Gatanui

Summer sets now available in UK and Ireland, too. Please make the XT4 review, DV. I finally want to get good photos of him. -Gata

I'd rather say they are young adults. Or rather, in that undefined age you only know about that it's young like Tintin is. -Gata

It's just a short 22-minute LEGO Friends mini movie. I'm pretty sure the show will continue the week after that. -Gata

Too bad they didn't make an XT4 level. The Core Hunter and Speeda Demon levels are quite original, though. -Gata

Awesome, thanks for letting us know! -Gata

Dun dun dun it´s the first Stringer 2012 text/picture review! It´s also my first review on Eurobricks. Please respond, STRINGER! The villains are on the run from the Hero Factory and must be intercepted! To battle some extra-special villains, we've suited you up with advanced amplified armor, sonic speakers, a powerful sonic blaster and hero cuffs. It's time to track those villains down and cuff them! Set name: STRINGER Set Number: 6282 Price: 9.99 (8.99) EUR / 6.99 GBP / 8.99 USD Pieces: 42 Year of release: Summer 2012 Size: Small Presentation/Box Stringer comes in the same kind of packaging as the winter wave, although with one notable difference. You can´t see it well on the picture as I already cut the top off but at least I didn´t throw it away so I could include it in the picture. The summer sets all come with a golden colored top instead of the silver top from the winter wave. It succeeds at setting them apart from the winter wave. Apart from that, barely anything to remark. The front features Stringer in an impressive pose in front of an impressive yellow lightning bolt-charged background with Voltix. The back features Stringer in another pose, showing off the launcher function and, surprise, actual screenshots from the Breakout game. The parts have been made in Denmark, Hungary, Mexico and the Czech Republic, for those interested. Building As usual, the building is nothing challenging, but the launcher offers some building never seen before in a small-sized Hero Factory set, including even some technic pieces. Please forgive my not remembering which extra pieces came with the set, although I can assure you there was at least one. The building is quick and smooth. For some that may be good, for many others that´s a bad thing, although the launcher is some more fun. Here goes the Stringer/Voltix combiner for you. Set Design/Pieces First thing to note is the amazing number of pieces Stringer has. With a total of 42 pieces (omigosh), that´s more than a small-sized Hero has ever had and it´s a huge step up from the 17 pieces Stringer 1.0 had and even the 30 pieces from Stringer 3.0. Having the same price as the former two (in some European countries even a lower price!), that´s quite impressive. Granted, many of these are small technic pieces, but it´s still better than nothing. Stringer comes with one new mold, two new pieces and three recolored ones, which isn´t too much, but summer waves never tend to have many anyway. No remolded Glatorian heads yet, sorry. The new pieces are two new armor pieces that are supposed to look like speakers, and they do succeed at that. Great to see Stringer is back to his sonic theme, but more on that later. These are the recolored pieces. The torso armor in trans-dark-blue with a sonic wave pattern looks simply gorgeous and is wonderful to look at. Fortunately, the dark color means the torso beam is barely visible from the front, so that´s a problem less. Speaking of torso beams, I was surprised to see Stringer had a narrow torso this time. Looks like LEGO prefers to go with these on small sets now, with the exception of Surge. The narrow torsos do look better with the new torso armor, too. Not much to say about the other recolored pieces. A silver launcher top piece and a silver MTIS that's also available in Bulk. This should cheer up a bunch of fans, especially those who wish to put a silver MTIS piece on the Hero´s backs like they have them in the TV episodes. This seems like a good chance to address the hollow back issue once again and we will never stop until LEGO fixes it for the small-sized Heroes. It looks as annoying as ever. 'Nuff said. A design flaw about Stringer is the lack of transparent blue cladding pieces apart from the large torso armor. I´d have loved to see the other blue pieces in a transparent color as well. Another flaw are the dark grey bone pieces on the thighs. A theory for LEGO using differently colored bone pieces for the limbs since the summer sets last year was to avoid having two different bone pieces with the same size and the same color in a set so kids would´t mix them up when building. However, he uses the same pieces in black on the upper arms, so having them in dark grey on the legs is just silly. Then again, bone pieces in a greater variety of colors cannot harm either, but I´d love to hear about LEGO´s reasoning for this. Speaking about colors, here comes the obligatory note about the strange change of Stringer´s secondary color. It´s strange, but it looks good. Apart from the grey bone pieces and maybe the gunmetal speaker armor, the color scheme is very consistent and good-looking. The entire launcher being silver is not even a downside, rather the opposite. Silver is a rare color in Hero Factory. Let´s get to the interesting part of this set, namely the gun. Many of you have already noticed how it´s supposed to look like a guitar. It´s by no means a perfect guitar and it´s most likely not supposed to, but the resemblance is undeniable. It´s a perfect addition to Stringer´s sonic theme, and that´s awesome. I bet, though, that if Smeag had written this review he´d have started complaining that it doesn´t look like a guitar at all and about what a real guitar should look like. :P I´m not sure kids will even recognize it as a guitar, but it´s not like they´ll care about it either. The gun has a number of problems, though. First, I´m not a fan of the way the MTIS is connected. It´s done with a ball joint, which means it can be moved around and it can be hard to keep it in line with the rest of the gun. However, it makes posing easier, and this is where we come to the greatest downside of this set. Playability The gun is huge and Stringer´s arms are tiny. This means it´s hard to do a pose with the gun facing front or any good pose at all. No matter how you do it, Stringer will either have to look sideways so he can hold it with both hands or he will have to hold it with one hand in a way that it doesn´t look good. We´ll be fair, though, and remark that the way the gun was built was a reason to include two fists in this set, and that´s definitely good and far from obvious. Still, Stringer manages to pull off some decent poses, just like any Hero Factory set since last year. The Hero Cuffs are somewhat annoying for playing and poses, but once they stand still, they are alright and a great addition to the set. Both the Hero Cuffs and the launcher are what make this set far more fun to play than Hero sets before this year. Final Thoughts Pros New and recolored pieces look good Transparent blue! Decent amount of pieces He´s Stringer and he´s cool He has a guitar and he rocks Cons Hollow back still not solved for small sets Can be hard to pose No remolded Glatorian head Overall, Stringer comes with all the ups and downsides of previous Heroes, plus some new points for both sides. He´s far from spectacular, but for some reason, Stringer always manages to look good, if not one of the best of his wave. Even when he´s not orange, which is quite remarkable, although for this set, maybe that´s exactly the reason. I mean, who doesn´t love huge transparent pieces, after all? And who doesn´t like guitars? I think a huge torso armor in transparent orange would have looked weird, but in blue it looks beautiful. So there you go. You know, I´ve been hoping to review Stringer for months just to take a picture comparing all three Stringer sets. Like, seriously! So, overall, should you buy this set? If you´re looking for a small Hero of this wave, Stringer may be the one to choose, although I haven´t got Nex so I can´t judge him. As far as small Heroes of the entire year go, I do own Evo and Surge, but it really depends on preferences. For example, Evo looks more coherent but he's harder to pose. At the same time, Surge may have too much lime green for your taste, but I digress. If you simply love Stringer and guitars, want a silver MTIS or can´t get enough of transparent pieces, then Stringer is your choice. Now please excuse me as I listen to Stringer rocking powered by Voltix. Thank you very much for your patience! I hope you enjoyed the review. I´ll have three more reviews up in the coming days. -Gata

They are always more expensive in Europe. :/ -Gata

Reusing set numbers makes no sense as there are still plenty left. Also, VenomFang is apparently a MGBLKS set. I doubt they would use that. -Gata

Fake. 4224, 4225, 4226, 4229 and possibly others are already taken. MYTH BUSTED. -Gata

And here we go with the last of my series of reviews and the one many of you have been waiting for: Core Hunter! Is this pack of awesomeness worth your money? Check it out! Red alert! CORE HUNTER is on the loose somewhere in Makuhero City and is trying to disable as many heroes as he can get his claws on. His plasma shooter, multi vision mask and razor spike armor are dangerous, but his hero core remover tool must be avoided at all costs. Cuff him or he could disable all the heroes and bring chaos to the galaxy! Set name: CORE HUNTER Set Number: 6222 Price: 12.99 (11.99) EUR / 8.99 GBP / 12.99 USD Pieces: 51 Year of release: Summer 2012 Size: Medium Presentation/Box The packaging continues to be the same one as the winter sets had, apart from the golden top I haven´t thrown away yet just to include it in this picture. The packaging size is somewhat blown out of proportion in size compared to the small-sized sets, but I guess an oversized packaging is better than an undersized one, so that's okay. Core Hunter is featured in a very good-looking pose, although it does´t make sense that he´s flying as he has nothing to fly with. The city background, supposedly Makuhero City, looks nice, though, and you can even see Bulk, also flying without anything to fly with. The back shows Core Hunter in a standing post and promotes his launcher function and his core remover pincers. Do they work? We´ll see. Apart from that, the usual legal stuff and the Breakout game screenshots. As usual, the components are made in Denmark, Hungary, Mexico and the Czech Republic. Building As usual, the build is nothing challenging, although more so than the small sets are. Still, there are more interesting builds this year and there are no remarkable surprises. Be sure to connect the new Captain America armor facing the right way, though. Set Design/Pieces Core Hunter has 51 pieces, which is less than every other mid-sized set of this year apart from Splitface, who has 50. Still, the price point is pretty decent compared to what we´ve got in some previous years. Sadly, Core Hunter has only one new mold and piece, namely the head, if you don´t count the Captain America armor piece. There is no remolded Glatorian head piece either as many including me had hoped there would be, but maybe it will come in later production batches. The helmet is a great piece, though. A downside is that not all eyes can glow as shown on the packaging and CGI, but it manages to look very menacing. The recolored pieces make up for the lack of new pieces. The two Captain America armor pieces are fantastic (perhaps the most useful pieces to be connected to cladding so far) and even more so in black. Then there is the new torso armor piece in solid black without any kind of printing. Then we get three of the Savage Planet paw pieces in black and a total of six Savage Planet claw pieces in red. There is also a black MTIS piece. As far as I know, Core Hunter is the only set so far to have it and it´s great. I´m sure it looks much better to fill the hollow back than the silver MTIS they use in the TV episodes, but I haven´t tried. These four pieces are not new, but they are rare and always welcome. Let´s get to the actual design of the set. Core Hunter is tall, spiky and massive. There are no annoying gaps and the only thing looking off is an exposed ball joint on the back. Overall, he looks very complete. The color scheme is as good as perfect. Not even the gunmetal pincers, launcher pieces look disruptive. The Zamor sphere may do so to you, but it doesn´t to me. The ammo belt is a nifty addition and it´s perfect to show off your or Core Hunter´s collection of Hero Cores. For starters, he comes with one Hero Core like all other sets this year, so I suggest attaching it there so it doesn´t lie around. This doesn't mean the set doesn´t have any flaws, though. Core Hunter´s arms are so ridiculously short it´s not even funny. This means he can´t be properly cuffed and that the weapons will often stand in the arms' way when posing. I guess LEGO wanted to save costs by using the shortest available bone pieces, but even the small-sized sets have longer arms. This could have been done better and unfortunately, he´s not the only set with this flaw. The short bone pieces are some of the rarer ones, though, so that can be considered a plus. They are also used for the neck, which even manages to look good and not too long Another flaw to some may be how the back armor is connected. The connector piece is rare and always nice to have, but Stormer XL has a new piece which would have allowed to stay the back armor in place. It would have been good to have that piece in a smaller set. Playability The additional articulation point from the neck increases playability and poseability. Core Hunter wouldn´t be Core Hunter if he didn´t have a core hunting tool. The two pincers from Jetbug are used for this and at first glance, they look simple, but effective. Funny how LEGO makes a play feature out of unintended piece flexibility in this set. However, if you try actually removing a Hero Core with the pincers, you will soon be frustrated. If the Hero Cores are already harder to remove than other pieces because of the two pins of hard plastic, it´s as good as impossible with these pincers. All you can do is squish the pincers together, but you won´t be able to remove Hero Cores with them, and that´s a minus. Actually, if you pull hard enough you will end up removing the entire chest armor, like poor Core Hunter did on our photo. At least the tool looks nice and personally, I didn´t have the pincer pieces before, so that´s something. Apart from that, Core Hunter is fun to play with and allows for many different poses. Final Thoughts Pros Fantastic color scheme Solid and non-gappy design Many rare, useful and recolored Cons Short arms Core Remover doesn´t remove Cores No remolded Glatorian head Overall, Core Hunter is a very good set. He has some flaws, especially if you look for them, but he looks very good and is one of the best sets this year. Don´t be fooled by the list, as I feel the pros outweigh the cons. If you are looking for a mid-sized set, Core Hunter should be one of your choices. The only other mid-sized villain this year I have is Voltix but he is so different that it´s your taste which decides here. Although, you could simply get both like I did, makes it easier. And that makes yet another villain caught 'n cuffed and our series of reviews done. Thank you all for your patience and feedback. I hope you enjoyed them! -Gata

I don't think so, as I'm pretty sure there will be no summer episode this year. Thank you all for your feedback! Glad to see you all liked my reviews. I'll try to review more sets in the future. -Gata

I know you've all been waiting for it, and the wait is almost over. Stay tuned for the last of my series of reviews, Core Hunter, coming very soon! -Gata

Nope, no luck even in the LEGO Store. Unfortunately, there are no Müller or Kaufhof close to where I live, at least not close enough for it to be worth going there. We are getting off-topic, though. -Gata

It does have a purpose. It's some sort of barrier when pushing down the liftarm that holds the rocket launcher so you can't push it down too far. Although the question is what 'too far' is supposed to be. -Gata

I doubt it as that would require the bike to fit in Mission Control. -Gata

The new levels aren´t out yet. -Gata

We already knew about new levels coming up, but I didn´t know that you would drive Stormer´s bike in his level (although it makes sense). I look forward to the update! -Gata

It´s just episodes 4 to 9, no new episodes from what I can see (although the calendar stops at August 19th, so there may be something else later). They always announce the series in the catalogue. For some reason, all episodes but Breakout are airing all the the time on Nicktoons here, but they don´t announce that. That´s because it´s not a S@H catalogue, it´s the kind that you get in toy stores. The S@H catalogues are as blank here as elsewhere. -Gata

I thought it was well visible on the photos I took. There is really not much to see, the back is just a black hero foot connected to the torso skeleton through a black 2L pin and, oddly enough, a blue 3L pin. I may upload a photo to my Flickr photostream comparing him to the other Bulks later. -Gata

What´s even stranger is that I haven´t managed to find Iron Man or Batman anywhere. I´ve had this one printed for some time now. The only thing that struck me is the date for the new Ninjago episodes. ^^ -Gata

Thanks for all your comments! I´m glad you all like the review. Thanks for making me aware of the wrong price, it´s been fixed here on on the Voltix review. Actually, it was wrong for Europe as well. :P -Gata

Well, the review is already up. -Gata

Coming very soon. -Gata

Who says there can´t be two different newspapers in Makuhero City? :P -Gata

He does indeed have two-holed legs Glad you all liked the review. Bulk should be up later today. -Gata