ZORK64

Before I start my review, I'd like to inform you that I live in Germany (in Nuremberg, to be more precise). While Germany is indeed quite a nice place to live, it has one drawback: Many of the cooler things (like toys and especially video games) get released much later here than in Japan or America - or in the worst case, they didn't even make it to us. However this isn't always the case, as LEGO proves with the release of the new summer sets of Hero Factory, which already hit the shelves of my local LEGO store (however, I wouldn't had noticed their release if I hadn't read about it on the Hero Factory 2011 topic). After some pondering I bought Bulk and went home quite happy about that luck. And because I want to share my luck with you, I'll write a review about the set for you. Set name: Bulk 3.0 Set Number: 2182 Price: 9.99 Euro Pieces: 30 pieces Year of release: 2011 The canister The front of the canister shows Bulk in a menacing fighting pose, standing in the middle of the jungle. If you look closely enough, you'll notice four Raw Jaws prowling in the background. It seems like that they're about to attack Bulk, but a strong hero like him shouldn't have any problems taking those guys out, right? Oh, and the symbol on the bottom right tells you about a code inside of the canister. The back looks pretty much like that of the 2.0 heroes. It's dominated by the large chunks of text about choking hazard in various languages, but the first thing you'll most likely notice is the combiner model of Bulk and Furno. Since I don't own any Furnos, I hadn't bothered myself with building the combiner yet (I'm also not much into combiner models anyway), but since I do like Furno 3.0, odds are quite good that I'll give this one a try, since he looks pretty cool. Just in case you hadn't noticed, this picture nicely demonstrates you that the 3.0 heroes uses the same canisters as the previous 2 waves. Similiar to the 2.0 heroes, all 3.0 canisters are in lime green, fitting the jungle theme of the wave (Same goes for the boxes, which is a nice contrast to the rather dark boxes of the previous wave). So, I think we talked enough about the canister, let's take a look what's inside of it. The pieces Bulk 3.0 comes with 30 pieces in total. Most of them were already released in the past wave, but some of them come in new colours and there also a few new pieces. The recolours which catched my eyes first were the limb pieces in dark grey instead of black. It's good to see the limb pieces in more colours, especially since grey is also quite versatile (just like black, but only brighter) for MOCs. Another nice additon are Bulks head and hero core in orange. Oh, and before I forgot them, he also got the 2.0 hero feet in silver. Among with the building instructions and all the new pieces there was also this sticker, a nice reminder of the Hero Recon Team (which also reminds me that I wanted to give a try to it). Speaking of the Recon Team, I can't wait to see some of the new 3.0 pieces in it. Let us just hope TLC put them into the sortiment soon. The building instructions, featuring the same picture as seen on the box. A random page of the instructions. Aside from the colours there isn't much difference to the 2.0 heroes. Here's another picture of the combiner model which also requires Furno. As I already stated above, I'll most likely get Furno as well. Perhaps I'll make also a review of him. In this case, I'll give the combiner a try. Okay, now to the new pieces... Those... armour pieces become the center body of Bulk's arm blades. As the one on the left shows they got two pegs on the inner side, which means you can easily attach them to the armour pieces just like the flame pieces of the fire villains. On the other end of it you can connect it via a C-join, which also means it can be hold by minifigs. I really like the design of this piece with its details but still a quite sleek look. Next are the daggers, which look just beautiful. There isn't much more I can say about them. They look great. The only new piece I love more than the daggers... ...is Bulk's wolf helmet. You attach it to the actual head the same way as the headgear of the 2.0 heroes (for obvious reasons, you can't combine them with that helmet). The design of Bulk's helmet is just awesome. It looks gorgeous. While not a new piece Bulk's namebadge deserves mention. It looks pretty cool and heroic with the wolf emblem (which slightly looks like a bear to me...) and the banner and the wings above it. Due to the colours of the logo, it works fine with Bulk's colour scheme. The piece itself is in translucent green. Due to this it sure stands out quite a bit, but I think it will look neat if you got more than one hero since the translucent green will connect them and mark them as members of the same team. The build The build starts with Bulk's skeleton, after this, you attach armour to the legs. Then, his weapon got assembled with the use of the EXO-FORCE robot arm. I just recently found out how useful they actually are for Bionicle-like MOCs, so I'm glad to see them in more smaller sets recently. Then you continue with the head... ...you add his armour and finally, Bulk is built. Wait, what? Yes, that's right. This time, the chest armour (and thus, the hero core) is the last part you attach on him - just like he would be built in the assembly tower. Well, almost. While it's not a great difference, it's nice that TLC put that into thought this time. As you can see, Bulk looks, well, bulky with his massive forearms and his blade thingies attached to them. The grey limb pieces work also great with his colours. Bulk's back is just like that of the older heroes quite hollow. Luckily his chest armour is also black, so it doesn't look sooo bad. Still, I'd wish TLC decide to give the new sets also some sort of armour for their back. Playability Bulk 3.0 comes with the same articulation points as the 2.0 heroes (or most Bionicle sets which used the Inika build), so he's fairly poseable. In addition to this, he's well balanced and his feet give him a stable stand. You can also move the blades away, but if you do so, they'll only point away from his body, which looks kinda odd to me. Armed with his blades, he's ready to take out all kinds of bad guys, no matter if Witch Doctor, Fire Lord or Rotor. Shoryuken! Final Thoughts While there are only minor improvements compared to the 2.0 heroes, Bulk 3.0 is with no doubt a fantastic set. His design and his colours are great, and he comes with a fair amount of nice pieces. Personally I have only two complains about him. First, his daggers tend to fall out of the robot arms when I pose them, which isn't much of a deal, but slightly annoying. Second (and this one weighs more) I'm not happy with the poseability of his arms. I don't understand why TLC doesn't use for the upper arms the same pieces which were used for the forearms. If they would, Bulk could fold his arms and the poseability of his arms (which is for a character with dual weapons even more important) would be much better than it is now. Anyway, aside from this, I can only recommend you to buy him. And hey, after all, he comes with a Wolf Mask, and that's just awesome.

In that case, I'll drop the poll. I think it wasn't meant it's not allowed to review them before the 1st but rather meant as "just remember, EB will also make reviews". So anyway, I think I'll write the review tomorrow if everything with the upload of the pics work fine.

Aaaah... I see... ^^' How many posts are required to become a knight? Am I close or rather far away from that ranking? In the latter case, I think I'll drop the poll-thing for my review...

Don't worry, I won't rush it. Because of this, it's... Stupid question time: How can I turn a topic into a poll? Because I can't find the "Poll"-thing when I'm about to make a new topic... Concerning the combiner: That's a tempting idea, but I'm actually to lazy to check the instructions up and find an alternative colour scheme since I don't own any version of Furno. However, Furno 3.0 has good chances to be my first Furno because I like his Eagle helmet.

I see. I just wanted to make sure if it is really okay, not that it's actually kind of frowned or something. So I'm gonna start taking pictures, opening and building Bulk to make the review. If I got the time, I'll post it even today. So far I only got Bulk, so I'll only give you the picture of the combiner model on the back of the canister (and probably the one in the building instructions - I bet there will be another pic of the combiner inside of it). So sorry, I won't be able to build the combiner. And on a sidenote, I'd appreciate it (and perhaps I'm not the only one) if you work a bit on your grammar. EDIT: Oh well, I actually forgot a "you" in the sentence above... XD

So does that mean I can't write a review? Because I bought Bulk 3.0 just today and I would really like to write a review about the set (his canister is still unopened, so I could even make pics of the undamaged canister).

I got Big Chill (and recently Spidermonkey) for half of the original price (7€ instead of 14€). While I don't know much about Ben 10 (I watched only one episode, and I think I probably would have liked the series at a younger age), I like the design of the pieces. The torso with all the ball joints is also pretty neat. However, it's kinda hard to put greeble on the limbs, and their original price was definitely to expensive. I also don't like the poseability of their feet. And to say some things especially about Big Chill: His wings and his colours are pretty neat, but I really don't understand why his head piece isn't attached to the joint piece in the same way as Spidermonkey's - Chill can't look upwards unless you modify it with a screw driver. So anyway, for seven bucks, Big Chill is a good parts buy.

I'm confused and surprised. I mean, I live in Germany, and I actually expected the new HF sets to show up at Müller (the store which also got the past few waves of Hero Factory and Bionicle a bit earlier), but they only seem to sell the 2.0 sets (for 5€ each set). Now I'm checking here again and I have to read that the 3.0 sets are already available?! Perhaps only in the LEGO store. Or not in the Müller near my work (I should check the Müller in my hometown sometimes). I'm really, really baffled. EDIT: Say, if I actually can get my hands on some 3.0 sets next week, should I make a review for Eurobricks of them?

While I got all six regular Bohrok, Pahrak-Kal was the only of the Kal-bunch I got back then. Back then, the idea of having 12 sets with an identical build wasn't really appealing to me, but now, I actually regret not buying more of the Bohrok-Kal because of all the neat silver pieces. >_< Anyway, you wrote a very nice review there.

From the heroes, I'll definitely get Bulk (silver armour and silver helmet) and Furno (I like the Falcon helmet). From the villains, I'm not sure. Waspix and Raw-Jaw look quite good, but I prefer Fangz' colour scheme. However, if Fangz doesn't come with a few neat pieces, Raw-Jaw and Waspix got good chances. Especially Raw-Jaw, I like his bulky paws. From the larger sets, I might get Scorpio. I don't like the Voodoo-theme of Witch Doctor (he's also too expensive for me to be a parts buy), and I'm not the greatest fan of gold (aside from that, I like Rocka XL - designwise, he looks awesome). Although I'm not the greatest fan of lime green, his ridiculous amount of limb pieces makes him a good parts buy. By the way, I like the design of the boxes a lot. Probably because of the quite bright green, which is a good contrast to the rather dark boxes of the first two HF waves.

After seeing all those nice pics I'm pondering to also create and order a hero. It looks really nice.

Since I absolutely love all those ice-themed colours, I'd be really happy to see more pieces in these colours. How about a planet with mountains and stuff? It wouldn't be only ice, but also allow LEGO to create alongside with the Yeti something like a Rock Monster - or maybe even a volcano-based villain.

Small 2.0, Soar 2.0 and Fried 2.0 are definitely my favourites of the bunch. Since you used the regular colours... is it actually possible to purchase them?

Very, very cool. I'm looking forward how it looks when it's done.

The first wave of Hero Factory also reached Germany in July, although the catalogue stated September as the release. Oh, and the 2.0 Heroes already hit the German shelves in mid-December.

I frankly prefer the Recon Team designer over LDD, but only because LDD works terribly slow on my PC for whatever reason. It's kinda sad that there only the same pieces available you could also get by buying the regular sets. I was hoping that the Recon team will also feature pieces like blue shield tools. However, the entire stuff is also now available on Pick-a-Brick, and that makes me happy anyway.

Looks pretty cool! Though I don't own the original Skopio, it would be neat if the set had that B-model.

Frankly, I'm also not sooo fond of the translucent green badges. They stick a little bit out of their armour. If they had used a silver badge with some green on it, it would had worked better IMO. But anyway, I hadn't payed much attention to the name badges on the 2.0 heroes, so the 3.0 heroes badges won't bother me as well.

Looks pretty neat, although I don't know anything about District 9.

Speaking of Hero Recon Team, there are a few displays promoting the Recon Team in my local LEGO Store. However, I still can't find anything new about it on the LEGO-site.

Great work on this one! Although I would might recommend to use more red armour pieces, but hey, I don't own the original toy, so...

Hooray, new pictures! I'm actually surprised (and thus, happy) to see a fair amount of new pieces along the 2.0-pieces. That's pretty cool. The grey limbs are also a plus IMO. I'd love to see the limb pieces in more colours than black, red and orange. Now my thoughts for all sets in short: Heroes Rocka 3.0 Since I'm probably the only one who doesn't love gold, I'm not really interested in him. But I do appreciate his colour scheme. I wish more heroes would use two colours for their armour. Nex 3.0 I don't know why, but he isn't really appealing to me. Probably his helmet, also his weapon is kind of invisible on the actual toy. Stormer 3.0 I don't know... on one side, his helmet looks pretty cool, on the other, it would look better in grey than white... on one side, I got already 2 Stormers, on the other, it's Stormer... odds are rather quite good that I'll get him anyway. Bulk 3.0 Silver armour, Wolf-like helmet - nuff said. He's definitely a Must-Have. Stringer 3.0 Same as Nex (except the weapon, Stringer's claw looks neat). Furno 3.0 While I missed the 2 first version of him, I'll probably get him this time just for the sake of his helmet, which is almost as awesome as Bulk's helmet. Villains Waspix I like his design set-wise (his legs are neat, and with his six limbs he looks really like an insect). And of course, the translucent pieces kicks butt. But I'm still not sure if I'll get him. Raw-Jaw Maaaybe. He looks like a pretty good parts pack (which is always my first priority when I buy sets). But I need more pictures to judge him properly. Fangz Need also more pictures from this one, however, since his primary colour is silver I like him a bit more than Raw-Jaw. At least for now. Large Sets Scorpio Again, need more pictures! Anyway, his ridiculous amount of limb pieces makes him more appealing than the other two titans. Rocka XL As I already said, I don't like gold. Aside from this, he looks quite impressive. I'm also curious about his poseability. Witch Doctor Depends on the smaller pieces (I'm curious about that grey thing at his shoulders and hips, for example). But in general, I doubt that I'll get him. The Voodoo-theme doesn't appeal to me, and he's a bit too expensive to be a parts buy. In fact, I'd prefer Rocka XL over him (despite the fact that I like white a lot, lot more than gold). All in all, I'm looking forward to the summer wave. But I'm still way more curious about the Hero Recon Team.

I hoped it will be released in march, but anyway, finally a release date.

I was wondering the same question.

Armored Armadillo was one of the 8 Maverick Bosses from the very first Mega Man X. I put him in the list as a joke (since after him, I commented that I probably played too much Mega Man X-Games in the past few days).