Spring Cleaning: Get Off My Desk, Loser Toys!

Over the years, I've accumulated a sizable collection of awesome (in my opinion) figures to adorn my desk. The problem? A desk stops serving its primary function when various toys take up all the room. This month, I was faced with some tough decisions in order to free up space – what gets to stay on my desk, and what becomes a casualty? In this blog entry, I'll let the winners take their victory lap.

Now, I realize that this is totally a nerd-exclusive dilemma. Determining if the Saint of Killers or Bahamut gets to continue holding a place of honor on a desk is not a  choice that normal people have to make. Still, I actually enjoyed the process. I wanted to clear up a drastic amount of space (I filled two boxes with the losers), so I had to be pretty unforgiving. I found that whether or not a toy got to stay on my desk relied on two main factors: how much I liked the figure itself, and how much I liked the source material it came from. As a result, the following survivors tend to be characters from my favorite games.

Kratos and KOS-MOS

Kratos is just awesome...I don't think I need to explain that. As for KOS-MOS, I had several smaller figures of her to choose from,  but I decided to keep the one that featured her Xenosaga: Episode I design. The less I think about Episode II, the better.

Dante and Virgil

No matter how much I hate how the DMC series spells Virgil, I can't argue with the fact that this pair of figures from Devil May Cry 3 is totally sweet. I had a small Nelo Angelo figure also, but he ultimately ended up in the loser pile.

Companion Cube

Look, I'm not going to pretend to be clever by tossing around some Portal reference you've heard a hundred times before. I like the Companion Cube. If I had a GLaDOS toy, I would have kept that out instead. But, as far as I can tell, no such thing exists.

Little Guys

These things don't take up much space, and are neat in their own way. I really like the movie Princess Mononoke, so the Kodama had to stick around. Alexander is basically a robo-church, which I support. Oh, and I made that Green Knight myself.
Sander Cohen

When I visited Irrational Games last year, I was fortunate enough to receive this statue of Sander Cohen. He's pretty much the coolest character in BioShock, so there's no way I'm packing him away.

Old Snake

Given how much I love Metal Gear Solid 4, this one might seem like a no-brainer...but it was a harder call than you might think. I also had the old McFarlane version of Solidus Snake, which is one of the most awesome toys I've seen. Ultimately, I had to side with Solid.

Lenneth and Freya

If you haven't played Tri-Ace's Valkyrie Profile, you won't understand why these were must-keeps (also, you should play Valkyrie Profile). Here's a pathetic story about the Lenneth figure: I paid $40 for it at a specialty toy shop in Akihabara when I was in Japan for TGS a couple years ago.

Cloud and Sephiroth

These are the Advent Children versions of these characters. Final Fantasy figures from the Play Arts line used to dominate a full 50% of my desk. Now these two are all that remain at the office. It wasn't easy to say goodbye to Heretic Bahamut. It was easy to throw FF X-2 Yuna, Rikku, and Paine in the reject bin, however.

So, that covers all the winners. In order to avoid repeating this process every year, I'll need to be a little more judicious about what figures I buy...though I already have a few spots reserved for the upcoming Bayonetta figures, Mass Effect 2 figures, and (if I can ever find them) Valkyria Chronicles figures. What about you? What toys do you have that earn the right to be prominently displayed?