weren't that damn orange color it would be perfect. As is... Bleahk. This is the first time ever where I'm seriously tempted to take a sharpie to something, maybe even dip it into a bowl full of black pain and then highlight the details with a clear white or rich silver coloring to better match what a real world gun should be.
For some odd reason the weapon also has a hollowed out space in it, I'm not entirely sure what for, unless you're meant to stick Duke's other hand inside of it to make it look as though he's two handing the thing while in use.
The other accessory is equally cringe worthy to most fans, but for me, this is basically the entire reason for why I bought this figure. The sheer fun factor.
First is the piece included to balance the weapon when Duke is holding it/using it, once again that god awful orange plastic is used for a piece of shoulder armor/mounting. It snaps on quite securely and has a ball socket to hold the ball joint on the massic missile launcher.
This missile launcher is thankfully not orange, instead it is a similar tone of green and silver to the paint job on Duke's uniform. It attaches quite snuggly onto the smaller orange gun via a clip system similar to Prime Megatron's weapon for mounting on his arm. The fit is quite nice, and as a bonus when it is attached Duke can still be stable even without a figure stand, his balance is not too overtly threatened when using this weapon.
The missiles themselves are a clear orange color, looking quite similar to the missile with Cobra Commander, they fire from the weapon via a rip-pull cord similar to the Rip Attack Vehicles from RoC. This Rip-Cord is sadly the same puke orange color as the rest of Duke's weapons.
The gimmick works quite well though, each missile is intended to fire in sequence as the barrel rotates while you pull the rip cord along. The missiles fire quite far and quite effectively, you could easily lose them if not careful.
Pulling the rip-cord while Duke is holding the weapon may be a bit ungainly and awkward, in fact it could even serve to have your figure no longer wanting to stand. I'd recommend removing it first from Duke before using it to shoot the missiles at your Cobra Display.
The launcher is a fun addition, it looks and feels like something a Joe would be using in the field if a bit on the oversized side of things to better interact with the kiddies. It's a fun weapon that could even be used in a kitbash of a Transformer if you wanted, the sculpt on the weapon is pretty darn impressive and the small ball joint is situated in such a way that I can already envision many different uses for it as a piece in kitbashing.
As a small bonus the figure's ball socket joint for the neck is of standard size, if you were so inclined you could give the body the second head from the Joe Trooper and make it Not Another Duke on display.
Overall I rate this figure a solid 3 out of 5, while he is yet another Duke and his accessories coloring could have used some major overhauling before seeing release, he's still a solid looking figure, he does the job of being a Retaliation version of Duke quite nicely and his overgrown missile launcher is a fun toy to actually play with, with a world of possibilities. Some might criticise the rip-cord launching mechanism, personally I feel that just adds to the fun. It's a real shame that most kids will probably lose it after a few days if not careful causing the functionality to drastically decline.
Really there is nothing inherently wrong with this figure, aside from the coloring of the weapons. And I say give it a shot, you might just like it.
