CP5670

There is the old Znap flexible axle, but it's hard to come by these days and I don't know if it would be stronger than the universal joints anyway.

I tend to use this tile as a mini VHS tape for camcorders (these things). It often appears that way in various 90s sets.

I have gotten some used parts in the past. Some have been outstanding and others were mediocre. It's really hard to tell in general, especially since you rarely get any pictures on Bricklink unlike ebay. However, the average condition of used parts is better on BL than ebay, probably because the sellers are often Lego fans themselves and know what buyers want. Still, I hardly ever buy any used parts these days unless it's specifically described as "like new" or something similar. If it's an expensive piece, I send a message to the seller asking about more details on the condition. Some stores are much better about this than others. One guy I bought from last summer said that all his used parts are in like new condition, and he was true to his word. I occasionally buy some cheap test pieces from the seller to see what his idea of "good condition" is, especially if I want to buy used sets from him. In recent years, this has also become a useful tactic with brand new pieces, to figure out whether the seller is carrying pre-2007 bricks made of colored ABS pellets or the newer, low quality kind. I actually did this with PAB last year and when I found out that their white 1x2 and 1x4 plates were the older kind, I went and bought a couple hundred of them right away.

That piece has been around for a while. I think it first appeared in the Aquazone Stingray sets in 1998. I didn't know it was still being made actually.

If you're looking at sets from the mid 70s or earlier, then you're probably right for the most part. Many 80s and 90s sets, on the other hand, contain numerous very useful pieces that are no longer around today. As IS said, it really depends on what exactly is in the particular lot. I'm like this too. I try to maximize how much "useful" Lego I get for my money (in terms of part condition and selection, which is entirely subjective), instead of just the total quantity or weight of pieces. I'll have to pay more with a Bricklink order, but all the pieces will be exactly the things I wanted.

Very clever design here. It took me a minute to figure out how those "wings" were oriented, and it actually looks reasonably strong the way you have built it.

I got a Bricklink order last year with 12 black 8x8 plates, and the seller had stacked them all together. Luckily, he didn't do a very good job of it and there were gaps between them where I could get leverage and remove them.

Yeah, I meant that and the stuff written on the walls everywhere at the end. I read all the emails, but it still seemed out of place in the gritty, realistic setting up to that point. I guess the fact that Al Mualim's behavior at the end didn't fit in at all with his personality throughout the rest of the game also had to do with it. Although I did like the parallel sci-fi story angle otherwise.

It didn't save all that often from what I remember. The game was already unusually repetitive, but the lack of saves made it twice as bad since you had redo a lot of things if you died. There were also some major technical and interface issues, such as the fixed 16:9 aspect ratio, EAX instability, various menu quirks and the infamous 11 commands needed to exit the game. Some of these issues really gave you the impression that the developers don't actually play games and don't know what gamers want. The story was great until the end, when they kind of ruined it with the alien stuff that didn't really fit in. Despite its flaws though, I liked the game for its originality. The large crowds were something I had wanted to see in games for a long time and really added to the atmosphere, and the combat system and nonlinear level design were very good as well.

This set is pretty nice for the price. I like how the main model has suspension on both the front and back wheels. An extra pair of cylinders on the engine would have been nice though. It definitely looks like it would benefit from the stickers, more than most Technic sets. Many of the Technic wheels actually work great for Space themed ground vehicles.

This could be very good if they fix up all the issues in the first game. The first game had a number of great ideas and I liked it overall, but it had tons of glaring flaws as well (especially on the PC version). The main improvement I would like to see is a proper save game feature, instead of the flag/checkpoint nonsense.

The standalone tow truck is good, but as some have already said the proportions seem off. The service station comes with its own tow truck though, which looks simply fantastic. I don't really like the wide open design of that set, but will probably get it just for the trucks it comes with.

This picture is a few years old now, but it's roughly what my box stash looks like. I don't have space for them in my current apartment, but I have kept them at my parents' house. I plan to bring them back when I move into a bigger place in the future. One thing is that the boxes 15 or 20 years ago were much more impressive and high quality than the ones today, and I tend to keep the newer (2000 and onward) boxes more for completeness than anything else. I probably wouldn't be keeping any boxes if my collection only consisted of sets from the last few years. The newer boxes are easier to store though since they have no trays or packaging inside, so it's easy to put the smaller ones inside the big ones. The last time those appeared was in 2003. I used to spend hours staring at the dioramas in them as a kid, but they're unfortunately a thing of the past. Marketing in general has increasingly moved away from printed materials and towards internet advertising in the last 10 years.

Yeah, I was mainly thinking about the Hypersonic aircraft, which was underwhelming especially given that it was the flagship set. The main issue I had was the lack of much interior room, which was still a problem in some of the 2008 sets. There was also an excessive use of stickers for details instead of prints, even for basic pieces like computer tiles. The two sets you mentioned were pretty good overall though, especially the Crystal Reaper which could be made motorized. As for the colors, the human ships probably had too many distinct colors (the orange and gray were unnecessary), but the alien color scheme is actually one of my favorites among any Space theme. Both were much better than the drab colors of SW sets anyway.

Minifigs are cool, but they aren't the main attraction in most sets for me. I often buy minifig packs or standalone minifigs off Bricklink to populate my models, but see them as a part of the models and not things to collect in themselves. I'm also big into large scale themes like Technic and Creator, which don't use minifigs. Yes, I've been in the same situation once or twice. I got a brand new Aquashark 6190 last summer for very cheap off ebay because the captain fig had been shoplifted and was missing.

I thought the larger 2008 sets basically suffered from the same issues as the 2007 lineup, although there were a few gems among the small sets (the Mobile Mining Unit in particular was remarkably good).

I agree that Space is probably the most widely encompassing theme and has the most scope for creativity. There is no set "reality" that you need to follow for MOCs to make sense, but at the same time you can incorporate designs from many other themes into it. Many types of City concepts (police stations, trains/monorails, construction vehicles, etc.) can in principle be translated into Space, and I find that Space models are also the most conducive to adding Technic functionality among any of the minifig-scale themes. And yes, if I ever actually took apart everything I have and made a single, epic MOC, it would be more likely to be Space (or a Space/Technic hybrid, rather) than anything else. There is a bigger difference between them than just how they are marketed. The construction styles of the actual sets, specifically the color schemes, are completely different. The SW sets are designed to look like the actual stuff in the SW universe, which means that they are mostly made up of dull, gray shades and use trans-clear or trans-black windscreens on everything (in fact, some sets don't even have windows at all, just an opaque cover over the interior). The Space themes, on the other hand, all had dynamic looking colors, with their brightly colored transparent parts providing a great contrast against everything else. They didn't look realistic, but they looked good. This is the main reason I'm not a fan of most SW sets, and actually I think this realistic style of coloring has become too widespread in space MOCs even outside of SW ones. The one good thing about Mars Mission was that it marked a return to interesting color schemes, despite all its other flaws. Well, there is that catalog picture of the M:Trons beating up some cowering Blacktrons with wrenches.

Great review. The best part was the bit with the mop and bucket. Yeah, you would expect them to have at least gotten the torso printing right, given the prices of these sets. I would have bought this if the space torsos looked authentic.

Welcome to EB. That camera sounds very cool. I've always wanted something like that. Does it transmit a real-time feed that you can see on a computer or something? The new PF train remote lets you adjust the speeds manually, so that might be more convenient for controlling something like this.

I like to know these kinds of obscure facts about Lego too. This would also explain why the holes on pieces like this have incomplete lips from the inside.

This is loaded with great information about the company. I won't have time to read all of it, but there are some very interesting things in here.

I don't know if that had any effect on it. They probably reduced the prices because they saw what their PAB sales were like for the last week. As someone said earlier in the thread, money talks louder than any emails.

I highly doubt they can do anything to Bricklink even if they wanted to. (aside from trivial things like removing the Lego trademarks and so on)

This is looking pretty bad. I agree with others that the early talk of this being a mistake couldn't have been true. A pricing mistake doesn't take several days to fix, especially since they would be losing thousands of dollars every day from lost customers if it was actually unintentional. Either TLG's management will see their sales go through the floor and drop down the prices, or if they have to charge this much to break even (which I find highly unlikely to be honest), then TLG will have to discontinue the service for good. In a sense, that already happened some time ago. It could be argued that this is an extension of what led to all the quality reductions in the last few years.

A new PF micromotor would be great, but that would become expensive very quickly if you had several LAs on a model and needed a separate motor for each one. The old 9V micromotor is probably not a good choice, due to its low speed and torque as well as the reliability problems. Well, the BL prices are high just because there haven't been any (mainstream) sets with pneumatics for a while now. The insane airtank prices are a good example. They don't really reflect what sets including pneumatics would cost, if TLG actually decided to produce new sets like that. I agree that pneumatics have an additional coolness factor to them. There have been a number of very interesting robot MOCs built around pneumatic control circuits instead of an RCX or NXT, simply for the mechanical challenge of it, and they wouldn't be quite as impressive if they were just made with electronically controlled motors. This is one nice example.