Gatanui

The review should be up in a few hours. -Gata

Personally, I do prefer shorter arms on small Heroes, but Stringer´s gun is so huge that it´s simply annoying for him. I think it´s perfectly okay for Surge and Evo, though. -Gata

Probably to make room for summer sets? They are on sale in my LEGO Store, too. Not really, several of them have just appeared on TRU. Anyway, I believe we already knew all the videos that have been added now, didn´t we? The new background is neat. -Gata

If you think his short arms are a disappointment, then will until you see Core Hunter or even Bulk. -Gata

Aw man, I should have used that one for the review. Thanks for your comments, guys! I´m glad you all like the review and the set. Hopefully I´ll be able to get the Voltix review done tomorrow! -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

Don´t worry, I´m only going to review the four sets I got. Sorry about that Kalhiki. :( Anyway, I´m very glad you like the photo. Thanks a lot to DV for the link about the light box. ^^ -Gata

Full reviews tomorrow. -Gata

Thanks a lot for that link! My approach was similar, but not entirely like that. I´ve just bought transparent paper, so let´s see if it works... I´ll be sure to take good photos or scans of the Bulk/Core Hunter and Stringer/Voltix combiners. -Gata

Yeah, just to avoid the weather issues I´ve been building some sort of studio myself (which I referred to as "photo box" in an earlier post). I´m going to buy some powerful lamps for it tomorrow. Maybe I can manage taking photos as great as yours then. -Gata

I´m not casual, I wish I had the photos already and I really rushed to get the reviews done soon. It´s simply that bad weather, inconsistent light outside (you know, clouds one minute and sunshine the other) and other duties have kept me away. I promise you´ll get the pictures very soon. -Gata

If you are referring to me, no, the weather isn´t bad anymore, but I haven´t got around to taking pictures yet, sorry. I was trying to build a photo box of sorts so I could get good lighting independent of the weather outside. Don´t worry, I´ll try to take photos tomorrow. -Gata

Sorry for the delay in the reviews, guys. They have been done written for a while now, but the weather is awful these days and I can´t get a decent light for the photos. I´m doing the best I can, though. -Gata

Sometimes the platform to build on doesn´t appear. I´ve found the builder works with Firefox, too, though. I´m amazed by what is possible with your web browser without any additional plugins today. Impressive. -Gata

This has somehow bugged me as well. The XL upgrade is particularly pointless. I mean, what´s he supposed to do with that, stand and wait until Speeda Demon comes racing by? -Gata

Yeah, Voltix is nice, I´m sure there will be plenty of you who will like him. The back armor from Core Hunter is okay. I look forward to it. -Gata

Core Hunter looks great and solid. Even Voltix manages to look good. Surprisingly, his colour scheme doesn´t seem jumbled and I actually like the huge tubes all over the place. I love Stringer´s trans-blue armor and the weapon looks nice, too, although it has some issues. As far as Bulk goes, he lives up to his name and has perhaps the most interesting design of these. -Gata

The Stringer and Core Hunter reviews are written, Bulk is almost done and Voltix still missing. Hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow so I can take pictures then. -Gata

Expect fully detailed picture reviews of Stringer, Voltix, Bulk and Core Hunter soon. -Gata

Nah, don´t worry. I´ve never made a video review anyway. -Gata

Hopefully ours will be good. -Gata

Update: Next week may become as soon as tomorrow as they are available in my local LEGO Store as well and I´m hopefully going there tomorrow. We´re getting either Stringer and Voltix or Core Hunter and Voltix. -Gata

Summer sets out in Germany, Austria and Switzerland NOW. Expect pictures next week. -Gata

I don´t want the theme to be carried on forever like BIONICLE was, but I would have expected one more year to decently conclude the theme with a good and new story and good and new sets, and not with the summer wave of a year that already had enough story and had been concluded (or so we thought). What bugs me as well is how incredibly asymetric it turned out. We get two years, one with two 22-minute specials and another with not one, but TWO seasons with 13 22-minute episodes each and that was it. -Gata

Wait what? This makes no sense. Then again, this could be some sort of filler arch like the mini movies last year, although I doubt it somehow. But finishing Ninjago after not three years, but TWO makes no sense at all, especially doing two full seasons for one year which I feel is too much. It feels totally rushed and people will have the impression it didn´t do well so they wanted to end it fast. Well, we´ll see how this turns out but if that´s the end of Ninjago, I´ll be disappointed. -Gata