Zarkan

I think it might have something to do with the fact that both the "purple" sets this wave actualy only have a small number of purple pieces each. Now, the second TLC releases a hero with purple as his main color, I'm certain everyone will be real happy, but as it stands Lego is still a bit "purple shy."

The most interesting part of this video to me is the description of the Toa's foes as "an evil VIRUS." That to me is evidence that the idea that the various inhabitants of the Matoran Universe being to Mata Nui what cells and viruses are to us, was not merely some random idea Greg F. came up with but a core part of the mythos from the very begining. We simply didn't know it until much later, since understanding that first required that Mata Nui's true nature actually be revealed.

Perhaps, but then why did they go in such a different direction with Hero Factory? Everyone realizes by now that TLC couldn't replicate Bionicle, but at the same time the way Hero Factory has been marketed is so vastly different from its predecessor that I can't say it's a complete replacement. What I think happened is that TLC realized that, especially by the time Bionicle was nearing its end, they were essentially courting two markets. The kids who liked to play with constraction figures were not the same as the kids who liked to play with regular lego sets: one was purely interested in playbility, and the other was more drawn to the creative aspects of lego. Thus, TLC split the core components of Bionicle between it's direct sucessor (Hero Factory) and its spiritual sucessor (Ninjago), and built on both themes from there.

Honestly, as far as a massive storyline and marketing push is concerned, I'm with those who say that Ninjago is clearly Bioncie's replacement. The people working on Ninjago actually seem intent on developing the world and characters. It may be ligher in tone, but at least its trying. It'l be interesting to see if Hero Factory can actually do the same with this Breakout storyline - at the very least they could do better than the last couple of comics, which were nothing more than the awful fluff that TLC markets most of their modern themes with.

You would think I wouldn't be bothered at all by the addition of voices, seeing as that I grew up on early lego games like the Lego Island series and Rock Raiders. But man, I just am not feeling it this time. Traveler's Tales has set a pretty consistent standard with the mute comedy of all their previous games, and pushing that all aside for the cinematic style of virtually every major video game these days just seems wrong. IMO, The Lego Star Wars games wouldn't have been nearly as memorable if they had, say, just shown Darth Vader telling Luke "I am your father" instead of the clever reimagining that was actually featured.

Killing characters /= not caring about characters. The Matoran universe was literally falling apart by the Ignition arc, and at the end of 2008 was controlled by Makuta himself. How else are you supposed to show that if no one actually dies? Besides, most of the characters killed in the serials wouldn't have even been featured after their debut year if not for Greg, seeing as they didn't have new toys. It's better knocking off a two-bit like Botar or a knuckehead like Carapar than some of the more notable and/or pouplar characters. Nobody complained when Terrorsaur and Scorponok died at the begining of Beast Wars Season 2 because they were the least interesting members of the cast, but the transformers fanbase would have cringed if the writers had gone through with their original plan to kill Waspinator, and did complain feverently when Hasbro knocked off Optimus Prime and pretty much all other the major G1 characters in the original Transformers Movie.

A little note about Spinjitzu Smash. A video game wiki called The Cutting Room Floor came up with evidence that TLC's ripoff may actually be a heavily modified version of the original Megaman game. Check out this page for more.

There's no way it can top the Banana Bot, but I might as well post this: Yeah, the Toa Metru canister is defnitely my favorite lego set packaging of all time.

I haven't invested in Factory myself, but I've got to say Black Phantom is the first humanoid titan in the line that truly has impressed me. He's a much better design than Witch Doctor IMO, although if you're tired of humanoids, Scorpio will probably do a lot more for you than BP will. Also, I realize the Action figure forum is almost a sort of mini community that sees limited intersection with the Eurobricks community at large - but still, shouldn't a question like this go here?

Ugh, they're seriously charging $15 for that Captain America set? I know, TRU always overcharges things, but I'll not be suprised at all if the regular price is only a couple bucks less. I guess TLC thought the motorcycle set in the DC line needed an equally overpriced counterpart in the Marvel line. Also, it's already been mentioned, but where the Skrull is Nick Fury? He was in the initial presse release way back last year, but these are almost certainly the final versions of the sets. I guess TLC thinks any character that doesn't get into major fisticuffs doesn't deserve an official minifigure, regardless of how crucial a role he may have in the movie.

Ah, so the search function can be used with official part numbers? Now that you mention this, I think I might have known this a while back, but until yesterday I hadn't used LDD in ages. Thanks for pointing this out - this should eliminate a lot of the hassles I was having.

Just a curious observation I thought I'd point out. I was downloading some instruction PDFs from Lego.com today, and I noticed something rather bizarre. For some reason, some of the manuals for newer sets have absolutely huge file sizes. Normally, none of Lego's pdf's go beyond 10 Megabytes or so, but for some reason the pdf's for sets such such as Cole's Tread Assault and the first half of Fangpyre Truck Assault reach upwards of 80 megabytes or more. I have no idea why this could be, but you'd think TLC would realize this is is probably a serious hassle for people with slower computers.

Aright, apologies if someone has already mentioned this (I don't have time to look through all eight pages of the topic), but.... is anyone else shocked by how disorganized the most recent version is? A ton of parts are miscategorized, and even more have ridiculous and/or incorect names (the flat plant pieces are called "limb elements," and the shruiken from Ninjago is called "star with 3.2 wheel", just to name two examples). The search function is pretty much useless as a result, and altogether the overwhelming number of errors makes using the latest version a chore.

Thanks for the pictures and summaries, Aanchir. Man I'm sorry, but I just don't get why everyone is so enamored with Core Hunter. He's an extremely generic build in extremely generic colors (black and red, how original), and apart from the admittedly interesting head, he doesn't appear to have any special parts. Voltix and XT4 are at least a bit more interesting in design, although the execution leaves much to be desired. Overall though, this wave is a lot less interesting than the previous one IMO. I haven't bought any Hero Factory sets thus far, but I'd much rather have bugs, sharks, and split-faces than this generic tripe. And no, if your asking, I don't think moving the awesome Thornaxx to the Summer makes the unorginality here okay.

Well, toyfair pictures are here, and things just keep looking worse for Transformers Prime. The new voyager Bulkhead in particular is absolutely horrid, and the new Arcee is in a completely inaccurate shade of blue - just to name a couple of faults. On the plus side, the Fall Of Cybertron toys are really kickin', especially Shockwave and Jazz. Hasbro says they have over fourty Generations toys planned, so lets hope they can at least keep up the quality with that line.

Oh boy, here we go... http://www.aintitcool.com/node/53166 Sure, so far this is just a rumor with an untested source, but... I've long since stopped putting anything past the Star Wars franchise. Nevertheless, this better not be true, because it would just be another confirmination that StarWars has jumped the shark.

Well, as I hoped, I recieved Transformers Beast Wars: The Complete Series for my birthday, and I'm well on my way towards finishing the first season. People sometimes ask why certain transformers fans hate on the Michael Bay Movies so much. Well, watch this series and you'll understand why: it is the finest example of how awesome Transformers can be if it is written inteligently and isn't just a glorified toy commercial.

Sigh... leave it to Hasbro to screw over the adult fanbase and turn off a potential new buyer. Up until about a couple of days ago, I was all set to invest some of my money in the Transformers Prime toyline, whose first wave (despite IMO the relative weakness of its source material) looked absolutely amazing. Well, just my luck: it turns out that the "first edition" line is not getting a wide-scale release in the US. Oh, but wait, it gets even better. Instead, the US is getting the "Robots in Disguise" line, which seems to take a lot of its inspiration from the abhorent Dark of the Moon line. You know what that means, don't you? It means cheesy gimmicks like light-up parts, inferior redesigns with giant non-show-accurate weapons, and otherwise decent figures with limited paint applications. Sure, there's still a few great figures - most notably Wheejack, Soundwave, and Voyager Megatron - but all in all Hasbro has done a fine job of screwing up what could have been the best overall Transformers line ever. Instead of a small but quality line that maintained a consistent, show accurate, and gimmick free quality, we're now getting the same oversaturated, under-designed crap that we got with DOTM. Well, count me out - I'm not investing my money in these kinds of shenanagins, and now most likely will never buy a single transformers toy in my lifetime.

Front, you win this topic. This is easily the cutest constraction figure MOC on Eurobricks since baby Zesk.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but laugh at this typo, which FBTB appears to have quickly corrected: Anyway, the sets sound decent, especially the quinjet, but there seems to be a lot of minifigure repetition in the Avengers themed sets. That makes me wish that we had gotten a helicarier set, as that would have no doubt provided us with Maria Hill and a couple of generic Shield agents. Instead, they've merely shoved Nick Fury into the Captain America set. Also, apart from Loki, Magneto, and Deadpool, every one of the minifigures is a hero. I would have hoped we'd at least get one of the alien warriors appearing in the movie (although perhaps he's one of the Avenging Cycle elements they hid from view). But what I really wish is that we had gotten some sets based on the previous entries in the Marvel movieverse, which could feature characters like Iron Monger, Abomination, Red Skull, and the Frost Giant King. Ah well, maybe next year.

Alright, what is with TLC's bias against Hulk's purple pants? In the ultrabuild figure, they are blue, while in the minifigure, they are tan. You'd think with all the purple creeping into lego sets these days, they wouldn't be so hesitant to give Hulk his most iconic asthetic feature apart from his green skin.

Great work. I really wish we could see more of these types of MOCs, since they give a nice contrast to the sunny outlook of most Town creations.

Honestly, most of the set designs look lame, especially compared to the January wave, but... I have to say, I'm proud of TLC finally bringing the magic of purple back to their constraction figure lines. If only this had happened before Bionicle ended - then I might have actually bought a set or two.

Great review, decent set. As soon as I saw those new jetpack wings, the first thing I thought was "TLC better reuse them in brown and make a Manbat figure." Poor ol' Langstrom is probably one of the most notable villian exclusions from the original Batman theme, and it'd be a shame if we don't get him this time around.

I'm sure you're not the only one, but I don't understand why you have to roll your eyes at the fact that a lot of people don't share your opinion. Edit: scratch that, a better phrase would be "a lot of people on eurobricks," because most of your complaints are ones that have been quite prevalent around the general internet. As for me, I'm not a comic book geek or anything, but I have to say this looks really good.