Gatanui Posted January 1, 2013 Head for the LEGO® Hero Factory briefing room immediately, ROCKA! The evil brains are rampaging through the galaxy and must be defeated. This is one tough mission, so you have been equipped with LEGO Hero Factory Recon Team weapons: a plasma blade sword, a 360-degree spinning razor shield, armored visor and hero core locking clamps. With equipment like this, you're ready for anything those evil brains can throw at you! Set name: ROCKA Set Number: 44002 Price: 9.99 EUR / 7.99 GBP / 9.99 USD Pieces: 43 Year of release: Winter 2013 Size: Small Presentation/Box And this year we get the bag packaging from last year once again, albeit with a new theme, obviously. For the first time, the Hero Factory logo is printed perpendicularly, probably to make space for the menacing brain hovering over Rocka's head, not visible on this picture. Rocka stands in a heroic, almost knightly pose. Considering the kind of equipment he wears, that's most likely no coincidence. The back promotes spinning shield and flipping visor features, but more focus is granted to the combiner this time. I haven't tried it yet but the combiners seem to be getting better every year. Note how they purposefully gave Rocka and Scarox similar colours so they could be combined without causing any chromatic atrocities like the Splitface/Surge combiner had. Again, the game code comes in the Hero Core just like last year. This time, the game app is advertised on the packaging as well. Building You can't really expect any challenges from a small-sized set, though this one comes with a small amount of Technic we'll come back to later. However, new and beautiful pieces you can't help admire will add at least thirty seconds to the build this time. :P This said, let's talk a bit about the pieces included in this set. Set Design/Pieces Rocka comes with 43 pieces - the smallest piece count this wave, but still fairly impressive for a small-sized set. It gets better, though. I count five new molds (left batch) and seven recoloured pieces with a total of four recolours (right batch). Don't let the pics fool you: while the visor, head and cladding are transparent, the blade is only translucent. I think it's enough to say about the recolours that they are beautiful and worth getting. 4M shells in gold, gunmetal and trans-bright green (which I and my brother call "apple green")? Check. You can't get enough of 4M shells. It's already worth it for the glorious trans-bright green alone, though. :P Add an awesome big golden dish to that, and you're set. Let's take a closer look at the most notable of the new pieces, the head. I think the photo above does justice to the glory of the sword, the helmet, the torso and the visor, but the new head deserves some special treatment. We asked, and we got. This is the new head design LEGO will surely be eager to use for the coming years. Not only has it a remolded ball cup but it adds two new connection points to the ones the Glatorian head had, one at the front and a clip connection on the back used for the visor. Gone is the Iron Man face, though. This said, the new head has no face at all. I guess this is fine, though, as this makes it far more versatile and the face is covered up most of the time anyway. If you want a real face for one of your MOCs you can still use a Glatorian head, which has roughly the same size as the new head. Alright, enough of the pieces. Time to discuss some design! What can you say about Rocka? He looks noble and heroic. His colour scheme, even with the added bits of silver on the hands and feet, looks good. He has two hands, which is great, too. At first sight, there are no design issues to be seen. That is until you get to the back. What is that protruding red piece, you ask? Is that LEGO's answer to the apparently still present hollow-back problem? Seriously? Well, in a way it is. Not the piece itself is the solution, however, you can attach the shield on there so Rocka carries it on his back, covering it at the same time. A great idea reminiscent of the good old Toa Metru. The execution could have been better, though. Not only is the red piece kind of eye-glaring, the shield sticks out way too much when looked at it sideways. There could have been more clever ways to fix it, though I'm not sure the price point would have allowed it. This is not really an issue, though. If it bothers you so much, simply remove the silly red piece or come up with a better solution yourself. ;) Before I move on to the playability, I'm going to point out some good design decisions. The torso armor is not only an excellent piece, the four golden reinforced Exo-Force arms also complement it very well, giving it more colour, thickness and even a small play feature. Obviously, you can open or close the clasp around the Hero Core to offer protection against evil brains. Playability Rocka's got the usual thirteen points of articulation, which is still something to be happy about, but not particularly notable anymore either. Gone is the launcher in favor of a couple of melee play features. You can flip the visor up and down, as well as the Exo-Force arms on the torso as I said earlier. You can also spin the shield which is a great touch. You'll never get enough fun out the swooshing sound it makes. :P All this together is quite good for a small-sized set. Not much else to say about his playability, so just gazet thy upon these pictorial manifests of Rocka's knightly heroism. Final Thoughts Pros Glorious new and recoloured pieces Good colour scheme Trans-bright green! Looks awesome Cons Silly back Overall, what can you say about this set? He's quite a treat to look at, and I can imagine he's great to play with as well. If you want a good-looking small set with lots of marvelous pieces, this may be your choice. Way to start the new year, Rocka. -Gata Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MakutaDreadscythe Posted January 1, 2013 As always, beautiful photography, really does that new visor justice. Was gonna skip this guy, but... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
exxtrooper Posted January 1, 2013 Great review here with nice and clear pictures! Personally I don't find the set too interesting as I'm really not a big fan of pearl gold for mocing, or Rocka for that matter. Of the smaller hero sets I'd say Breez seems to be the most interesting one, the only interesting part I see in Rocka that is exclusive to his set would be his transparent sword. Great to see more reviews of the Brain attack sets showing up, can't wait to get my hands on some of these sets myself! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
VBBN Posted January 1, 2013 Not a fan of this guy at all. I still love golden characters so I mean I do enjoy the look of this guy generally but the design of him, Breez, and Bulk is extremely uninspiring and lackluster IMO. Sure, it's a smaller set, but he just looks ridiculously skinny compared to what he was and should be. Now maybe Rocka can be okay like this since the rumors of jet Rocka, but a character like Bulk using it is just saddening to me. We already got a nice bulk in 4.0, lets have the spots filled by heroes that fit this design more. Random tangent there, but still. And nice review Gata, picture quality is excellent. Made me realize I need to kick out my Pyrox and Bruizer reviews soon Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ZORK64 Posted January 1, 2013 I'm also not a fan of gold, but I do like Rocka's new helmet. It departs more from his Breakout helmet than I anticipated, but that's a good thing. Besides, I really enjoy the quality of your photos. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Aanchir Posted January 1, 2013 Not a fan of this guy at all. I still love golden characters so I mean I do enjoy the look of this guy generally but the design of him, Breez, and Bulk is extremely uninspiring and lackluster IMO. Sure, it's a smaller set, but he just looks ridiculously skinny compared to what he was and should be. Now maybe Rocka can be okay like this since the rumors of jet Rocka, but a character like Bulk using it is just saddening to me. We already got a nice bulk in 4.0, lets have the spots filled by heroes that fit this design more. Random tangent there, but still. And nice review Gata, picture quality is excellent. Made me realize I need to kick out my Pyrox and Bruizer reviews soon Rocka... has always been skinny... Unless you're talking about Rocka XL, the only time he's had significantly more bulk than his teammates. Otherwise, he's used the narrower-shouldered torso in every one of his forms and has never had a whole lot of bulk to his armor. Anyway, good review. This guy's one of my favorites of this wave. The back is underwhelming, but frankly I don't think it's meant to act as back armor in any way-- more of a way to free one of his hands. It definitely calls for something more compact and elaborate, though (which I agree, probably couldn't be done at this price point). Love how the brain looks clinging to his back there. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
VBBN Posted January 1, 2013 Rocka... has always been skinny... Unless you're talking about Rocka XL, the only time he's had significantly more bulk than his teammates. Otherwise, he's used the narrower-shouldered torso in every one of his forms and has never had a whole lot of bulk to his armor. True, the Lion especially which was more tha likely to show the slimmer look that lions have. But as a 4.0, he was tall which gave a skinny feeling, though he had a lot of bulk made up by his weapons, which blended well with the look. This character really only has the massive shield giving him bulk, and personally, I dislike the shield and plan on replacing it or just keeping it on his back. (And again, one of the main ways to add bulk to him is to put it on his back, which then it becomes kind of needless persay. It's just a matter of personal opinion, I think as a non-lion character he should have more bulk to him, and that is what I plan to do with mods of course. More of a general statement relating to the smaller heroes really. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gatanui Posted January 14, 2013 Thanks everyone. It took a while, but my Scarox review is online. -Gata Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DraikNova Posted January 14, 2013 He's pretty cool. I was on the edge about this guy, but now I feel I should get him. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Shakar Posted January 14, 2013 I think Rocka is the best of the three 9 Euro Winter Heroes, Breez is boring (hey, I have her so I can say it!), while Bulk has so many things wrong with him..and he's boring. Their Breakout versions were much sexier, and I consider them the definitive version of the characters. One thing that makes him a winner is that his transparent colour is in contrast with the rest of his colour scheme, instead of complimenting it (and this is why Breez and Bulk look so plain- man, I would have loved to see tr. red on Breez!). Rocka, if anything, has the problem that he's too similar to his Breakout form- same exact colour scheme (just different colour organization) and nearly the same helmet. He looks good, but the robot knight look he has had been pulled off by Breakout Rocka before, and better. So I think "should I buy him, or are the helmet and that gorgeous sword the only pieces I really want?" Jet Rocka is coming later in the year, and I'm 99% going to get it because that vehicle looks fantastic. I imagine pilot Rocka won't look too different than the Winter set- it's not that he's getting a new torso build like Pohatu from Rockoh T3, HF doesn't work like that. So, he looks good but I don't need the whole set. I'm skipping him, or, if I buy him, it's going to be for the parts (which are good. Hmmm...). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
