Review date: 10/1/2003
Revised: 10/9/2003

Manufacturer: Joyride Studios

Released: 2003

Availability: RARE

Type: Action Figure

Sculpt:
Wonderful. It's a pretty slick sculpt. Cortana wasn't a great character to look at in the game but Joyride managed create all the sexiness that she exhibited in the game. They've managed to create an accurate representation of what Cortana would look like if she was more realistic. There's a lot of details in her hair and face. They sculpted all the little strands of hair which was nice. They also gave her a very realistic face. It may not look like the character in the game, but I think this is what she would've looked like if the technology for Halo's graphics were more advanced at the time.

Cortana's body is equally nice. The proportion is excellent and quite realistic. Cortana's legs aren't ridiculously long and her body is quite curvaceous. She looks petite and very cute. She has a very relaxed yet cynical pose. It's her trademark pose she showed to Master Chief which I'm sure many Halo gamers will recognize. They even sculpted out the patterns that she had on her body. I'm glad they kept her trademark "tattoos" there. It's hard to see unless you look at her closely but it's still a nice detail. I saw prototypes of her and she looked a little rough (which worried me). I'm glad the final figure is so smooth.

I'd also like to mention the base. It's no ordinary base. It lights up! It's actually modeled after a base that Cortana was standing on in the game. It's not bad looking but there's nothing outstanding about the sculpt. What is nice are the lights. There are actually two buttons on it. One is the "Try Me" button where you need to keep it pressed in order for the lights to work. The other button is the standard on/off switch which allows you to pose her with the lights on. It's a beautiful effect and mimics the appearance of how she looked in the game.

Cortana can be taken off the base if you want. It's a nice option to pose her without the base. I'd like to note that she tends to fall out of the base easily if you move it around with her on it. The hole under her foot is slightly larger than the peg. No big deal. Cortana also has ZERO articulation. She's a statue compared to Master Chief. You won't be playing with her much even though people label her an action figure.

Paint:
What paint? There's NONE. Cortana was made with a purplish translucent plastic. She's completely unpainted. I'm not sure if this was good or bad thing. The fact that she's translucent allows the whole function of the lights to work great. But since she's unpainted, the details with her sculpt are very hard to see. I like her as she is without the paint but I hope Joyride makes one with paint so we can have a Cortana we can see more clearly. I'd be happy to get that version too. I'd like to stress that the main reason she's translucent is because Cortana is a hologram character in the game.

There's nothing about the base's "paint job" worth mentioning about.

Where can I find this?
Quite hard. She's not very easy to find compared to Master Chief. I have no idea why. Try going to some online stores or go hunt around your local toy stores. You might be lucky. But her distribution was so low I'd expect Ebay might be the way to go.

The figure in its packaging. Pretty nice design. They incorporated many elements of the video game's designs into the packaging. (As you can see, I failed to take off all of the price sticker on the front which left a nasty residue for this photo shoot.)

Cortana with the lights on. Very nice effect.

The base. Buttons with no function. Thanks...not!

The back. Check out those curves!