Hero Factory 2012

[JFisch]

I'm very impressed the way Lego has done with hero factory, it seems to me like the get more and more bionicle-like with every wave.

[Omicron Squad Leader]

Evo vs. Toxic Reapa.

The landscape of Z'chaya looks great, but it seems that they decided to completely change Evo's personality? Okay...

[Phantoka Kopaka Nuva]

Evo vs. Toxic Reapa.

The landscape of Z'chaya looks great, but it seems that they decided to completely change Evo's personality? Okay...

I think it's just the fact that he's uncomfortable when facing an enemy in an unfamiliar territory.

On an upside note, the video makes me want to get both Evo and Reapa.

The downside?... ALL MY MONEY.

[Antrozek]

edit = I'M SO DRAWING THIS....

Edited December 21, 2011 by Antrozek

[Omicron Squad Leader]

I think it's just the fact that he's uncomfortable when facing an enemy in an unfamiliar territory.

He wasn't on Tanker Station 22. Perhaps LEGO thought kids would find a calm and collected Evo boring, so they changed him up a bit.

[Vinyl Scratch]

Well, Evo and Nex did have their personalities switched on Ordeal of Fire according to the official Hero Factory bios.

Loving Toxic Reapa's voice.

[Shakar]

Am I the only one who is...worried about the number of Summer sets? Even if we do get this Speed Demon or whatever his name is going to be, 8 sets is awfully small for a Summer wave.

[Vinyl Scratch]

Am I the only one who is...worried about the number of Summer sets? Even if we do get this Speed Demon or whatever his name is going to be, 8 sets is awfully small for a Summer wave.

Personally, I'm loving the idea of 8 sets in Summer. Do you have an idea how much the sets cost here? Bloody expensive

Now I may finally be able to get them all in a blink

But they'll surely get here in December 2012

[Mesonak]

That actually holds true for me as well. Sure, I'd love to get a wave comparable in size to last summer's 12 sets, but alas, I have other expenses and wouldn't be able to get all the sets I'd want. At least this wave's small number of sets will hopefully allow me to hone in on the ones I really want (Core Hunter, Stringer, XT4, Voltix) and prioritize the others.

[Shakar]

I agree with you, and that's what I thought as well. Indeed, this year I didn't buy Scorpio and half of the 3.0 Heroes and I used the money I saved to buy doubles of 2.0 sets and Hero Recon Team models for MOCing purposes.

And this year I plan to buy at least 2x Thornraxx, 2x Splitface and most likely many more extra things, not to mention some LOTR stuff, and then there's the Collectable Minifigs series 6 and (especially) the sweet series 7.

So..less sets is actually a good thing. The possible downside, which is why I said I'm worried is that..Lego never makes small Summer waves, unless the theme is ending/not going well.

[Mesonak]

Yeah, not going to lie, that's a concern in the back of my mind as well. I've grown quite attached the HF, so I hope it doesn't end anytime soon. But I suppose there's no way to know till September.

[Dorek]

Man, they're really giving the whole episode away in these Vs movies XP. I think Evo still resembles his old personality, in a way that actually makes more sense. OoF didn't really give a good picture of Evo; all he did was meditate and shoot things. Here, under pressure, he still rationalizes and thinks over his decisions, he just has to do it on the fly, and under duress.

I did see Von Nebula this time, among the group of escapees. I can only hope that it's just a re-use of his character model, because if not, there's some serious 'splaining to do.

Anyhow, I don't think they're ending it just yet. If nothing else, Breakout has paved the way for old villains to return. A short summer line isn't really indicative of ending anything; BIONICLE's final summer release was one of the biggest (both in the number of sets, as well as the overall size of the sets) in the entire line. Maybe this line has less than Savage Planet, but it has the same as the inaugural (also summer) wave did, and they only shrunk the number of sets for the subsequent wave there.

[Omicron Squad Leader]

Well, Evo and Nex did have their personalities switched on Ordeal of Fire according to the official Hero Factory bios.

Which is bad because now we're going to have two eccentric Heroes, unless they randomly decide to alter Nex's personality to what it should be.

The reason why there's only 8 sets is because there was only four Heroes left to make, and each Hero can only go up against one villain each, according to LEGO's logic. They could have made it twelve by introducing two new Heroes, but for some reason LEGO doesn't want to do that at this point. Besides, if it was the last wave, surely they'd be a Furno XL?

By the way, where's Aanchir? I kind of miss his long, in-depth posts...

[The Crazy One]

Which is bad because now we're going to have two eccentric Heroes, unless they randomly decide to alter Nex's personality to what it should be.

So you are against character diversity? I see.

[Omicron Squad Leader]

So you are against character diversity? I see.

No... The opposite. I DON'T want Evo and Nex to behave very similarly, I want them to be DIVERSE like they were in Ordeal of Fire. I don't mind the changing of character traits, but to me, Evo seemed very alike personality-wise to Nex or Furno in that clip.

[Shakar]

The reason why there's only 8 sets is because there was only four Heroes left to make, and each Hero can only go up against one villain each, according to LEGO's logic. They could have made it twelve by introducing two new Heroes, but for some reason LEGO doesn't want to do that at this point. Besides, if it was the last wave, surely they'd be a Furno XL?

By the way, where's Aanchir? I kind of miss his long, in-depth posts...

True- which is why I believe in the rumour about an eighth 20 Euro Villain to rival Stormer, regardless of how reliable is the source of said rumour (not that I don't trust it, just saying it makes sense by Lego's logic). But 10 sets wouldn't have been so bad to me...one more 13 Euro Hero and one more 9-10 Euro villain would have been cool. I guess I'll have to wait for 2013 to see a new Hero.

Yeah, I miss Aanchir as well.

[Dorek]

I don't see how anybody's character has changed. Nex is the tech-head; this is first shown in OoF, and then these traits appear again in SP. Evo is the calm, cool, collected one. In OoF, more than anything else, he is caricature of himself, of his traits. Here, we actually have some dialogue, some insight into his thought processes, and while still in tune with what we were told about him before, it adds depth, reality, to his character. I don't see any resemblance to Nex in that clip, at all.

Also, Aanch is around =P. He's visiting relatives, so he doesn't have much computer time, apparently.

[Kalhiki]

Where's zen Evo? I liked his ninja ways. Not only did his personality change, but so did his voice. He doesn't have that accent anymore.

Maybe whoever tore his arm off also screwed up his voice (alright, I know this is non-canon. But I'm still going by Evo's arm being torn off).

Speaking of his arm; I really want to paint the gun piece and give it the yellow highlights. It looks sweet in the animation.

Kalhiki

[Studs Not On Top]

I'm not seeing any more previews of the movie, just to keep the rest of it a secret. But I'm wondering, yes or no-- are they still showing the ends of the fight scenes?

[CabooseBM]

I'm glad Evo's voice has changed, myself. His old one was pretty bad.

[Skarkdahn]

I'm not seeing any more previews of the movie, just to keep the rest of it a secret. But I'm wondering, yes or no-- are they still showing the ends of the fight scenes?

Yup.

[Aanchir]

I don't see how anybody's character has changed. Nex is the tech-head; this is first shown in OoF, and then these traits appear again in SP. Evo is the calm, cool, collected one. In OoF, more than anything else, he is caricature of himself, of his traits. Here, we actually have some dialogue, some insight into his thought processes, and while still in tune with what we were told about him before, it adds depth, reality, to his character. I don't see any resemblance to Nex in that clip, at all.

Also, Aanch is around =P. He's visiting relatives, so he doesn't have much computer time, apparently.

I'm not visiting relatives until this Friday. But the weekend was busy because of my graduation (woo!) and after that I've been having computer troubles until just this morning when I finally seem to have gotten everything sorted out. I'm flattered that people noticed my absence.

Anyway, I don't want to pass any really in-depth judgments of the summer sets until we have seen them in at least a slightly more finalized form, since some aspects of them seem very preliminary. In many cases colors are all we can make out clearly, and those are easy to change.

Voltix is cool, and hopefully the videos we've seen suggest correctly that the final color scheme is more subdued. Still hard to tell if that's bright red, dark red, or bright reddish violet making an appearance on the legs and tubes. My guess is bright red just because tubing already exists prominently in that color.

Bulk is cool, and I feel his weapons suit his characterization. A silver MTIS would also be very welcome, if that is what it is.

Core Hunter sounds awesome, and the set design doesn't seem to disappoint.

XT-4 is innovative, although I'm hoping and praying that the "villains fusing together" idea is thoroughly debunked by the time we get clearer pics of him. With people leaping at shallow resemblances between Meltdown, Corroder, and Toxic Reapa, I dread how people will react to another one-eyed yellow villain set.

Stringer is cool, but the blue is a peculiar color choice. I'm sure if they go through with it he'll still look awesome, but it seems a bit sad after the color schemes of many of the other characters remained mostly intact save for occasional colors being removed or neutral colors being added.

Nex's new helmet is hard to gauge. It reminds me of General Grievous a bit, but it still maintains some reflections of Nex's old helmet, if not as blatant as Evo's.

Stormer is gorgeous, but of course some things like his lower legs seem a bit confusing to me from a structural perspective. His knee joints, for instance, are very non-traditional in how they are assembled. He gets bonus points for apparently being the first hero to wield a sword. I hope he doesn't tower over the other heroes too much. I also still can't figure out his two-toed feet. He is, without a doubt, a great source for the new friction joints. With at least four, he has more than have been spotted on any other sets to my knowledge.

Overall I look forward to better pics, but as of right now I don't think there's much we can do but speculate. I'm personally more excited about the winter sets and the videos that are surfacing of them. If Rocka's torso looked awesome with the pattern extruded, then Evo's looks even more so. His personality in the video doesn't seem drastically at odds with the little we'd seen of him before. It's jarring hearing him talk so much, but he can't exactly give Stormer the silent treatment by radio when on a solo mission. And his means of taking out Toxic Reapa seems to really suit his character, using heavy force but using it strategically.

[Aethersprite]

On the topic of having such a small summer line - could it be that we're getting lesser sets due to the Superheroes Ultrabuild sets? They are, after all, in the same building style.

As for Voltix - I was hoping we would get a recolour of the BP head, but since his head is black in the animation it's probably the real deal. Sigh.

[Cirkit]

So soon with the leaked pictures? I am surprised. Not so much with the two already seen in the "Rocka Vs BP" video, but still surprised.

I have to say I have very mixed feelings on these guys. Nex is okay, I'm glad he's using a helmet that looks similar to the old 2.0 one. To me, it kind of looks like a football player's helmet. Bulk, Stringer, and White Hulk Stormer's helmets are the same, so there's not much for me to say about them. But if Bulk's white and Stringer's blue.. augh! I truly hope those are only prototype images and not finalized ones, because if they were, my world would come crashing down.. okay, not really, but still.

White Hulk deserve own paragraph. White Hulk SMASH!!

Really, he's a bit big. Makes sense because he's the leader, and the oldest of the known Heroes, but he's almost too big. The sword's just awesome, kind of makes sense considering he is 'old fashioned' somewhat (the site bio said something along those lines), and those snowflakey-blade pieces on the shoulders.. just great. I really hope he's got some trans blue going on up in there, to help with the icy effect.

The Villains of this wave, so few as they are, aren't much to look at. Purple-man's got a lot going on, and the reusing of that BP helmet isn't so great. He looks... cluttered. Core Drainer Core Hunter RoboVamp looks excellent from what I can see. Loads of black and bright red, and those talon-claw things.. just great. XT-4's name is great and robotic, but I can't say the same on his build. It looks too much like Waspix with Meltdown's head, although the feet in that color are greatly welcomed.

If there is a "Speeda Demon", I really hope he has wheels. And Jets. And Cannons that shoot sharks with lazers, shooting confetti that screams. Just crazy stuff for a crazy name.

I welcome the new wave with open arms, and a arm-cannon, and can't wait to see what TLG's got in store for us next.

-Cirkit

Edited December 22, 2011 by Cirkit

[Aethersprite]

Funny post there, Cirkit. I agree about Voltix. His colour scheme seems a mess to me. There's purple, black, yellow, and red. Makes him look very messy.

As for the white torsos on Bulk and Nex, I assume they're just prelims, meaning they'll hopefully be properly coloured when they finalized sets roll out. Can't say the same for Stringer, though, my guess is that the blue will stay. Which is a shame, it's the only thing I don't like about him.