Dunjohn

I haven't seen the episode but I think those are jellyfish. I'd have preferred buns too, but the jellyfish are still cool.

There's a bit of confusion about S5's bags. The earliest images were of nine S5 figs against a purple ?-background, but the boxes seen at the recent toy fair in Germany were blue.

I reckon random's the way to go! The winners are chosen at random anyway.

Fascinatin'. I've a few ideas boiling around in there already.

I spotted her in Heroica. The golden guy I meant was the trophy in Champion. The kid on the box is holding it up and there's no printing on it.

Thanks, she does look much better now. Although, Patrick no longer has the same torso.

It's an odd selection of microfigs, alright. Most are reused from other themes; the only one I don't recognise is pink (and obviously the blank golden one). Hurray for gender equality - these are the first non-licensed female microfigs they've ever made! Steep price, though, for mostly-duplicate microfigs and some purple bricks.

Oh, the monkey's printed? Very nice. The aerobics girl looks a little more distinct from her popstar cousin now too, though she's still awfully similar. Thanks for that!

I suppose I can understand that sentiment. These guys are generally filling roles now, but looking back at Series 1 - Crash Test Dummy? Where did that come from?? The Cheerleader was another one that struck me as very left-field, and a lot of the others had sparkle. The Godzilla is quite creative but he's the only S5er, in my opinion. Like you say, though, there are plenty of other good reasons to get these, and I still say this series is my favourite after S1. But I definitely get your meaning.

Maybe it's a regional thing. Whenever I see a box, at least one of the first five packs I check has that nicely distinctive bat grip inside it. Baseball's a non-sport in this country, nobody cares about that guy.

That's what I thought, too... until Series 3 released and every single shop I go into has badly felt-up packs in the boxes.

The European releases come in nice orderly waves, but the American releases are sporadic, random, and late. I've never been able to make much sense of the schedule. If they're not slated for release, it's probable they won't be.

I noticed that alright, when I got the set. I thought it was fantastic! I remember mentioning that I wished they'd do something like that in my review of the first Ramses game. I wonder why they didn't mention the tie-in on the box anywhere. Still, hope they'll keep it up.

They didn't go back to the barcodes. They don't want people to be able to tell what's in the bags. The dots system largely seems to be working, so chances are they'll stick with that for the foreseeable future.

Hmm, I'm kinda with you guys on this one, these sets look really underwhelming. I may get the Glove World one purely to get a normal Sandy, but only if it's reasonably cheap. And I'm in a good mood and have nothing else to get.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the artist. And I really like the dummy. But how many do you need? How many of either one does anybody need? He's the dummy of this set in that once you have one, that's probably plenty, so he's not going to be valuable. There will be some people who'll get multiples to have racks of palettes and brushes, just like Blondie-Wan and the crash test MOC, but that doesn't make it popular. Personally, I'll get one for my collection, another one for parts (his face greatly resembles my brothers') and that's me finished.

Huh. I didn't notice until now that the hockey player comes with an armour mold. Neat.

Now I see them, they're all over the place. I had throught they were just facing the other way. Odd. I'm also thinking they're dummies representing unfinished microfigs. How hard can it be to print a generic microfig? Ramses Pyramid came with eight identical mummies.

I can't really see what sets such a theme would produce either, even if it was unlicensed.

Depends on how many collectors are in your area :p I was in town on Friday evening abd Tesco were just rearranging their Lego section half an hour before closing. I went back in on Sunday afternoon to find that they'd put some S3 boxes out, but even by then they'd all been very obviously felt through. No elves, naturally.

I don't see any blank microfigs?

Sailor started of as being very popular, people were saying they'd need a full crew. With not many people interested in the viking, he's as close to an "army" minifig as this series comes. I'd imagine the dummy here is the skater boy or the artist.

It won't, it'll hold. You're allowed to pick the tree up during your turn, but if it falls over when you put it back down, you lose.

This is just a quickie review for a set that doesn't really have much to describe, anyway. ____________________________________________ "It’s hot in the jungle and picking the best bananas is tricky work as the tree grows new leaves. Bananas get the monkey to help you collect the most fruit, but don’t let the tree tip over! A fun game of balance for 2 - 4 players." INFORMATION: Set Name: Banana Balance Set Number: 3853 Theme: Lego Games Year Released: 2011 Number of Pieces: 49 Microfigs: 0 Price on Release: €9.99 Bricklink _____________________________________________ The abundance of green and yellow should make this stick out, but otherwise it's fairly typical of the Games line. The guy in white is totally into it. He'll give himself a heart attack if he doesn't settle down. The back contains the usual photo of the set, and I had taken a picture of it, but I think I deleted it. Sorry.... it still calls the die a "dice" though... Spill said box and you're met with these five objects. The bags feel pretty empty, and they are. The manual is lamentably folded, despite the fact that it fits into the box flat even better than the gameplay booklet. Here's what the bags contain. Obviously, the highlight of the set is twelve leaf parts and twelve bananas. Those massive, genetically-engineered Lego bananas. Plus a monkey. Overall, this is an excellent selection of nice parts (assuming you needed twelve more bananas) for the price. There are no spares in the set. Starting with Wave 4, all of the Lego Games feature the new red crowbar instead of the old black wrench for detooling the die. The parts selection is so limited that they had to fill half the page with a random graphic. Building the tree takes about 3.8 minutes. They use the number "3" printed on the technic bits to help keep track of its shape during the process. And here's the completed yoke. The tree begins with four leaves and four bananas attached, the rest are added during the game. If the tree falls over during your turn, you lose the game instantly. It's quite easy to unbalance, but if your hands are any way steady you'll be fine. Roll a green to attach another leaf. Roll a yellow to attach another banana. Brown is "Monkey Move," a fantastic term all by itself. Roll Monkey Move to hang him by his tail from any leaf, and then take all the bananas on that leaf. If the monkey falls off, he steals one of your bananas (you must also shout "Bananas!" I, uh, didn't). The person with the most bananas when they're all gone is the winner. The brown rod is used in a variant game, where the monkey must climb the tree. Roll a Monkey Move, and he goes up a step. Roll a yellow, and you get to clear all the bananas from one leaf for each step up the tree the monkey is, then reset the monkey. It sounds a lot faster, but since it doesn't say how bananas are grown, it can't be played IN CONCLUSION I wasn't planning for this to be a quickie review but there's really nothing else to say about the set. There's little building, gameplay is simple, and even the instruction booklet runs out of parts to list. Still, despite its smallness, I'm pretty pleased with it. Design: 8/10 Extreme simplicity done rather well. The tree looks great and the game is probably quite fun, particularly with small kids who'd likely love the physical aspect of balancing it. Parts: 9/10 There's less than fifty but very few are basic, run-of-the-mill bits. Twelve leaves, twelve bananas and a monkey are all big deals for me, I didn't own any brown Technic bits before and the crowbar is far easier to use than the wrench. No microfigs but I can't have everything. Build: 9/10 Barely noticed it. Maybe that normally means a lower score but this is a Games set so you're straight into the playing. Playability: 7/10 Seems like one for the youngest kids; there's not a lot here for anybody older. However, it should work well with the right audience, and the parts are great for everybody else. Price: 7/10 49 parts for a tenner isn't that hot on the surface, but they're great parts. Total: 86% I haven't tried the NinjaGo game yet, but of the other Wave 4 games, this is easily the best for parts, albeit highly specialised ones. Gameplay's also rather specialized but works well. It's particularly easy for adults to "accidently" lose at, too. Thanks for reading! If Lego was to Scale, You Could Feed a Family for a Week - Dunjohn

I'm just glad the NinjaGo game comes with loads of baby skeletons... wait that didn't sound right.