Lyichir

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.

I think it largely has to do with how limiting road plates can be. Buildings on road plates, for instance, are by definition a set distance from the curb, and by extension, the road. And they mandate that the road the building is on is only as wide as the road plate dictates. It's much easier, cheaper, and liberating to allow the owners of sets to either imagine the road or build their own. While I think baseplates still have their uses (for instance, in the modular buildings), road plates strike me as an outdated idea that limits creativity rather than fostering it.

This is one of the best System/Hero Factory combination MOCs I've seen! I'd love to see it constructed for real! Admittedly, it doesn't look much more like her ride from the show than the set does. I'd like to see a MOC that captured the way the one in the show opens, with "doors" on the front of the vehicle unfolding.

It's possible that they're just skipping a year, as they've done before. Previously this was often done to space out the theme in non-movie years, so the theme could potentially return after Pottermore or other attempts to continue marketing the story are finished. Oddly enough, a Hogwarts has been released every three years since the line began. So I'll run with that idea, and not count this theme out for good unless 2014 goes by without any new sets.

When you do get around to the interior, be sure to correct one of the Grand Emporium's few flaws: only one escalator between each floor! There needs to be an up escalator and a down escalator between each floor.

Alright, I finally watched the video (hadn't gotten a chance before). It gives a pretty fair review of the game. I'm not going to deny that there are a number of flaws, but I would argue that, since the videographer was reviewing it primarily in the context of RPG-style games, it obviously wouldn't be found 100% to their liking. The spinner aspect is one of the primary elements of the game, so skillful spinning plays just as important a role as the weapons and cards.

But has pottermore even been that successful? I haven't heard much about it since it debuted (and not much about it then, either).

Compared to the new method of including several rooms in a full "building", the seperate classrooms seem pretty lame to me. With them, it was near-impossible to put the sets together into a Hogwarts that looks nearly as good as the new one; rather, it'd lack many walls and the color schemes would only sometimes match. Plus the dormitories don't appear in many playable scenes. What would be nice to see (and at this point, I doubt we ever will) is a set of the Ministry of Magic or the Chamber of Secrets. The Ministry would be especially nice because it could include many notable locations like the Ministry atrium and the Department of Mysteries, along with updates of outdated figs like Sirius and new figs like Kingsley or Fudge. The Chamber of Secrets could also be done much better than before, with the giant stone face of Salazar Slytherin styled more like a minifigure face, and with a new fig of Lockhart. One thing that probably wouldn't need to change is Fawkes, who still looks good almost a decade later.

Man, no new ponies this past weekend and now no new ninjas yesterday? This has been a somewhat dull week.

Wow, I hadn't seen the news about that. These upcoming sets look great, and seem like they'll focus on adding cool functions and environmental details to models, like you see in a lot of modern sets. Interesting how all three are not only compatible in terms of color scheme, like the previous kits, but they seem to be modular to boot. Also interesting how it seems to have Halloween-stylings, despite how the kits will be received over the course of three months.

I'm more interested in the building sets and figures than I am in the game as well, but having gotten a couple of spinners anyway I can vouch for the game being fairly awesome in its own right. Maybe not up most AFOLs' alley, but certainly a better attempt at a LEGO-integrated card game than that of Orient Expedition or Knight's Kingdom II.

That's why I was pointing it out. Those brands are most prominent in LEGO City, so when they appear in a Sci-Fi theme it's slightly out-of-the-ordinary. Where is the line drawn between an easter egg and standard set design? After all, in my opinion this is just as much of an easter egg as the Aqua Raiders skeleton in Atlantis.

Just the Classic Space references? Because another easter egg that comes to mind is the graffiti-ed container in the Space Truck Getaway, on which you can still see the LEGO City Cargo logo.

I don't really like the "megafigure design". The posture is too upright for my liking, which in my opinion limits its usefulness. For instance, I love Hulk's hunched-over posture, and think there would be a lot of similar cases where a "giant" figure would be better off as a custom mold, rather than as a one-size-fits-all figure design. Not to mention the fact that these sorts of figures are so few and far between that having them customizable wouldn't be worth limiting them to these proportions and poses. Also, Hulk has plenty of minifig stylings, from the cylindrical head to the squared-off feet; and the heads of these megafigures are too small for use on any but the most mindless brute.

I actually see a lot of potential in the large "action figure" sets that use Hero Factory elements. Some characters whom I think would be suited to this style of building would be Spider-Man (who wouldn't have to use a freaky human face mold like some of the others) and Doc Ock (who would, but the awesomeness of his four fully articulated tentacle arms would make up for it). Of course, more of these would depend largely on how these figures sell, and it's too early to judge whether or not this line will be successful. As for standard building sets... I'm not sure. Unfortunately, even now after other heroes are being featured I'm still of the opinion that Batman is the best hero for a LEGO theme thanks to his many iconic vehicles and cool locations like the Batcave and Arkham Asylum. More Spider-Man sets would be okay, I guess, so long as they don't pull a Mega Bloks and put him in all sorts of themed vehicles inappropriate for the character.

Brickset.com can be very good for news, primarily new set info or info on sales going on through various retailers. The only thing I don't particularly like about Brickset is their editorial stance, which is often most visible in their set reviews and event coverage. Their comment sections also range from the misinformed to the just plain bad. FBTB.net often gives fantastic coverage of many themes, particularly licensed themes. Their reviews often give a unique perspective on set quality, since for licenses they judge the set not only on its play value but on its faithfulness to the source material. If you're looking for spotlights on MOCs, brothers-brick.com is just about the best when it comes to featuring fantastic MOCs from all over the web. And of course, there's Eurobricks itself, which is typically very prompt in reporting news and, in my opinion, has one of the best LEGO communities on the web. So if you're interested not only in news, but in news discussion, this is the place to be By the way, if you have an iPhone, there's a wonderful app called "Bricking News" that compiles news posts from all of these websites plus recent photos from flickr. And finally, although it serves a more niche interest than these other sites, BZPower is the best site for news on themes like BIONICLE and now Hero Factory that tend to be given the cold shoulder by many AFOL communities. They have also been diversifying their coverage since BIONICLE's end, although apart from the fairly open-minded reviews it gives it still tends to pale in comparison to coverage on larger AFOL-focused sites.

It's worse than that (and I'm not just saying that because I think the concern over differently-sourced parts is overblown). The magnets aren't glued with a normal glue--from what I've heard they use a sort of solvent that merges the top layer of plastic on the legs with that on the magnet. The hot water method works, but I've heard that because of the way the parts are joined, separating them weakens the legs considerably, to the point at which they could fracture under too much stress.

Hopefully it's not too late for that. It got the CGI treatment like many of last year's City Space sets, so perhaps they were waiting to give the astronauts the first shot at it? It's not likely, but seeing as the LEGO City branding doesn't expire like other short-lived themes, it's not impossible.

The venom (or rather, anti-venom) was also used to cure the people of Jamanakai Village of the hypnosis of the Hypnobrai. And as my brother pointed out elsewhere, the reason we probably had never seen Pythor's staff before was because prior to this episode, he had no one to lead. Now that he's in charge of all four tribes, he needs to carry a symbol of his office. And finally, I reckon we'll see more fancy NRG powers as time goes on. This is the first time Zane's gone into that state at all, so I reckon he won't master these new skills until he's had some practice. But yeah, I hadn't thought about the fact that the ninja could've used their vehicles to chase the falcon. I think that is, as you said, simply because the plot called for them to get tired out.

The un-LEGOness of the episodes sort of bothers me too, but on the other hand it allows for more artistic license when building things from the show. When I was a BIONICLE fan I always wanted to build things from the Mata Nui Online Game, but was often thwarted thanks to the game showing somewhat clearly what parts things were made of, and them often being parts that didn't exist in any good colors. The art-style of the Ninjago TV series keeps a smooth, LEGO-esque aesthetic without explicitly showing how anything is built, which allows far more freedom for MOCing. I've tried my hand at Ed & Edna's jalopy, and am planning to attempt to build a Treehorn.

This is adorable! I had this set growing up. Looking back it's far from the best set (was that piddly little cave really the closest we got to an Aquasharks base?), but nonetheless looking at this microscale version brings back memories. Props for using the undersea scooter pieces; they're amazing parts, but you don't have to tell me how hard they are to integrate into a MOC!

I don't know much about Clone Wars (I didn't even know Maul returned in it). But perhaps the new cyborg leg from Monster Fighters would be better? Then again, I don't know for sure whether that's left-right symmetrical like the pegleg.

I think it's kinda cute, in a minimalist sort of way.