Lyichir

Playmobil Nativities also consistently sell well, year after year. Yet LEGO's holiday-themed sets are pretty much always secular. Religion is a sensitive topic, much like modern war, and as much as I would love a Franciscan Friar or Tibetan Monk as a minifigure, LEGO seems intent on avoiding religious controversy altogether.

Actually, in my opinion sets like the Mines of Moria do well not to include baseplates. With a baseplate, most of the structures would be forced at specific angles, usually right angles unless some tricky hinge work is implemented. Baseplates also tend to make sets less playable, since they tie every part of a set together into a singular model. This can be frustrating if, for instance, you drop a minfig weapon into a nook or cranny of the set. With each module of the set separate, it's easy to turn an individual module over and shake the offending part out. Not so much when the entire set is stuck on a single base! I don't think the complete disappearance of baseplates would be a good thing. The modular buildings, for instance, rely on baseplates to situate each building and its respective curb without raising it up so much that one would have to construct a road to go with it, instead of just imagining it. And terraced landscapes can be hard to construct without the use of BURPs (although the upcoming Lord of the Rings sets show that it can still be done amazingly). But I feel that baseplates are not necessary for every structure, and in fact can detract from models if they force the different sections of a set into a rigid formation instead of allowing for a looser, more free-form arrangement.

Mega Bloks seems to be a lot better than it used to me, if I judge by sets displayed at toy stores. Their new attention to quality may be due to other brands like Best-Lock stealing away the "bargain bricks" market. Best-Lock is poorer quality than Mega Bloks ever was, that's for sure. K'nex started using LEGO-like bricks in addition to their traditional building system fairly recently. I can't say I'm impressed with those; I don't know about their quality from personal experience, but I can tell that more K'nex sets are relying on these bricks rather than the complex functionality I remember from my childhood. The integration of these elements seems even poorer than that of Z'nap, when the shoe was on the other foot and LEGO was trying to ape K'nex's building style. Also, why is this in the Technic subforum?

That would just give us animals cartoonier than those in Friends, and animal pens which we could probably have built on our own. Besides, while LEGO does have licensing with Nickelodeon, it seems that they've focused on Spongebob for the past several years, and why shouldn't they? Spongebob is a known merchandise mover. I hardly ever saw any Madagascar merchandise in stores, even when the films were currently in theaters.

Hm? Why would you think that? Core Hunter doesn't look anything like a Hero; in fact, he's known to be another prison escapee. Unless you're suggesting that they'll use the Hero Cores Core Hunter gathers in "fake heroes", but I doubt that as well. Core Hunter mainly extracts Hero Cores as trophies of his kills, as far as I can tell.

The problem isn't that it's not violent; the problem is there's no conflict. With police and fire, you have a race to respond to various emergencies. Zookeeping, on the other hand, is largely routine feeding and medical check-ups. Mind, there doesn't necessarily need to be a conflict, as the farm theme from a few years back showed. But a theme that is built almost entirely around new molds would be hard to pitch without any sense of urgency. For this reason I think that a zoo will come when enough "zoo animals" have been created, not the other way around. I'd reckon a circus theme might be more successful than a zoo theme, in any case. Not only would that require fewer new animals (lions and elephants might be enough), but there's a lot more action inherent in a circus than at a zoo. Perhaps once a few animals had appeared in a theme such as this, a zoo would be closer to becoming reality.

He looks a lot better now, although I still think he could have done with some sort of body armor piece to offset the size of the head. I know it's not much bigger than Batman's cowl, but frankly Batman's cowl works largely because the cape makes the rest of the fig appear slightly bigger. But Iron Man's still cool the way he is, and that's what matters.

I love Scrabble as much as the next guy. But I'm not able to get behind this, for a couple of reasons. Chief among these is that the LEGO-ness doesn't seem to contribute to the game at all, and as such I can't reason why anyone would get this instead of a dedicated Scrabble set that didn't use LEGO elements. Based on the construction of this, it also seems like the tiles would be a bear to remove. And finally, I can't fathom any uses the custom-printed letter and score tiles would have outside of a Scrabble set.

I dislike seeing political content on LEGO sites I contribute to for fun, and I abhor seeing this particular kind of bile. How have any of Obama's policies affected LEGO, a Danish company? For one, Denmark does not get most of its oil from us and it never has. So blaming his oil policies on the cost of LEGO is beyond ridiculous. Secondly, however you might blame Obama for the U.S. recession lasting as long as it did, there's no way you can blame him for causing the global recession we're now facing. I'm not going to tell you what to believe, but please keep your politics out of my LEGO!

Just so you know, the drill is neither new in that color nor has it been M.I.A. since Power Miners. It has appeared in that color in two sets: 7984 Deep Sea Raider and 2192 Drill Dozer.

Even though I already have a system for sorting LEGO, I like one feature of this: the baseplate on the front of each drawer. It's annoying to relabel drawers every time you get enough of a part to necessitate reorganization, but with this you could ostensibly stick an example of each brick in the drawer right there on the front.

I think that functions play a big role in what is considered Technic, but are not essential. For instance, I would totally agree that Throwbots/Slizers, Roboriders, and early BIONICLE qualified as Technic. Particularly in the largest early BIONICLE sets, the functions rivaled those of smaller "traditional" Technic sets. BIONICLE drifted away from the standard Technic description later on, when the technic elements became more vital to a set's form than its function (although the 2008-2009 BIONICLE vehicles began to drift closer to conventional Technic builds once again). Hero Factory has largely done away with Technic builds altogether since the new building system debuted, and now Technic makes up no greater proportion of the majority of models than it does in System themes like Exo-Force. I think the biggest qualifier for what is Technic is the proportion of Technic building to System or other styles of building. Under this definition the posted ASIMO model would be considered a true Technic set, even if its functionality is underwhelming. Meanwhile, Mindstorms NXT would stay a separate category thanks to the robotic elements that are integral to the theme (for instance, the Mindstorms motors differ from Power Functions motors because they give digital feedback). Early BIONICLE would fall under Technic thanks to the Technic-dependent builds and functions, but later BIONICLE that used technic elements only for building a figure's substructure or attaching armor would not. This is not a perfect definition, but keep in mind that the meaning of Technic has changed over time. In the "studded era", system connections were more vital even to Technic builds, whereas now sets like the Unimog use System connections only for details. Throwbots and RoboRiders were considered Technic largely because LEGO had not at the time considered divorcing the new ball-joint building style from the Technic label (and indeed, I wouldn't consider it a separate system if not for the introduction of system elements that connect to ball joints without Technic, and the eventual introduction of the Hero Factory building system that no longer required Technic parts to build a set's framework).

That's a bit harsh. LEGO has made bum moves with many of their other licenses, including LEGO Star Wars (example: LEGO's constant failure to provide a good rendition of Episode I Obi Wan). Just because one of the figs looks wrong doesn't mean the line isn't getting the proper care it deserves, especially considering how accurate the vehicles and other figs in the line look.

Good review! I think the piece on the side of the crane is for "locking" the winch at a certain height. It looks like it would hold that gear in place if you jammed it between the gear teeth. Not sure how loose the winch itself is, so I'm not sure how essential this function is. Also molding a new staff for the Riddler would probably be an unwelcome expense given that it would only appear in this one set. But I do agree that the crowbar piece is underwhelming. Perhaps if it were molded in a decidedly not-a-crowbar color, like purple or gold, it would look better?

Part of the reason Cuusoo has the name it does is that it's actually LEGO's section of a larger program, also called Cuusoo. That's why LEGO Cuusoo is at lego.cuusoo.com, rather than being hosted at lego.com like most of their other services.

Yeah, this episode didn't "wow" me the last one did.

Having seen this on Cuusoo, I have to ask: What prompted you to use what appear to be stickers for the art on the building's interior, but not on the Apple logo for the storefront? It seems a bit counterintuitive, since white Apple logo stickers come free in most Apple products. Not to mention that the iPod "dancing silhouettes" art seems a little out of place in a world populated by minifigs. Nonetheless, congratulations on a fine-looking MOC, and congratulations for the success it's had so far on Cuusoo!

Unfortunately, that seems like a fair analysis. We still seem to be a long way from having any definitive Ninjago game. LEGO Battles: Ninjago improves upon the previous LEGO Battles game but fails to deliver the same sort of experience as the sets or show. Spinjitzu Scavenger Hunt for the iPhone was a decent and fairly original game, but it was padded with the barcode-scanning gimmick to cover for relatively little gameplay, and moreover it still failed to deliver on the highly creative fights depicted in the TV show. And now this shows how the online game which was obviously a sub-par clone of Megaman Battle Network in fact was built from the source code of the game itself. I'd like to imagine that LEGO themselves didn't know about this infringement, and it was the action of whomever they contracted to design this game. I guess between Ninjago's various other media (books, TV show, spinner game, DS game, iPhone game, etc.), there just wasn't the budget for a decent online game? At least this year's Spinjitzu Spinball seems fairly fun and, as far as I can tell, is an original game design.

I think it's unlikely that LEGO would rerelease Technic sets from that long ago. Outside of this forum, old Technic doesn't have nearly the nostalgia factor of old LEGO. And LEGO rarely does any rereleases for System, either: I think that was a failed effort to recoup some of their losses during their difficult period in the late '90s/early '00s. Not to mention that many of the parts in these older sets have been phased out (some of them, like the toothed bushings, for very good reasons). And I disagree that Technic sets of that era were better than those of today. I've been nothing but astounded at recent Technic offerings, particularly the Unimog or this year's helicopter.

Hmmm... it looks good and all, but I'm not sure how useful it'd actually be. Now if the interior pages were brick paper, I'd be sold on it. But as it is I make very few LEGO notes, and even fewer now that I make most of my sketches with LDD.

The Minecraft project is go for production. But no, I don't see something like the Western Town OKed for production. Apart from AFOLs, too few would actually be willing to pay market value for something that size. What I think will become the standard will be both moderately-sized MOCs (like the ones in the proposals for the Hayabusa and Shinkai 6500) and mini-theme ideas that are largely open to LEGO's interpretation (like the Minecraft proposal). But back on topic, this set looks fantastic. I'm thrilled that LEGO is releasing this worldwide, although time will tell whether I actually get it. Currently my LEGO budget is stretched pretty thin!

1891 was the year LEGO's founder, Ole Kirk Christiansen, was born.

Good review. One quibble I have with this set is the PotC globe. This globe is supposed to resemble a historical one, but as such it is wildly inaccurate (for instance, California is depicted as an island). I suppose a historic globe could have its place in a town hall, but I'd much prefer if they had sprung for a new print.

Maybe. But a "The Adventure Continues!" type ending is not uncommon for this genre, and it could very well just be LEGO trying to inspire kids to create their own adventures with the Pharoah's Quest story outside of the one provided by the comics.

I know. I'm tempted to check my local Walmart just because of that. I passed up on most of the spinners last year, but $3 is hard to beat.