Dunjohn

I actually loved the sailing in Wind Waker - the smooth controls, the sense of freedom, and especially that epic, exhilerating tune. The preset course mapping of Phantom Hourglass took a lot of that away, which made it rather more of a trudge. I haven't played Spirit Tracks but I can't see how rails will open it up any. Twilight Princess was the reason I bought my Wii on day one. Normally I wait for the "early adopter" stage to pass. Wind Waker was the reason I bought my GameCube. In fact, I'd bought the game a week before I bought the console. I'd gone in before work to queue up and was third in line. It came with the four classic games too, and the Cube itself came with Mario sunshine, so I was well sorted for games right from the off. My favourite entries would be Link to the Past and Wind Waker. I played the original NES game through several times: in fact, I mapped the entire gameworld out in MS Paint, pixel-perfect at 1:2 scale, and wallpapered my wall with it. That was a summer well spent. I was halfway through doing the same for Link's Awakening DX too, when I lost interest. I still have the files somewhere. I haven't played any of the Four Swords games, Minsh Cap, Spirit Tracks or Oracle of Seasons. Or the Philips CDi games (check them out on YouTube: They're hilariously awful). Everything else, yeah, but I haven't completed Majora's Mask or Adventures of Link.

Out-of-place home comforts is a subtheme that runs right through Power Miners, though I think this is probably the set with the most prominent example. I think it's an extremely cool idea. The colours used in the new Power Miner sets still look awful; even if they do use water now, all that structural blue is completely unnecessary. The traditional lime, orange and black - adorably garish though it was - would have worked just as well. If Lego wanted to make the n ew lines particularly distinctive, maybe they could have expanded the range of green colours, but not gone with a completely new, jarring one.

I clicked everything except PS3 and PSP. I'm an avid gamer. Other consoles have included Dreamcast, Saturn, Megadrive, N64 (two of them), SNES, NES, all generations of Gameboy except Color, and older stuff. I went with Wii because of Nintendo's proven track record for great games (Mario, Zelda etc) and XBox 360. I am sorry, I do have a bias against Sony. I've just never had as much fun playing their machines as I have had with others. Historically, I'm a Sega fanboy, but have obviously had to jump ship. I already owned a Dreamcast when I got a PSone with my first real pay packet, but I never really warmed to the console. Sony's attitude has always seemed to put an emphasis on flash and style: the play is good too but Sega and Microsoft just seemed to emphasise that more. The Playstation emphasis on "cool" meant that it was always the machine bought by people who didn't really know their games, and I also didn't want to be seen as a sheep or something. That's not to say everyone who owned one was clueless, obviously, but when "games console" and "playstation" became interchangable terms in the minds of nongamers, it was a bad sign (For similar reasons, the massive volume of lightweight dreck on Wii shop shelves is hugely depressing, but I can't get Mario and Zelda anywhere else). I got the PS2 as a prize, spending game vouchers I won from Official XBox Magazine :) I already had an XBox and a Gamecube at this point and, again, I never really warmed to it. That said, GTA: San Andreas is one of my favourite games of all time, and that game was why I got the PS2. I haven't bothered with the PS3. Despite my bias against Sony, I did approach this generation was as open a mind as possible, and XBox just won that contest. That said, I didn't get one at launch, I waited for prices to drop and libraries to build. XBox had Halo 3 on the way, as well as crossplatform stuff like GTAIV, and the launch lineup itself of Gears of War and COD2 looked a lot stronger than what PS3 was promising. The XBox seemed to have more muscle while the PS3 again seemed to have more style.

...and then you'll probably have a preference. Or you won't have any feeling one way or the other. In which case, wouldn't it make more sense to vote for one of the other three options? I just don't see any logic in having a "wow, really?" option on a poll, particularly not when there's also a "don't care."

Currently chilling to the Lighthouse Family. "High" is one of my favourite songs of all time, but right now, "Lost in Space" is playing.

Ditto, I had never noticed this either. I can't confirm that the beat-up condition of the rounded torso picture isn't influencing my opinion, but I think I prefer the straight mold. Legomen are obviously a starkly simplistic, blocky design overall, I think it looks better when they have the edges and corner angles to match.

I also don't believe in ghosts or psychic stuff... but I do have a running joke with my brother about the Free-Floating Psychic Bubble. It's invisible and immaterial, but if you pass through it you suddenly get a psychic moment. For example, a few years ago, they were selling Lord of the Rings candy sticks containing collector cards from the movies. I got two packs one night, and as I was reaching into my pocket for the second pack, I suddenly though, "Oh great, another Gollum." And voila, it contained my fourth Gollum. I'd obviously just passed through the Bubble. About two months ago, I was in Rome for the Magic World Championships, and was heading in to the city by subway a few days before it started. I missed the stop for the Collisseum - something I never do - and had to get out at the next one and walk back. As I was leaving the station, I suddenly knew I'd pass a Magic shop on the way. Five minutes later, I did. These are tiny shops, the chances of me just passing one on the ten-minute walk in a huge city I'd never been to before were astronomical. I got the cards I needed to finish my deck ahead of the event. Obviously the Bubble had followed me to Rome, but as my brother pointed out, it had probably been trying to get away from me and just had spectacular bad luck. There have been dozens of other little instances like this over the years, but it's all just coincidence.

Not necessarily, they do sometimes make "major" minifigs like this easier to get in a later set. Dr. Inferno, for example, was at first only available in the huge Agents truck set, and was then rereleased in the rather more affordable robot attack set.

You're right, thinking about it, I could have made the walls higher by adding a two-layer effect with the lower part a darker colour. Most hotels I've been in have two-tone walls like that. That would look far better, I might change that. I need to vary my buying habits. Mostly I get vehicle sets, which has left me very short on parts for scenery building.

I would've, but I don't have any green hairpieces. I think it does match, though. Someone with more parts could've made a much less clausrophobic model too, but I was really fighting my limits I had to position Egon so that you can't see his face (Speed Racer - I have no fleshy head with glasses) or torso (Dr. Henry Jones - I only had one German soldier fig). Black Rabbit: Yep, Slimer. Big Cam: They're not printed, but I liked how the printing was close enough to the right kind of uniform. Thanks for the replies!

This is just an idea I got after staring at my four Army Men for too long. Apologies for the spartan look of the Sedgwick Hotel, I've maxed out my tan and maroon tiles here, and there are a few other shortcuts involved that I hope I've hidden well enough.... I Feel So Funky

Currently smurfing... I mean, ripping a load of cds onto my laptop, so I'm listening to quite an eclectic mix of half-songs right now. Mainly the Manic Street Preachers, they have like a dozen albums.

Perhaps McDonalds is paranoid about giving out small objects to young kids?

Excellent review, though you really could have gone into more detail in the building stage. ...but seriously, wtf? Is this even Lego? I'll keep an eye out for these, but to be honest, it's like some weird twilight zone where System and Bionicle never separated and every brick is specifically molded. I suppose the unique parts are cool, but they're so specialized....

Wow, a Harry Potter train, a Toy Story train.... they're really pushing the locomotives out there this year. Incidently, the links don't work, you need to copy part of them into the address bar.

I saw those before. I was bored out of my mind The only sport I really watch is the occasional soccer match. Stupid Thierry Henry.

I just got this set today, and I just wanna say that my set has none of the colour variation that yourself and Clone O'Patra seemed to get. Everything is exactly the same shade of green. The accessory plastic is likewise just as sturdy as it should be, not bendy at all. Everything's perfect.

Nowadays? Underwater themes have nearly always had this stuff. This set reminds me of a similar Mars Mission set, which also happened to be the only Mars Mission set I liked.

Don't we already have Ferrari? Or is the licence being altered this year? My fave of the main three is Toy Story. PoP looks like it has nice pieces but the licence itself is not one I have any interest in. Ben 10: Not for me. Toy Story has a great licence that's being put to terrific use, producing a huge variety of sets that match the mismatched nature of the movies themselves, and is providing some excellent parts and builds.

Yep, that bit does absolutely nothing. Confused me too, when I was building it. You might be right, but it seems odd for TLG to help out with this section when the same scenario crops up so often elsewhere (in other sets) and is never insured against. The diagrams are very clear, and the build is very straightforward. I figure they probably wouldn't have used Technic parts at all if they thought it was a worry.

I voted for Romans, but with the current TLG policy of making everything action-packed, I doubt we'd see a realistic Roman line if they decide to do the theme. There would need to be monsters and historically-inaccurate mobile genocide machines.

The price of this set is a huge turn-off, it's €34.99 on Lego.com and looks about half the size of Rock Wrecker €29.99. It's one of the few PM sets I don't own, for that reason. I also think the design is a little bit daft: It's a snow-plough? Underground? That shoots dynamite? It just doesn't seem to pull together. I'd love that rubbery thing on the engine but other than that, the set just doesn't look as interesting as the rest of the line.

We even won the IgNobel Prize for Literature for that this year. Um... that was not reported in Irish newspapers, as far as I know. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8290549.stm I think I vaguely remember seeing those KK2 knights in shops, now that I've checked them out on Bricklink. Yeah, they were... entertaining.

I've thrown two out (I got a lot of Exo Force so I'm not short) and the other is still in Buzz's shoulder. It cracked when I was putting the ball in. He can probably tell the weather a week ahead but it's holding. I won't bother sending that off, too much hassle on both sides for one brick, and I had to get a whole bag of parts replaced that were missing from the box a few weeks ago, so I don't want TLG to think I'm bad luck....

Eck. My local Tesco is crap for Lego, but I'll run by there on the way home from work tomorrow, just incase. Thanks, Mantaman, for the images of Eruptorra! I think I prefer her over the 2009 big guys (I can't think of their names right now). The flames definitely look better than standard crystal formations. And it's nice to have large flame pieces that aren't long spouts.