WILLIAM G-4

 At the begining of the century, the shadow of McFarlane Toys was titanic and guided completelly the collecting world (qithe the oposite of wath it is now) and at that very shadow, many brands were born following theyr footsteps: Sideshow, NECA, Sota, ReSaurus, Mezco and Plisades Marketing. Very few survived but Plisades managed to evolve at giant steps and almost reach McFarlane perfection in a record time. Specially with the Resident Evil series 3 of action figures.

Chris and Wesker from CODE: Veronica looked nice but nothing compared with the amazing Tyrant or the last of the figures of that series: the final boss of Resident Evil 2, William G-4. Just like Tyrant that felt heavy and giant on his blister, William even had metalic chaps holding the blister to the card soo they wont tear apart under his weigth, this figure is trully a heavy weigth!!!

Since he is in four legs, he has no issue standing at all soo theres no need for base (and they didnt included one to begin with). William is articulated on the shoulders, wrists, chest and legs as well as in the shoulders of his secondary arms, elbows and wrists. Dosnt sounds like much but all articulations in here are ball joints except for his legs. 

The ball joint on his chest have an awfull lot of mobility while the one on his big big wrists helps a lot to adjust his standing. The small secondari arms on his heads helps only to add some dinamisy to the pose since, as much as he is articulatd, he is not going to be posed any other way aside of on all four legs. 

The sculpt is amazing....the dry and full of stretch lines on his skin is really nice as all the big veins coming out from his msucular system and mixing with his eyes. The skin broking out and revealing the super enhanced muscular systsme underneath as well as all the textures on his chest area and open wounds is something hard to describe. 

The shark like head and all the pointy fangs on his giant mouth as well as the fleshy texture of the inside mouth is something we never seen back then. This sculpt went beyond all boundaries toys had back then and give us a figure that is terrific looking even by 2023 standars.

The color is almost perfect as well, with the brown skin navigated by dark shadows that enhance the texture and all the blood and gore looking perfectly defined and natural: pink raw muscles with purple veins and red eye lids, vibrant yellow eyes with orange giant claws on every hand. The top of the head where the boney head is coming out from the body (the neck??) have a beautofull purple color while dark paint runs trough all the crevices on the skul structure.

The fleshy inside of the mouth mixi red, pink and some soft purples giving it the feel of very realistic animal insides, alive and wet. Maybe the fangs needed to be more pointy and a better color deffinition, but i guess they didnt wanted someone to get harmed or cut and considering everything, this guy is a huge imporvement over the Toy Biz version.

Sure, he dosnt transform back to G-3 like the Toy Bix did, but the sculpt and painting (and articulation) is in a totally different level and even better than the Moby Dick Toys figures. Plus, even on all four this guy is taller than the rest of the human figures and by extention, taller to modern action figures as well and considering how heavy he is, this is one of the most impresive figures i ever seen.

With Tyrant, Willaim G-3, Nemesis (I am missing him) as ell as Alexia, Plisades Marketing is soo far the only brand to release all the final bosses of Resident Evil in the same scale and quality and i cant apreciate that enough, because this was the very last time Plaisades touched Resident Evil since a couple of years later it stoped existing all together.

But this is also the very last time we got figures based on the "classic" (original) Resident Evil as well since Resident Evil 4 was around the corner and with it, the whole series would change forever to never be back at this era of Virus, Umbrella, STARS and Raccon. With a good assorment of CODE: Veronica nd RE 2 figures, i really wish Plisades had more chance to focus on RE 1 and 3 but this guy as well as Tyrant were an amazing way to wrap things up.

WILLIAM G-3 & WILLIAM G-4

For a kid in the 90s there was only one thing more exciting than playing Resident Evil: Play Resident Evil and once done, hop to keep playong it but with the action figures and thanks to ToyBiz we had the chance to do that. Part of the "Videogames Super Star" line, the Resident Evil 2 line was actually smaller than the original game line, with only 3 packs to get since ToyBiz skiped the smaller monsters and just after Leon and Claire, they went dirrectly to the final bosses of the game! William G-3 and G-4!!

To start, this guy is HUGE!!! He is much bigger than Tyrant from the first serires and really really heavy!! Seen him all by himself in the blister was very awesome but once out of the blister he was extremelly intimidating!!! He is as tall as a modern Play Arts Kai tough sadly, given to how huge and heavy he is and how articulated, he cant stand at all....he keeps falling over and over again soo i had to use Ryu´s base for this pictures.

He is articulated on the shoulders, legs, knes, ankles and half feet and his back arms are also articulated on the union with the back, elbows and wrists. All are cut joints soo despite being soo articulated he dosnt have too much posing options and thats a big shame. His back arms and theyr knes are ball jointed tough soo that gives them a lot of movement freedom but also makes them prone to falling at the sides given how heavy those arms are.

Despite his weak articulations the sculpt is really cool, with all the musuculature and veins on his arms as well as giant eyes erupting from different areas. His lean and slim complexion makes him imposing as well and it was soo amazing to have such a closer look at him in this toy, since in the game he was...well, way too pixelated and always triying to kill you.

His head is soo puzzling...is pure bone and looks kinda like a fish but human as well (specially with those big teeth), there is some grey shadows here and there and red bulguing eyes with crimson lips, the paint is simple but really good. Same for his body, brown body with dark shades to higthligth his muscles but my favorite parts are those eyes coming out from his legs...they are soo vibrant red, full of dark veins and the eyes coming out from the arms on his back are pretty awesome too.

But where is Willaims G-4?? And waths his actual action feature??? Well, the feature is actually mutates from G-3 to G-4 in pure Transformers fashion: move his arms up and bent his legs, push his back arms down and a spring will push out his head, making room for his G-4 head!! This transformation is really simple but it works soo good it was the coolest thing ever back in 1998!!!

The G-4 head have the same level of sculpt and paint tough the greys on his head is darker and the while section is cast in soft plastic. In his G-4 form he is still as massive as his G-3 form but in a horizontal way, tough given to the weigth of the open mouth, his back arms use to open up soo he is mostly standing on his mouth but thats hard to notice.

Overall, he is masive compared to Leon and Claire and plays the final boss role way too good!! Back then this figure was trully impresive, despite his weakness, we Resident Evil fans could not ask for more. Also this is, in 2023, pretty much the only time we got a Willaim G-3 figure and that makes this guy even much more special.