Apologies for any typos, as I'm typing this on my phone. I don't normally use my phone for anything, so I'm not very good at the texting style of typing.
So, after two sittings of roughly nine hours total I finished the pelican. Since I own all four pelicans released so far, here are some long and rambling thoughts on this one. For simplicity sake, the original 2010 pelican will be called simply "original," the lights and sounds pelican will be called "LS," the NMPD pelican airbase set will be called "NMPD," and the newest pelican shown in the photo will simply be called "newest."
I'll first rank them three ways: interior, exterior, and overall. All of my ranking are subjective and each one is followed by me explaining myself. The pelican are listed from best to worst.
Interior: NMPD, LS, Original, Newest
Plain and simple, the nmpd has the largest interior space for transporting figures, with LS in the original having around the same size interior space. The newest sacrifices most of its interior space in favor of integrating the play feature. As it stands, without actually using the play feature and opening the back half for pelican up like a doll house, you can't actually really do anything with the interior space. The only thing that it has going for it is that you can actually access the cockpit from The troop bay, which none of the other pelicans were able to do.
Exterior: newest, NMPD, original, LS.
Simply put, I hate the 343 pelican design from Halo 4 and Halo 5. Since all of the remaining ones, including the Halo Infinite pelican, draw inspiration from the Bungie era, I'm predisposed to like all three. The reason I put the newest one first is because it has the absolute best build of any Halo set I've ever owned. I thought the COD since had interestingly complex builds, but this pelican absolutely takes the cake. I won't spoil the build for those of you who don't have it yet, but suffice it to say that this is probably the best set Mega has released so far in terms of genius building techniques. it also looks the nicest and most complete out of all of the pelicans. I do have a couple of gripes where the studs don't line up perfectly but that's a flaw of the medium, not the design. It's also the biggest pelican we've gotten so far, even bigger than the NMPD one, and obviously bigger is better :) It's also nearly impossible to notice the integrated play feature when you have the pelican closed up. You have to look for it to know it's there. The NMPD pelican rank second because it's slightly smaller, slightly less complex, and is frankly an NMPD pelican, not a UNSC pelican. Original pelican ranks third because, even though I love it and it's one of my favorite sets, it suffers from the extreme lack of complexity that the original Halo mega bloks sets suffered from. Simply put, you could probably build it in a couple of hours and nothing in the build would surprise you. It's a wonderful set.
Overall: newest, nmpd, original, LS.
Frankly, I just hate the lights and sounds pelican. The integrated feature, unlike with the newest pelican, does nothing but detract from the build. The lights and sounds module takes up almost the entire cockpit of the pelican and prevents you from being able to actually have the fun of building it yourself. This is a problem suffered by all of the lights and sounds set but the hornet and the pelican are the worst. All it boils down to is awesome idea, bad execution. As much as I love the original pelican, it just can't compete with the nmpd and the newest one. Both of those are entirely in their own league. The only reason the newest pelican wins is because it's a much better build than the nmpd pelican, which was already a staggeringly good build. If the nmpd pelican was great, the new one is perfection. I just wish there was actually more space in the troop bay when the pelican was closed up. Other than the one figure in the seat and the troop bay and the pilot, all of the other figures you want to have in the pelican have to be standing sideways in the troop bay in the hallway, because they just can't fit the other way around. Everything is too narrow. Also, unlike the ls and NMPD pelicans, the new one can't haul a warthog without modifications. While I fully understand why they didn't include it, it still sad to see that play feature go.
Side note, this is the first pelican to release with numbered bags and that easily cut 6 hours of sorting out of the building time. It's a nice quality of life change and I'm glad Mega made it.
Now, for the nitpick. I would have preferred either two hunters, or no hunters. Obviously, if you bought two of these in order to have both builds at the same time you would end up with two hunters, but nearly everyone who buys this $130+ dollar set will only be able to afford one, so not being able to get a pair unless you buy two sets just feels bad. It's the same problem with the wasp and I'm glad to see Mega going back to 2 per set.
So, after two sittings of roughly nine hours total I finished the pelican. Since I own all four pelicans released so far, here are some long and rambling thoughts on this one. For simplicity sake, the original 2010 pelican will be called simply "original," the lights and sounds pelican will be called "LS," the NMPD pelican airbase set will be called "NMPD," and the newest pelican shown in the photo will simply be called "newest."
I'll first rank them three ways: interior, exterior, and overall. All of my ranking are subjective and each one is followed by me explaining myself. The pelican are listed from best to worst.
Interior: NMPD, LS, Original, Newest
Plain and simple, the nmpd has the largest interior space for transporting figures, with LS in the original having around the same size interior space. The newest sacrifices most of its interior space in favor of integrating the play feature. As it stands, without actually using the play feature and opening the back half for pelican up like a doll house, you can't actually really do anything with the interior space. The only thing that it has going for it is that you can actually access the cockpit from The troop bay, which none of the other pelicans were able to do.
Exterior: newest, NMPD, original, LS.
Simply put, I hate the 343 pelican design from Halo 4 and Halo 5. Since all of the remaining ones, including the Halo Infinite pelican, draw inspiration from the Bungie era, I'm predisposed to like all three. The reason I put the newest one first is because it has the absolute best build of any Halo set I've ever owned. I thought the COD since had interestingly complex builds, but this pelican absolutely takes the cake. I won't spoil the build for those of you who don't have it yet, but suffice it to say that this is probably the best set Mega has released so far in terms of genius building techniques. it also looks the nicest and most complete out of all of the pelicans. I do have a couple of gripes where the studs don't line up perfectly but that's a flaw of the medium, not the design. It's also the biggest pelican we've gotten so far, even bigger than the NMPD one, and obviously bigger is better :) It's also nearly impossible to notice the integrated play feature when you have the pelican closed up. You have to look for it to know it's there. The NMPD pelican rank second because it's slightly smaller, slightly less complex, and is frankly an NMPD pelican, not a UNSC pelican. Original pelican ranks third because, even though I love it and it's one of my favorite sets, it suffers from the extreme lack of complexity that the original Halo mega bloks sets suffered from. Simply put, you could probably build it in a couple of hours and nothing in the build would surprise you. It's a wonderful set.
Overall: newest, nmpd, original, LS.
Frankly, I just hate the lights and sounds pelican. The integrated feature, unlike with the newest pelican, does nothing but detract from the build. The lights and sounds module takes up almost the entire cockpit of the pelican and prevents you from being able to actually have the fun of building it yourself. This is a problem suffered by all of the lights and sounds set but the hornet and the pelican are the worst. All it boils down to is awesome idea, bad execution. As much as I love the original pelican, it just can't compete with the nmpd and the newest one. Both of those are entirely in their own league. The only reason the newest pelican wins is because it's a much better build than the nmpd pelican, which was already a staggeringly good build. If the nmpd pelican was great, the new one is perfection. I just wish there was actually more space in the troop bay when the pelican was closed up. Other than the one figure in the seat and the troop bay and the pilot, all of the other figures you want to have in the pelican have to be standing sideways in the troop bay in the hallway, because they just can't fit the other way around. Everything is too narrow. Also, unlike the ls and NMPD pelicans, the new one can't haul a warthog without modifications. While I fully understand why they didn't include it, it still sad to see that play feature go.
Side note, this is the first pelican to release with numbered bags and that easily cut 6 hours of sorting out of the building time. It's a nice quality of life change and I'm glad Mega made it.
Now, for the nitpick. I would have preferred either two hunters, or no hunters. Obviously, if you bought two of these in order to have both builds at the same time you would end up with two hunters, but nearly everyone who buys this $130+ dollar set will only be able to afford one, so not being able to get a pair unless you buy two sets just feels bad. It's the same problem with the wasp and I'm glad to see Mega going back to 2 per set.