ZORK64

REVIEW: 6217 Surge

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Mark Surge is back! While he was absent during the mission on Savage Planet, he's now back in action with all new equipment, which he definitely needs on his mission to stop Splitface from messing up the communication satellite Sigma.

But does his newes update holds up to his former incarnations? Let's find out in this little review.

Set name: SURGE

Set Number: 6217

Price: 9.99 Euro

Pieces: 45 pieces

Year of release: Late 2011/Early 2012

Size: Small set

Unlike the previous waves of Hero Factory (and Bionicle), the sizeclasses of the sets were slightly altered. Surge is one of the smaller sets of this wave.

The canister bag

TLG choosed a new packaging for this Hero Factory Wave - bags. While I was a bit sceptical at first, I start to appreciate that decision, since the bags are easier to store away. They're also more durable than you might expect. But I do miss the good old sturdy canisters though. At least Black Phantom still got a box, which is good, because

.

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Surge is dashing (flying? Floating?) through space, and Splitface is behind him shooting friggin' lasers to blast an asteroid right behind Surge. I guess he aimed for our hero, and if he would actually focused on Surge instead looking at the cameraman he might had hit him. Oh, I've already started to interpret too much into this picture, so let's move on.

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The back demonstrates the shooting ability of his arm cannon and the handcuffs, which are the new gimmick of this line. There are also some screenshots of the new online game, which looks interesting. And yes, below those pics are the chunks of text none of us will ever read, so I decided to not include them on this picture. There's also a line which indicates were you cut it open without without damaging the seal.

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If you remember my review of Bulk 3.0 you'll probably know that I love to compare canisters and such, so I couldn't resist to make this picture. As you can see, Surge's bag is slightly larger than the past HF canisters, while Breez's bag (she's a "Deluxe"-sized set) is even larger.

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Right out of the box, most parts are in yet another plastic bag. Of course, there are also the building instructions.

The pieces - overview

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Surge comes with 45 pieces in total, which is exactly 15 pieces more like Bulk 3.0, who was at the same price point. Alongside with various parts in his main colour blue, he also got some lime green this time. Since I always appreciate the limb bones in new colours, I'm happy to see lime green bones here.

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Random instruction page. While various other reviewers already mentioned that the white outlines for black parts have returned, I didn't really noticed the change at first, it was like "What? Weren't the outlines for black parts not always white?"

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The combiner, which requires Splitface. Looks ugly IMO.

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There's also that neat pic at the end of the instructions. I couldn't resist to upload it here too.

New pieces

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Surge comes with the new torso piece, which is sleeker and more detailed. He also got a nice printing of lightning bolts on the chest, which nicely fits his character and looks gorgeous on the blue background.

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He also got the new launcher in gunmetal. The lower part looks like a shorter Glatorian launcher, while the upper part reminds me of the Midak Skyblaster of the Phantoka. Both pieces are pretty decent.

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Okay, okay... it's not a new piece, but still... Surge's thunderweapon with a blue lightning looks friggin' awesome, so I just had to mention it. Sadly he only comes with one of those, not two.

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The new hero core is white (bright grey on the inner ring) and even smaller then the previous ones. It also doesn't require some sort of armour piece like the past two ones and due to that it stands a bit more out on the finished set. It's also only available in white.

(Oh, there's also a code for the new game on it's back)

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Here we got the cuffs, which look kinda nice. But to be honest, I don't care much about the entire "space police/prison break/cuff the baddies" theme that's going on, so don't be surprised that most of the later pictures of this review won't feature them. But I'm tempted to use them as some sort of claws on a MOC.

Building the Hero

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Surge's build doesn't differ much from previous heroes. It starts with the core skeleton, continues to the legs...

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...the armour, the arms, the weapons...

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...and ends with the head. Surge is ready for his mission!

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I was surprised how many spare parts he got.

Playability and set design

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Pew pew!

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Zwooosh!

Well, I guess it's no surprise that Surge is pretty poseable. He also comes with two fun gimmicks to play with, the launcher and the cuffs. The new launcher however doesn't work as well as the old symmetrical ones did though.

About Surge's design and colours... I like him. Medium blue and lime work very well together, and the way how the lime is placed across his body works also pretty good. And since he's blue, small and wields an arm cannon, he slightly reminds me of good old Mega Man, and that's a pluspoint aswell.

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As one of the smaller sets Surge suffers the empty back like the past heroes did. By the way, the lack of some armour here doesn't only make those heroes look hollow, but also a little bit flat compared to sets who got back armour, like Breez.

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Speaking of Breez, here's a little size comparison between Breez, Surge and Stormer. Surge is obviously around the same size as Stormer 3.0, and Breez is a little larger than the guys.

Bonus Image

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In case you're wondering what Surge would look like with the chestplate of his 2.0 version... he looks like this. It looks cool, but it hinders the articulation of his head and covers most of the neat detail of his new torso armour.

Final thoughts

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Thanks to his colour scheme and overall design, Surge is currently my favourite hero of the new wave. Breez might come with better pieces and also a very cool design (she's basically Samus Aran!), but her colour scheme (which is dominated by lime green with bright red) doesn't look as good to me as Surge's does. The only things which are bugging me about him are his hollow back and the stoic launcher.

So if you were missing a blue set in the past wave, Surge is worth his money. But if blue is not really your thing, you're probably better of with Breez, Rocka or Thornraxx.

Edited by ZORK64

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You are right, blue was missed, but this set seems not to deliver the blue goodness that one would expect. I just don't get why the need for all that lime. Specially because Breeze and Scorpio already flood that market. This color scheme certainly makes the most sense in comparison to the other heroes in the wave, but that's due to the other heroes' shortcomings. Blue and Lime is not precisely the best combination and it would have been much more useful for MoCs if the shells pieces that are lime in this set were blue.

Then we have the "shoulder pads", this style of letting pieces stand out in such a flat (literally) is way too reminiscent of Bionicle toas/glatorian and I think HF could do better. The tube is a nice touch but I am not thrilled about the return of he 1.0 hero weapons. They were awful and HF 2.0 / 3.0 have done a much better job in the weapon department.

All in all, this seems to be among the top two heroes of the wave, but that's because of the shortcomings of the other heroes rather than Surge's own accomplishments. I think I'll be buying only villains from this wave, Breeze is the only hero that looks more than 60% good to me but I am not really interested in that much lime right now. This wave with an almost pathologic tendency to include random colors in sets that would have been great without them. I hope the second 2012 wave does not have that issue, but the catalog seems to point towards it with blue chests in Stringer and a white one in Bulk... :/

Edited by vexorian

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Thanks for the review! But as for the set...

Ehh... I don't know. Couple of things. Firstly, and a minor gripe - really wished that TLG had included a second hand for this guy. Secondly, all the lime green is just ick. There's way too much of it, IMO.

With the 2.0 sets currently going at 45% off in my country, I'm really thinking if I should pick up a Surge 2.0 and then mod this guy with blue parts when I get him. But I don't have a very big budget, and if I get this guy I'll probably have to sacrifice getting one of the smaller villains, all of which I really love. Decisions, decisions...

EDIT: Ninja'ed post. :laugh:

I hope the second 2012 wave does not have that issue, but the catalog seems to point towards it with blue chests in Stringer and a white one in Bulk... :/

My guess is that Nex will be getting the white chest, not Bulk. Bulk's is probably a filler for a silver recolour of the chest piece.

Hopefully.

Edited by Lockon Stratos

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Great review! I really like this set, and look forward to getting him. His color scheme works really well IMO, although I think I'd have preferred his hands in bright blue, perhaps along with his sphere.

I'd also have liked if the lightning bolt pattern on his torso were in bright yellowish green rather than bright yellow, although others might disagree. For me, the 2.0 color schemes hold more nostalgia than the 1.0 color schemes, since the 2.0 sets had their colors so organized and consistent. Which isn't to say I dislike the variety in how today's color schemes are arranged, such as Surge's lime shell pieces.

If I were to get this set, I'd also happily add a bright blue foot to a Pick-A-Brick order in order to add some back armor. In general, though, I like how imaginative this set is despite being at the lowest price point, and I definitely think the design suits Surge's personality a great deal.

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Thanks for the review! I like him better than Evo... but not by much. I'm very surprised you got an extra chain link; neither of my sets got spares.

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Thanks for the review lad! Surge has really grown on me since I've seen the preliminary images, he turned out to be a great set. Gonna be one of my first se-

Wait, you have Breez?

...

Can you do a Review of her please :tongue:

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Thanks for the review lad! Surge has really grown on me since I've seen the preliminary images, he turned out to be a great set. Gonna be one of my first se-

Wait, you have Breez?

...

Can you do a Review of her please :tongue:

Actually I had intended to review Breez first (since I got her even a week earlier than Surge and my two villain sets), but Omicron Squad Leader wanted to make a review first. So I'm gently waiting until his review is online before I wrote mine (though I start to become a little bit impatient... :grin: ).

Great review! I really like this set, and look forward to getting him. His color scheme works really well IMO, although I think I'd have preferred his hands in bright blue, perhaps along with his sphere.

...

If I were to get this set, I'd also happily add a bright blue foot to a Pick-A-Brick order in order to add some back armor. In general, though, I like how imaginative this set is despite being at the lowest price point, and I definitely think the design suits Surge's personality a great deal.

You know I think he would also look good with teal instead of lime...

I'm also a bit tired of the enormous amount of lime sets in Hero Factory. The only colour that's more common would be red, but also only because of Fire Lord and his buddies (and even there, red was not as dominant than lime was in the case of Corroder, Scorpio and the 3 versions of Breez). Not that lime is a bad colour, it's just that other colours (like blue, orange or friggin' bright green!) could also deserve a bit more attention.

I'm also tempted to get some sort of armour for Surge's hollow back, but I'm not too fond of the idea using a 2.0 foot because of the empty ball socket, which would stand out a bit. On the other hand, I have no idea what else could be used here...

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I'm also tempted to get some sort of armour for Surge's hollow back, but I'm not too fond of the idea using a 2.0 foot because of the empty ball socket, which would stand out a bit. On the other hand, I have no idea what else could be used here...

What about a 1.0 foot instead? For my current Heroes, since I don't have many 2.0 shield pieces to go around, I use a black Metru chest armour (we got plenty of those from the Glatorians' life counters) to fill in the back, and it works pretty well for me.

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If you have this Bionicle piece in blue, you could do what I did.

Set up

034-4.jpg

Place in second hole from the top:

038.jpg

Add chest armor to the front and then done:

040-1.jpg

Set up brings no issues with head movement and fits nicely with the later HF chest armor design.

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If you have this Bionicle piece in blue, you could do what I did.

Your country thanks you for being a genius.

I'd forgotten but I used to use that foot a whole lot in MOCing. Probably discovered it's greatness through lots of spares from a TRU parts bucket

Honestly, that's good enough to be official. and there's plenty room to build off the back. The only issue is the pieces only being available in pearly tones - but if lego was going to resurrect a Bionicle part for hero factory, they couldn't do better.

oh, besides these:

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Edited by SpiderSpaceman

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That piece, I really dislike to use it, it makes MoCs look awful because of its plastic in my opinion. If TLG would remake it and use normal, shiny, non-pearly plastic, then it might actually become a good piece, but until then...

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That piece, I really dislike to use it, it makes MoCs look awful because of its plastic in my opinion. If TLG would remake it and use normal, shiny, non-pearly plastic, then it might actually become a good piece, but until then...

It has been used in non-metallic colors before: in Dark Stone Grey for Carapar, in Earth Blue for Krekka, and in Earth Green for Toa Mahri Kongu. All the ones from the Rahkshi, though, are in metallic (pearl) colors. The Rahkshi are the only sets in which many of those colors appear. Metallic Black and Metallic White appear in the widest variety of sets-- Metallic Black, for instance, is the color of the Kanohi Kraahkan from the original Makuta set.

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First of all, I agree with SpiderSpaceman on the parts usage.

I don't mind the pearly shine of the Rahkshi foot, but I have no spares in blue left. Besides, as a MOCist, Surge will sooner or later be disassembled, so I only mentioned the lack of back armour for the sake of a review.

I'm actually planning to order multiples of Stormers 3.0 helmet and similiar pieces to build a unit of almost identical white knights, and I'm thinking the 2.0 shield should make a good back armour if I also get the right pieces to attach them.

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First of all, I agree with SpiderSpaceman on the parts usage.

I don't mind the pearly shine of the Rahkshi foot, but I have no spares in blue left. Besides, as a MOCist, Surge will sooner or later be disassembled, so I only mentioned the lack of back armour for the sake of a review.

I'm actually planning to order multiples of Stormers 3.0 helmet and similiar pieces to build a unit of almost identical white knights, and I'm thinking the 2.0 shield should make a good back armour if I also get the right pieces to attach them.

The 2.0 shield does work very well.

I add them to all my Hero Factory MOCs. There is one on my MOC EVO figure, pictures can be seen here:

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=63781

Edited by acidophilus

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That's good to know. Which piece did you use to attach it to his back?

Don't know what he did, but I did the same idea for 2.0 Evo and 3.0 Nex. Expect I used the basic idea from the Rahkshi back cover and replaced that part with the shield.

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If you have this Bionicle piece in blue, you could do what I did.

Set up

034-4.jpg

Place in second hole from the top:

038.jpg

Add chest armor to the front and then done:

040-1.jpg

Set up brings no issues with head movement and fits nicely with the later HF chest armor design.

Hey... I have that in blue! And I have 6127! Lemme try doing that. :tongue:

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