Review: Official Set 8993 - Kaxium V3

This week, we’ll be building set 8993, the Kaxium V3, which marks the second of the 2009 Bionicle Battle Vehicle sets. The Kaxium is a dual vehicle found on Spherus Magna, and generally affiliated with the water tribe. It was most notably used by Scodonius and Birbraz in arena matches, and we got to see it go head to head with a Cendox, where Crotesius defeated the tandem driven vehicle with ease.

Packaging:

The packaging for this set gives us a really nice look at the set on the front of the box with a well-done desert background. At the bottom is a small window indicating that we have a few different builds for this set, including each of the drivers and the two vehicles.

The back of the box gives us an alternate view of the Kaxium vehicle, along with some advertisements for the included play features as well as a few of the other 2009 Battle Vehicle sets.

Model Review:

In total, the build took 36 minutes to complete. It was a bit repetitive of a build, but it's not too big of a deal since this set isn't too big.

The set comes with two drivers, Kibraz and Scodonius, who are more or less clones of one another. The parts and build are exactly the same, just with different color palettes of blue.

The cycles have a very nice look to them, the connection between them is essentially invisible. The most prominent color is the silver which has a lot of blue popping out around the model. The cycles are very easily detached from one another, they’re really only held together by two pins on the left side of the larger one. Once detached it's pretty clear that the cycles have nearly the same look at slightly different scales. The larger cycle has some more flamboyant silver part usage, creating a pretty powerful look at the back end of it. Both of them have a go-kart silhouette to them, only that each of them only has two wheels, kind of a best of both worlds situation here between motorcycles and go-karts.

Each of the two cycles includes a Life Counter on their side, so if you were to engage in a battle you could isolate these two vehicles on their own. The smaller cycle includes a Thornax Launcher mounted over its front hatch. As discussed in the last video, this is a pretty nice function and I imagine it would be a ton of fun battling a friend, the only issue is that the Thornax fruit tends to slip out.

These figures are definitely easier to snap into place than the Cendox V1. Lifting the front hatches up is a must prior to attaching the hands, tucking them in tight, and hinging the whole thing down into place. A single light gray technic piece adds additional reinforcement to Kibraz and Scondonius to really keep them in-place. And then just as easy as detaching the bikes, they snap in via two pins. In general the rolling is very very smooth with both cycles. The small bumps from the tire treads makes this just feel like an all-terrain crawler on Bara Magna.

Current Pricing & Final Thoughts:

The pricing for the Kaxium V3 is pretty much the same as the Cendox V1, just a little bit higher up. The Kaxium V3 generally sells for around $35 in used condition, and $85 if you were to go with brand new sealed condition. I got this one brand new, and it was really nice to have those parts pristine, but I don’t think it’s too necessary for this set.

The Kaxium V3 feels much more complete to me than the Cendox V1. It’s got a great look, pleasant play features, and really fits the vibe I get from Bara Magna and the storyline. This being the same price essentially as the Cendox V1, feels like a no brainer to me for which one you should get.

Score: 8.6/10

Video Review: