Sports Collectible Reviews

Lord of the Rings Expansion is a good game. If you lose you will want to play it until you win. A little difficult to understand at first. Also at times frustrating, but you can make it through. Very hard with just two people, Medium with three, Kind of Easy with four, and Easy with five. As the BIg Eye comes toward you, or when you roll the dice it get thrilling. Its kind of a piece of cake once you play it alot. That is why I give this game 2 thumbs up. THIS IS AN EXCELLENT GAME!!!!!

The Friends and foes expansion set adds three vital components to the LOTR game system.

1. It adds the Bree game board and events including Tom Bombadil (whose absense from the movie is painful)

2. It adds Isengard game board and events

3. It adds the many foes from the book really giving the game a new outlook.

Now in addition to all of the various problems you may already face now the wolf riders, the uruk-hai, and the cave-trolls add to your grief and the various foes appear to battle you. You must keep these foes in check as they sap your strength and allow Sauron time to grow ever closer. Defeat enough of them you might be able to avoid some of the great dangers that lie ahead altogeter, allow enough of them to plague you and you will be overwhelmed and defeated.

This is money well spent. If you own the game buy it!

Without the expansion, it is difficult enough for the four hobbits to make it to Mordor, but with this expansion comes an army of enemies to band against the players.

This game shows team players how to rely and work together, as they depend on the survival of the ring bearer to make it as far as possible.

One of the few games that allows for selfless acts and creates one goal for the players....the enemy is Sauron, NOT the other players.

Excellent game!!

Don't get me wrong, this item has great detail and is very realistic looking, Deuce McAlister is one of the leagues best but I do not recommend opening this figure, many people including myself have had problems with it standing properly.

The figure itself looks great in package and if you decide to purchase it, keep it that way.

Great looking figure but thumbs down to McFarlane on this one because yet again they are having problems with keeping the figures standing up straight.

Awesome realistic figure but i have opened 2 of them and both do not stand correctly.

Still great for the in package collector!

Although pokemon cards are losing popularity to things like Yu-Gi-Oh and Duel Masters thye still are a good game. In the pokemon magma deck you get some good cards, including Team Magma's Groudon. I gave it a 5 fun becuse it is realy fun. A 3 in education becuse it may teach you strategy but nothing else. and a 2 in durabilty becuse the just simple trading cards.

Pros
(these are more for the pokemon game in genaral though some are for this specfic deck)
You get good cards
Easy to play

Lots of fun
Lots of cards to collect

Cons
Team Aqua's deck has the elemental advantage
Hard to find pepole to play with you
Cant use cards that arnt from EX sets

In this particular deck you can receive a very good deal because one you can face your friends with these cards and just play around your self if your bored.I find these cards very entertaining.I rated this deck's fun a 5 because as i said you can face anyone that has these cards and this game is not too long and not too short so there is a low chance of you getting bored.
I rated education a 4 because if u were teaching this game to a 7 year old they would not know what pulverizing is so they can learn alot from this deck itself.
Well what is there to say about durability what do you expect from some paper cards, for them to be water proof or "unrippable" there is not much to say about durability so I gave it a 2.

ummmm.....i think these cards would be a lota fun for us....awesome, anyways, i'm gonna try it!

My son keeps the cards that he wants to trade in this case. That way he doesn't have to worry about them being mishandled and they're kept seperate from his deck. Also, when we had a garage sale this summer he displayed his cards in this.

Hi i got the cards today for my nephew and im sure he will love them. However i thought they would come in a package instead they came together in a long white box. Since it is a gift I would of liked to have had the regular packaging. But other than that he is going to love them.

well when i first got this toy i was really surprised to see how durlible it is.this toy is awsome,it looks jsut like michael vick but all pumped up.i recomend this toy to neone who likes michael vick like i do.hes the best player out there.he can run,throw,and do many other things.i hope they make t.j. duckett, jason taylor,priest holmes,clinton portis,donovon mcnabb,and ray lewis in there next two lines.i cant wait for more of them to come out!

this toy is very fun. but since it is cards it will be messed up a lot very easily.

This is the second Ichiro Suzuki figure put out by McFarlane Toys. The first, from Series 1, had the Seattle Mariner's right fielder in his batting distance, and was not particularly impressive, mainly because they captured the least distinctive part of the process by which he hits the ball. However, this MLB Series 4 Figure is one of the most impressive ones McFarlane Toys has issued to date (which is now up to Series 7).

Ichiro is shown laying down a bunt and this is the first baseball action figure I am giving 4 stars on educational value because this is a textbook example of this neglected art form (How many times in the baseball playoffs this year, the greatest in history, did guys come up to bat in bunting situations and not know how to get the job done? Answer: Too many). Look at the superb attention to details. Ichiro is a split second away from dropping his bat; it now barely making contact with one hand. He got down low to get this bunt and already his eyes are on the field to make sure he has put this one where it needs to be to beat it out. Best of all, the ball is suspended mere inches (relatively speaking) off of the ground. Perfect.

To top things off the face looks more like the player than is usually the case with these action figures, and McFarlane Toys sets the standard on such accuracy in this field. I also like it that for once the people who keep insisting on putting dirt on the uniforms of all these players did not go overboard again. There is a road Grey Jersey version of this action figure as well, but obviously he is not batting in the top of the first, although even the bottom of the first would still dispel the sacrifice bunt idea (besides, if it is a sacrifice it should be directed towards third and I do not think that is what is happening here). The bottom line is that Ichiro is a marquee player and this is a marquee action figure from McFarlane.

Alex Rodriguez played in his first spring training game today, in which he went 0 for 2, and he was not wearing the blue home jersey of the Texas Rangers. My connection says that McFarlane Toys will be coming out with an update version of this figure in a New York Yankee figure, but I will believe that when I see it. Ironically, one of the other MLB Series 8 Figures is Alfonso Soriano, so you have both of the players in the biggest trade of the off-season in their old uniforms. Yankee fans can also get Kevin Brown in his old Dodger uniform and Hideki Matsui as an actual Yankee in a Yankee uniform. Note: Andy Pettite and Roger Clemens in their Houston Astros uniforms will both be in McFarlane's MLB Series 10 out this summer, as will the second Derek Jeter figure (will he still be the Yankee shortstop when that happens? Stay tuned, America).

As always with the McFarlane figures the details are quite impressive. You can just about read the printing on the baseball, which is suspended off of the infield dirt, and I especially liked the back of A-Rod's jersey is starting to come out from the uniform pants. His autograph appears on the glove and his index finger is sticking out, just like it is supposed to be. Even the cleats on the bottom of his A*Rod shoes are there. In terms of articulation you can move the figure's head slightly and his right arm swivels most of the way around; it actually looks good in several positions, so take your pick. The figure is attached to the base plate, which is right at the edge of the outfield grass, by a metal peg on the left leg and a clear peg on the right (so that the toe is not touching the ground).

I do not know if the trade makes the MLB Series 8 Figure: Alex Rodriguez with Blue Rangers Jersey (Home) an instant collector's item, but with this and the Soriano figure coming out at the same time I just had to pick up both and put them side by side on the bookshelf. The blue jersey is a nice shade of blue and they do seem to be reducing the amount of dirt on the pant legs in this series (someone at McFarlane really loves to have dirt on the uniforms; nobody is every playing in the first inning apparently).

There are three New York Yankees in the MLB Series 8 Figures from McFarlane Toys, but Alfonso Soriano is not one of them. There is Hideki Matsui in the Yankees gray road jersey, but then Kevin Brown is still wearing number 27 for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Alex Rodriguez, who was traded for Soriano, is still decked out in the road uniform of the Texas Rangers. You have to appreciate the great irony here that Soriano and Rodriguez would both come out in the same action figure series just after they were traded for each other (there are no action figures planned for either the player to be named later or the money paid by the Rangers to the Yankees).

This is the second McFarlane figure of Soriano and is a great improvement over the previous figure, which had Soriano suspended in mid-air to avoid being taken out by an unseen runner having just made the throw to first base in an attempt to turn the double play. Soriano does have one of the more distinctive batting stances and follow throughs, and it is the latter that is captured this time around. I was thinking that Soriano's bat, one of the heaviest in baseball today, was not as big as it should be, but that really depends on the angle. In terms of details you have not only Soriano's name on his bat, but "12 AS" on the back of his shoes, "AS 12" his batting gloves, and a "12" on the shin protector, the wrist band, and the batting helmet (which is made of plastic, a nice touch).

The only points of articulation is Soriano's right forearm, which you can position as you want (ideally it should be parallel to the square of his shoulders), and his head, which should be aligned with the center of his body as the ball is deposited into deep left center field (at the stadium in Arlington for all we know). Both of the metal posts easily fit into the batter's box base plate and the figure has no problems standing upright. This figure is right up there with the Bernie Williams action figure as the best of the bunch for the New York Yankees; too bad he no longer plays for the team that plays in the big ballpark in the Bronx.

One thing I want to emphasize is that now that we are up to Series 8 one of the great improvements McFarlane has made is the knob of Soriano's bat comes off so that you can slide the bat handle into position and then put the knob back on. The same thing holds true for the Matsui figure, so it must apply to the Jeff Bagwell one as well. This is a vast improvement over the older figures, where you had to cut open Jason Giambi's hands to get him to grip the bat. Final Note: Jeff Bagwell, Richie Sexton and John Smoltz are the other figures in MLB 8. Yankee fans can look forward to Mariano Rivera in MLB 9.