REVIEW: 44003 SCAROX

[Gatanui]

Prepare the LEGO® Hero Factory Team for emergency action! The evil brains have latched onto a dune crawler and transformed it into a venomous spider beast with red eyes! Stay away from its deadly striking blades and spiked spider legs! Not even armor can protect you from its armor-piercing poison fangs. Send that brain-infected bug back into the sand dune it came from!

Set name: SCAROX

Set Number: 44003

Price: 9.99 EUR / 7.99 GBP / 9.99 USD

Pieces: 46

Year of release: Winter 2013

Size: Small

Presentation/Box

As you probably all knew, Scarox comes in one of the bags which got known as Capri-Sun-bags in 2012 due to their reminiscence to said product. The size of the bag is identical to that of the small-sized sets from 2012, so all in all, the packaging has not changed at all. Decide for yourself whether this is an advantage or not. I for my part like the bags, as they are more practical than canisters. The only downside I see when comparing them to canisters is that the bags have no playability function whatsoever, whereas the canisters in BIONICLE and Hero Factory and their components used to have different play functions apart from merely serving as packaging (The lids of the Toa Mata canisters served as Suva, the canisters themselves being transport vehicles inside which the Toa Mata washed on the shores of Mata Nui, while the Hero Factory canisters could be used as landing capsules called Hero Pods).

What is this mysterious flipping function advertised for Scarox' upper limbs? We'll see.

Building

As soon as we rip the bag open and let all the pieces roll out... wait! It turns out the pieces come all in an additional, transparent plastic bag, which we will have to open before starting the build. Merely the most interesting piece of the new Hero Factory line, namely the brain-crawler-sluggish-thingie which we will regard more closely later on, comes loose in the bag.

Once you have gotten all pieces out for the bag, you open the instruction manual and start building. "Instruction manual? Why should I need an instruction manual for a Hero Factory set?", you may be wondering. Well, although building Scarox proved to be all but challenging, I must admit that I would not have known how to build the back... at least not right away, as his back displays an interesting technic construction with a red technic liftarm acting as "lever", which enables us pull the upper pair of arms up and down. But more about that later. For now, let's just say that I am always grateful for the integration of Technic in the building process of Hero Factory sets.

Let me close this part of the review with one final remark: Building Scarox' head was suprisingly fun, as it was the most innovative head construction we have seen a while. And who doesn't like building something completely different for a change?

Set Design/Pieces

Once you finish building the set, you obtain a villain which, at least at first sight, is mostly coherent and visually appealing. The colour scheme is well balanced, basically featuring three colors: Bright gold, black and accents of transparent-bright-green. Being out of rubber, the brain invader does not have the same tasty color as the poison (?) fangs and the head, but personally, I can live with it. What I find more disappointing is the number of gold pieces, having preferred at least two more gold cladding pieces. Gold is a rather rare color in LEGO sets and mas has always been known to feel attracted to gold, so I can only say that it would not have hurt if the designers had hauled in a few more pieces with that shiny color.

Speaking of pieces: Scarox totals a respectable amount of 46 pieces. Out of those, eleven are new molds or recoloured, the absolute hightlights being the new headpiece, Scarox' face and the brain invader.

We already talked about the headpiece in previous reviews, so let me sum up the main impressions: Although it is pretty obvious that the new headpiece was derived from the Glatorian heads, it is lacking a face, which may be a plus and a con alike. One thing is obvious, though: This headpiece is the most versatile LEGO has ever produced, featuring a total of 6 connection possibilities; out of those, one ball joint connection, 4 axle holes and one system claw connector. Consequently, the head can be arranged in two different ways, the flat headside being the face for the heroes and the claw-connector side being the face for the villains. But I am sure this gorgeous piece cannot only be used as head and I bet we will be seeing other creative applications before too long.

Next on the list is the brain invader piece, which may not be as versatile as the headpiece, but makes up for it with its awesome look. Interestingly enough, this piece is actually composed of two pieces, which to my disappointment cannot be detached from each other: The rubbery, translucent part and a red, hard plastic piece which emerges through the rubber piece as two horns and the brain creepers' eyes. When we turn the brain creeper piece upside down, we also notice an axle connector on the hard plastic piece through which our parasitic brain can attach to its victims' headpiece. I am not sure whether this piece will come in handy for MOCing, but you might want to prank your sister or your little brother putting this creepy crawler thingie in her/his bed.

And last but not least: Scarox' face, which completely explains the name choice. You would certainly not want to meet a creature with this looks on your own or in a dark room.

Something I should remark is that you can plug the the tail of brain creeper into Scarox' back, giving him a Piraka-esque look... or at least this is what the instruction booklet tells us, for in reality, doing so will massively infringe the head's free movement and the tail will pop out almost instantaneously anyway. Not that this disappoints me very much, but just a heads up, LEGO: If there is something that doesn't work, don't pretend it does and there won't be reason for your customers to be disappointed.

Playability

There are two aspects which limit the playability. First of all: The short limbs. For my taste, the amrs are slightly too short and unarticulated. Please do not misunderstand me: It is not a torture to move Scarox' arms, but I would have preferred longer arms with two three articulation points and not just two. Then again, some people out there may disagree with me.

Second: The back construction, which allows the proud owner of Scarox to swing the upper two arms forward and backward... a play function which adds to Scarox' menacing appearance and may be fun for some children but which has been implemented in a better way. I for my part would have found it better if the construction featured a rubber belt so the arms would quickly rush forward and backward instead of falling back, which looks somehow cheap. Again, I may stand alone with this opinion.

All in all, Scarox is still fun to play with, though, and your heroes will have a hard time battling this four-armed alien.

Final Thoughts

Pros

• Gold!!!
  
• Most versatile headpiece of all time!
  
• Brain invader piece looks awesome!
  

Cons

• Action feature could be better
  
• Short arms
  

All in all, Scarox is a decent villain, with pros and cons mostly outbalanced. I myself am not very fond of this year's villains, but if you insist on getting one, I would recommend you either get Bruizer or Scarox. The decision is up to you... unless one of the brain invaders attaches to your head and influences your decision. Let's just hope that that won't happen...

Nevermind, Rocka took care of it already.

-Gata

[DraikNova]

He seems pretty nice, in my opinion better than Pyrox, at least.

[Shakar]

Well written review and amazing photos as usual, but I still find it hard to like this guy. Everytime I look at him, I think "He's pretty cool, he'd look a lot better with some mods".

But a few seconds later I think: "There's much better stuff you can buy for 9 Euro! Is it really worth it?". And this is why I'm skipping him, Bruizer and Bulk. These sets just don't have the same "wow" factor of the Breakout line, which I still regard as the best action figure line Lego ever produced.

[Vinyl Scratch]

Personally, with a few modifications mostly in the play action, this set is probably my favourite villain from Brain Attack. But I think Aquagon will take that place.

Nice review Gata, gorgeous pictures.

[The Crazy One]

Barring some nice gold pieces and a good helmet, a thoroughly uninspiring and dull figure. That motion gimmick ruins the figure as with Bruizer. Thanks for the review though!

Edited January 14, 2013 by The Crazy One

[Aethersprite]

Great review, beautiful pictures. IMO this is the weakest set this wave, the only thing I like about it is its face.

[Aanchir]

Scarox is probably my least favorite set this wave. His face is interesting (he's the only one of the villains to vary from just using the brain slug's eyes as his eyes, in that it splits the two red eyes into four), but I can't say I'm totally fond of it. And his short arms disappoint me. While I can see how they may have been meant to make him appear less humanoid, when coupled with his overly-humanoid torso and legs the end result just feels like a way of cutting corners on a typical humanoid build. His function, from what I've heard, is underwhelming, and while I can imagine how fearsome it would be to have him grab a Hero with two of his limbs and stab at them with the other two, it doesn't seem like it would be all that visually impressive.

Overall, one of the main reasons I'm disappointed in this fellow is that he's the only villain in the lowest price point. In 2012, the $8.99 sets tended to be amazingly innovative-- for instance, Jawblade and Thornraxx broke from traditional humanoid build, Toxic Reapa had impressive custom torso armor, cool weapons, and a nice, top-heavy design, and XT4 showed that even in a world of robotic characters you could create an industrial robot with fearsome, unnatural-looking proportions. This year, this $9.99 set mostly ends up feeling like a boring, poorly-armored humanoid, and with so many well-armored humanoid villains to compete with in the middle price point, he's on a poor footing to begin with.

[xxlrocka]

Geez, why all the hate on Scarox, guys? He's just a brain controlled Dune Crawler, he's innocent! Or, at least, without the brain he's innocent.

Oh, and great review!