perplexingArticulator

Everyone's main beef with BZPower neatly summarised, ladies and gentlemen.

What I'm really liking about this, and what's grabbing my attention more than any other facet, is the lengths taken to add such detailing to the pyramid and surrounds by adding cheese wedges everywhere - not only is it a nice touch, but you've also done it in a sufficiently "random" manner that it doesn't look as though it was made to follow much of a pattern, which is just even better. I must particularly commend its employment on the desert "floor" - that's some downright beautiful texturing there, very nicely done. The end result both feels much more authentically pyramidish and is much more interesting to look at. Beyond that, I don't really have much to say - it's pretty much the pyramid everyone with a sufficient stock of basic LEGO bricks built as a kid, just larger, with a consistent colour scheme, and much more refined. That's not a bad thing at all, by the way - it just means I have less to ramble about.

Blah, one of these days I'll remember to write this stuff down or something. Sorry, that's almost certainly the correct price - I never bother remembering decimal prices and just round up out of practicality (because really what is 35c these days) so I remembered it as $15, but when I came here I recalled there being decimals in there somewhere and wasn't sure which way I'd gone earlier, so I put $16 to be safe. I'm lamenting my suckitude here, rest assured.

Okay, I can confirm the presence of Hero Factory 3.0 sets at the Big W in Gungahlin, ACT. There's only heroes, though - none of the larger sets. In retrospect, I should've confirmed whether all six were there - the photos I took don't seem to feature Rocka, and I didn't make a note of whether all six were present. I don't recall seeing Rocka, either way. Regardless, I'm quite surprised to see them here already - BIONICLE's summer waves rarely landed until mid-August. I suppose it doesn't matter. Here, have a shitty shelf photo hastily taken with a 3DS. They're all $16, the same price as the 2.0 heroes. Also, they generally appear to have a sizable stock of summer-wave sets, but they don't have Alien Conquest. I swear, if AC turns out to be Target-exclusive...

The recolours here would certainly make for great HF parts packs. As representations of the superheroes in question... not so much. As far as licenced LEGO goes, this is the most questionable rendering I have ever seen. I find myself completely perplexed why the Lantern and Iron Man have these enormous shoulderpads, or why Hulk has this big strip of silver armour across his shoulders. And come on, there has GOT to be a better way to render Batman's capewings; this is just lazy even by the dreadful standards of HF. At this point I'd say the Lantern is the most well-done here, since he could pretty much just do with losing/trimming down those unspeakable shoulderpads and rotating the thigh plating to the front (all of them need that, from the side it just looks awkward). The Hulk desparately needs armour plating on his shins and forearms, and by extension the longer shin pieces; at this point he just looks silly. I guess it's prototypical and the sets will be refined before they hit production and sale, but still... not a promising first look. Come on, LEGO, pick up your game kthx.

what what both licences what is thisaklshdklhgasdglkjsdgk ... in my dream i am the AFOL. its me and THEN the big toymaker comes for a little one-on-one but it turns out to be CRAZY what kind of dual-licence this guy has im telling you.... both mavrel and dc like this is UNREAL, it doesnt even HAPPEN most of the time the comiccorn is on FIRE That's pretty much the only response I can get out now that adequately covers what I'm getting here. This is just /whoa/. Even if there's precedent for one simultaneously holding DC and Marvel licences... Just /wow/. Odds are still slim that I'll be able to get my hands on any, but hey, LEGO Iron Man now actually exists. I am content. As for the figs themselves, the DC themselves are all-around glorious and wonderful. The Marvel ones... not so much. Something feels kind of off about Iron Man's helmet and the Hulk (though I really appreciate that they're doing a larger fig for him), and I can't say I'm at all fond of how they rendered Wolverine's claws. Got no complaints about the Captain or Thor, though, but they don't really have much in the way of necessary specialisations like the others. But hey, almost certainly prototypes - I'm sure these qualms will be rectified. Thank you, LEGO and Marvel. Thank you for proving me oh so wrong.

If this means the Batman sets will be more Nolan-Batman-oriented, then yesssssssssssssssss; and those Superman and Green Lantern minifigs look great too. I am, though, curious about what it means for those rumours of Avengers LEGO - sure, they may have been little more than rumours, but Batman is the only DC property I care about and I'd certainly prefer to see Iron Man in LEGO form. It'd be great if both were simultaneously possible - from what I've heard, Marvel and DC do seem to get along okay with some things - but eh, I get the feeling I'd never have adequate money for either, so it doesn't matter.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. I must say, I was quite pleasantly surprised - I'm of the opinion that it's the best of the Potter adaptations, and certainly my new favourite. It was by no means a perfect adaptation, but the changes made were generally very workable and fit the medium, and in one or two cases something of an improvement over the novel's course. Also, at times it actually had me quite excited and making cheering gestures, something no other film's managed for a very long time - whether that says something about me, I don't know. Either way, thank gog the theatre was dark. (spoilered for changes to four-year-old book) tl;dr good Potter film, best adaptation

Heh, I do so love watching Mega Bloks' habit of hastily snapping up pretty much every licence they can grab, even (or especially) the more unlikely ones like this. It never ceases to amuse (except that time they snagged Thomas the Tank Engine after LEGO was through with it, that just hurt). From what I recall about LEGO's concerns about licencing which eventually had a hand in the creation of BIONICLE, it'll probably come back to bite Mega Bloks in the rear eventually. Concerning the sets themselves... yeah, that's some pretty rampant juniorisation even for Mega Bloks. It might be the result of the photography, but the plastic just doesn't look right either. Also, I find great amusement in how the minifigs look very little like Mega Bloks figures; trying to divorce ourselves from our primary product are we, Mega Bloks?

I would absolutely kill for a LEGO take on the MOTHER/EarthBound trilogy. Obviously it's little more than a dream beyond a dream - notwithstanding the unlikelihood of LEGO adapting any game into a line, the series has a history of being stomped on and disregarded aside from its constant presence in Super Smash Bros. Though, dreams are the point here so... The way I see it, sets and minifigs based on the series would be quite easily able to fit in with LEGO City, if with a slightly more 80s vibe. The series is certainly not short on distinct memorable locales which would be nicely adaptable into sets, especially MOTHER 3. Also, I can definitely see the quirky, offbeat range of enemies proving to be fun and interesting for both the set designers to work on and from a consumer standpoint. I can't think of any feasible way Giygas would be able to be adapted in LEGO form aside from a mosaic, but eh. I also quite like the idea of LEGO adaptations of two of the other three Nintendo series of which I'm very fond - Metroid and Fire Emblem would work nicely, though making even an inadequate assortment of minifigs for Fire Emblem or just picking a world within the series to adapt would be quite tricky. That said, I'm more or less convinced that Pokémon, the fourth of my favourite Nintendo series, should probably not see the light of a LEGO line. It'd be an absolute nightmare to give any aspect of the franchise decent coverage, it's pretty much unfeasible to commercially produce sets or minifigs of all 649 or even just the latest 156, and the results probably wouldn't be that great anyway. It's probably better to leave Pokémon consigned to the realm of MOCs. Descending even further into the realm of unlikelihood, into properties which aren't even commercial franchises, I like to think that Homestuck would be a neat fit as a LEGO theme. Many of its key aspects - item alchemisation, the shifting of enemy design based on certain players' choices - would be oh so very appropriate to the construction ideals behind LEGO, though they'd need some reworking to be employable in set form. Also, generally nice potential minifigs and set settings and possibilities abound, like making John's house in such a way that, should you for whatever reason own multiples of the set, it's designed so that multiples can be stacked up to resemble the ever-increasing skyscraper of a house that is Rose's Sburb work on it.

My screen name is of fairly recent creation. It is based on my adoration of the absolutely wonderful webcomic Homestuck, where the main characters' IM handles take this general name format and are derived from the characters' interests and personalities(e.g. gardenGnostic, who loves gardening and sees visions of the future in her dreams, or tentacleTherapist, who is well-read on psychology and eldritch lore). Mine was devised specifically to fit that naming scheme - I'm too verbose for my own good and most of my actions don't make any sense at all, even to myself. Additionally, the two words also use my initials, and thinking of fitting words using said initials wasn't particularly easy. Finally, while it'll have a clear meaning to fans of Homestuck, it's not strange to the point where it's nonsensical and unfitting in other contexts, so it's more or less universally usable. In that regard, it's a very desirable change from my old online identity which was virtually gibberish even to the BIONICLE community for which it was originally devised.

I've always seen the Harry Potter line as a strange case in regard to settings for sets. Whereas with any other licenced line (and even nonlicenced ones, especially Adventurers and similar) I'd greatly prefer a wider variety of settings, with Potter I instead find myself much more interested in sets based around Hogwarts and its grounds, largely owing to its status as the focal setting for the franchise and how interesting a setting it was demonstrated to be in both book and film compared to everywhere else. Indeed, I don't even tire of multiple large sets named "Hogwarts Castle" - with Hogwarts so vast yet undefined and open-ended as it is, filling in the blanks with more sets to create an even larger Hogwarts is one of the things I thoroughly enjoyed about the line, and it helps that the large "Hogwarts Castle" sets can be used to wrap around and constitute the exterior and are all quite different anyway. LEGO's promotional inserts for the Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets ranges, where they showed off multiple sets connected and arranged together to make a greater whole, are probably to blame for the mentality I developed around the theme, and I found it quite disappointing that later iterations of the Potter theme shied away from that approach. As for specific wants, I remain highly disappointed that there has not been a decent Room of Requirement. I can see how it may be difficult to pull off, but come on, this is LEGO we're talking about here - I'm confident they could do it. With sequences of importance taking place there across the last three books, it's a bit of a missed opportunity, one I hoped to see rectified for the Deathly Hallows Part 2 sets. Also, not connected to any specific desired location, I shall eternally mourn the absence of a Tonks minifig and Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff robes.

Historically speaking, I've almost always used Brickshelf. It had more to do with the fact that it was the only imagehost of which I was aware for many years (bar Majhost for obvious reasons). Even now, I appreciate its lightweight design with very little cumbersome decorative imagery, cutting the excess and getting straight to the point of the uploading and displaying of hosted images, all the more appreciated a few years ago when I had utterly laughable bandwidth allowance. I later discovered Photobucket, virtually the antithesis in that it's absurdly bulky in filesize, imagery and advertising, and consequently is not the most pleasant to load or use (and a recent amendment has made things slightly worse); but hey, when working on private collaborations as I do it's great to have the ability to render one's imagehost folders private and files accessible only through deeplinks/embedding. While there's probably a better solution than Photobucket, screw it, I'm there and they gave me unlimited hosting space for some reason so I'm content. That said, I've never used Photobucket for MOC storage; for that purpose it never really clicked with me. A year or so ago I started a Flickr account, intending to use it for MOCs. For various reasons I haven't managed to use it with much frequency, but from my experience it's a great service, especially as far as handling MOCs goes - though I have no idea how to use it as of yet, I quite like the notion of tagging portions of an image to comment or query on that specific point. It helps that the LEGO community there generally feels quite mature compared to what I've seen of MOCpages, in the sense that said maturity and the resultant comments and criticism would be more useful for receiving feedback on MOC work. These days, I use Flickr for what few MOCs I have, whereas I reserve Photobucket for more menial image jobs and files intended to be kept private for a small audience - things like reaction imagery, collaborative project files, and personal images of varying utility; needless to say, my Photobucket sees much more use. I've kind of phased out of using Brickshelf/Majhost, possibly because of how detached I've been from the LEGO community and how most of what I've done for the past year or so has fallen more into the criteria of my use of Photobucket. I can't really make a recommendation as to which to use because, well, I haven't made much of a decision myself in that regard.

My last Star Wars purchase was the Home One with a bonus chrome Stormtrooper... almost a year ago, on June 17. It may actually have been my most recent LEGO purchase overall. Wow. :|

LEGO Iron Man. LEGO. Iron. Man. Excuse me while I get down on my knees and beg for this to happen. What really gets me on this is that this is actually somewhat plausible as far as licence possibilities go based on LEGO's history with Marvel and Disney properties.