Aanchir

Whoops, didn't realize there was a 2013 topic. Just posted this in the 2012 topic but I guess it makes more sense here: That pic from the Character Encyclopedia makes it that much more plausible that the Stone Army will be the new foes for the Ninja (since the stone warriors from the graphic novel cover have the same shoulder armor). Another clue is that the cover of the graphic novel has been replaced with a placeholder image on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, suggesting that there's something on that cover that TLG didn't want people seeing. In general, they are quality villain designs and so I look forward to seeing them in more detail. I also wouldn't mind if those Ninja costumes became the standard in sets next year, even if they're a bit more generic than the ZX Ninja costumes. Also I fully expect to see those elemental swords in sets, since they seem to be based on an actual part's geometry hence why they have such a precise shape. In general I'm glad Ninjago is continuing with new sets, even if that means it's ending. I'm not the least bit excited about Legend of Chima, which seems to be occupying the same "genre" of toy as Ninjago and thus is Ninjago's most likely direct replacement. But still, Ninjago had a wonderful run and I'm sure there will still be plenty of LEGO for me to collect in 2013 no matter what happens. Meanwhile, it seems like they're going to actually wrap up the Ninjago story with a worthy finale, rather than the slightly rushed finale of BIONICLE or the open-ended finale of Exo-Force. On a side note, someone in the Legend of Chima topic (I think) quoted a Brickset user who mentioned something about a Gold Ninja and gold dragon. I honestly don't know whether that Brickset user was making things up but they seemed to be correct about some other things, so that could be neat. Hopefully if it is true it's just a new form for Lloyd or something and not another new Ninja character-- it doesn't seem like there's enough time left to establish a brand-new character effectively, at least not if they're meant to be given some special importance. In general I am confident that next year's Ninjago will not disappoint, even if it turns out to be a small "finale wave". Now, as for the rumors that TMNT is replacing Ninjago, I think the answer to that is yes and no. Sure, the TMNT theme would probably not exist if Ninjago weren't ending, since TLG wouldn't want to introduce another fantasy martial arts theme that would compete with their own. For that matter, it might even have been one of the motivations to end Ninjago. But it seems clear to me that Ninjago's real "replacement" will be Legend of Chima, which from what we've seen will contain several of the most fundamental things that made the Ninjago theme unique (a thorough and original new non-licensed story, a "game" component involving both cards and toys, and a sort of science-fantasy blend with a sense of mysticism). Also, don't forget that when BIONICLE's cancellation became apparent, one of the prevalent rumors was that the Ben 10 Alien Force theme introduced the same year would be its replacement, but its true replacement was the non-licensed theme LEGO Hero Factory. I imagine the situation here will be similar.

That pic from the Character Encyclopedia makes it that much more plausible that the Stone Army will be the new foes for the Ninja (since the stone warriors from the graphic novel cover have the same shoulder armor). Another clue is that the cover of the graphic novel has been replaced with a placeholder image on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, suggesting that there's something on that cover that TLG didn't want people seeing. In general, they are quality villain designs and so I look forward to seeing them in more detail. I also wouldn't mind if those Ninja costumes became the standard in sets next year, even if they're a bit more generic than the ZX Ninja costumes. Also I fully expect to see those elemental swords in sets, since they seem to be based on an actual part's geometry hence why they have such a precise shape. In general I'm glad Ninjago is continuing with new sets, even if that means it's ending. I'm not the least bit excited about Legend of Chima, which seems to be occupying the same "genre" of toy as Ninjago and thus is Ninjago's most likely direct replacement. But still, Ninjago had a wonderful run and I'm sure there will still be plenty of LEGO for me to collect in 2013 no matter what happens. Meanwhile, it seems like they're going to actually wrap up the Ninjago story with a worthy finale, rather than the slightly rushed finale of BIONICLE or the open-ended finale of Exo-Force. On a side note, someone in the Legend of Chima topic (I think) quoted a Brickset user who mentioned something about a Gold Ninja and gold dragon. I honestly don't know whether that Brickset user was making things up but they seemed to be correct about some other things, so that could be neat. Hopefully if it is true it's just a new form for Lloyd or something and not another new Ninja character-- it doesn't seem like there's enough time left to establish a brand-new character effectively, at least not if they're meant to be given some special importance. In general I am confident that next year's Ninjago will not disappoint, even if it turns out to be a small "finale wave".

Not sure what to expect. The bike construction and game don't particularly impress me-- I liked the simple refined look of the Ninjago spinners more so than the specialized molds I'm seeing on these bikes, even if both were designed as play features more than as simple building elements. Overall, I'm sure there will be interesting aspects to this theme that might even convince me to get a few sets. Perhaps the story will be compelling, or some of the parts will prove useful. But overall there's nothing in these pictures that particularly appeals to me just yet. It seems to combine aspects of some of my favorite themes, but not aspects that I find particularly compelling on their own. Still, good to have confirmation that it is in fact a theme, and that some of the rumors posted on Brickset (such as the trademarks for the theme name and Speedorz being related) are likely reliable.

Not totally sure what to think of this claim because it could easily be referring to regular helmets in a prototype stage. Back in BIONICLE's infancy, before I was even involved in the online BIONICLE community, there were rumors about the organic-looking "Kranohi" (actually Kanohi Nuva). Similarly, I can remember how people complained about the "rubber masks" of the Toa Mahri and Mistika Toa Nuva shown at Toy Fair (actually just preliminary parts that came from a rapid-prototyping machine, much like our first glimpses of the Savage Planet characters' helmets). SInce we seem to be getting closer to seeing actual preliminary images from retailers' catalogs, everyone ought to be wary about drawing conclusions before the sets are released. Don't forget that our first glimpses of the 2011 Hero and Villain sets were in an early prototype stage, with Evo's head and core depicted as blue in some pics and the villains having significantly different designs. And just last year, people complained about how terrible and gappy Black Phantom was in preliminary images, then celebrated the actual (largely unchanged set) for "fixing" problems that had only been a result of poor photo-editing in the first place. The press guide distributed at Toy Fair this year had preliminary versions of this year's summer sets which were vastly different than the final sets in many ways. If images like that are the first to surface of next year's sets, then they will hardly tell us a thing about what to actually expect (besides some general ideas of what characters will be equipped with-- after all, the preliminary Stormer XL still had a sword, a gun, and scout drones despite having generic 2.0 torso armor and triple-jointed arms). By the way, having read "The Doom Box", I think I can pretty much put to rest any rumors that there will be an episode based on it. In general the book, while excellent, simply does not mesh with the most important aspects (from a marketing and storytelling perspective) of the TV episodes. For instance, it only features one main antagonist-- Core Hunter-- though Splitface and Speeda Demon also make appearances in one scene, as prisoners rather than antagonists. Also, every hero on Alpha 1 Team is involved in the mission to stop Core Hunter. Thus the synopsis on IMDB is bogus, and probably written by someone who had only read descriptions of the book and not the book itself. I have no doubt that the other episode summaries following that one are just as fake. If there is another TV episode, I imagine it will tell a brand-new story and not one from the Hero Factory Secret Mission series of chapter books, though it's possible there might be a novelization of a new episode if this year's Hero Factory books prove successful enough.

Hey there, guys. Haven't been on here since I got up to my new college a few weeks ago, but just wanted to share my thoughts on Hero Factory Secret Mission #1: The Doom Box, which I picked up the other day. In general I think this book series should have everything that people disappointed with the Hero Factory TV series have been wanting. Based on what I've seen in this first book, it adds a lot of depth to the universe. New planets are introduced that are extremely distinct from those we've seen before (for instance, a bank planet), the adventures pick up some of the detective story and police procedural elements that have been largely absent in the show, and we even get some character development and backstory for characters who have had very little of it in the show. Characterization is generally good. For instance, Bulk, while he still has a reputation as a dullard, is shown to be quite competent in knowing when to think things through and when to go at it with brute strength before his foe can react. It's not so much that he's always methodical as that he knows when it's in his best interest not to be. Now, as for its faults, I think its biggest fault is trying to work in too many characters. While Core Hunter is the only major villain in the story (sadly, this story does not incorporate the other villain sets this year left out of the Breakout episode, though they are mentioned to be still on the loose at the beginning), every hero character featured this year makes an appearance in some capacity. And IMO, this leads to the attention being divided up too much between the characters. Nex and Evo are only featured very briefly, filling a role that Zib could have just as easily performed, and although Surge gets character development, it ends up feeling shoehorned in since his role in the story is no more important than any of the other heroes for most of the story. By the way, on a cosmetic note, the cover looks quite stylish. I know some people feel it looks a bit too much like a kids' book (which, to be fair, it is), but IRL the letters of the "Hero Factory" text on the side are chrome-colored which makes it feel more refined than a lot of kids' chapter books for merchandise-driven franchises. It's definitely every bit as exciting as the BIONICLE books were. In general, though, I had a positive impression of the book and look forward to more. The next one is going to be a prequel arc involving the formation of Alpha 1 Team under the leadership of team leader Thresher, and based on the preview in the back of this book will go into some depth about Hero Factory's role in the universe, as well as why villains seem to be a dime a dozen. And I hope it's to the same level of quality as this book.

Personally, I think this Iron Man set is decent as a stylized depiction of Iron Man, and it's certainly not as inaccurate as some superhero action figures I've seen on store shelves. Of course, you're right that some aspects of it are confusing, like the silver back armor or the arrangement of the leg armor. The blue eyes would be understandable in a lot of sets (having the sections you want to look "glowy" be close to the same color is often a good idea, such as eyes and weapon effects), but since his arc reactor glows almost white with just a blue margin it's surprising they didn't use the same colors for his eyes. One thing I really like is this set's proportions. Wrists dangle just below the hips, upper legs and lower legs are the same length, and the torso and head make up about half of his overall height. It's something a lot of the medium-sized LEGO Hero Factory sets struggle with, making the legs and arms a bit longer than they need to be (though not to the same extreme extent practiced by many BIONICLE sets). I think the Ultrabuild-style heroes can be handled well in two ways, and I think Iron Man and Batman demonstrate those ways effectively. In Batman's case, an organic, muscular look can be achieved with smooth, plain-looking pieces like the standard Hero Factory shells and the new Super Heroes chest piece. It makes for a somewhat angular design, somewhat like many of the character designs in the TV show "The Batman", but thankfully the heads are designed to be compatible with this look. In Iron Man's case, a more mechanical look can be achieved with more heavily-textured parts like the Breakout-style torso shells, the "fuel cap" shell detail pieces, the 3.0 "paw" piece, and the Fire Villain engine block piece. This isn't to say I don't like the sets like Green Lantern that mix this up and justify it by calling it "power armor", but overall I think Batman and Iron Man do the best job of demonstrating that this building system can work for any type of hero. So overall, a very stylized depiction of the character and not a totally faithful one, as you've demonstrated in various ways. But I still think it makes for a nice-looking figure that Iron Man fans should be able to appreciate. Even if it doesn't meet their expectations, it should get them well on their way to acquiring the pieces they need to customize their own, more faithful design.

LEGO has not included any of the explicitly religious aspects of Christmas in sets, besides perhaps some "Angel" sets from many years ago. Santa Claus is not always identified with Saint Nicholas, and the Christmas tree is originally derived from pagan rituals and is now a part of many secular Christmas celebrations here in the United States. In fact, Christmas is celebrated in some parts of the world as almost a purely secular holiday. See here for an extreme example. As for Valentine's Day, it is also mostly celebrated as a secular holiday, at least here in the United States. Very few people actually are well-versed in its religious side, and in fact some people believe the holiday is itself a conspiracy by greeting card companies (which for the most part is poppycock, though it can't be ignored that if not for the secular celebration of the holiday it would not be celebrated nearly as much here as it is). Weddings have NEVER been a occasion specific to one religion, since they exist in cultures all around the world, and I know of no religious wedding ceremonies that take place at a town hall rather than a church. Birthdays may have once been a religious occasion. But today they are only a religious occasion for very few, if for anyone at all. I have never attended a birthday celebration that had any religious ties, and chances are neither have most LEGO buyers. Really, all TLG has is a policy against explicit religious symbols like the cross, the Star of David, the Islamic star and crescent, and religious figures. This does not prohibit them from selling anything that was ever connected with religion. I apologize, but your arguments that TLG is violating its own policies are perhaps the weakest arguments I have ever read in this topic or even on this entire site.

Good review! I think the Lloyd ZX spinner set is definitely well-designed as far as spinner sets are concerned, but it does feel a bit odd in some ways. His main weapon, for instance, doesn't have the same iconic feel as many of the golden weapons, and it's no surprise it hasn't been seen in the show. I kind of wish that instead of one oversized and contrived-looking weapon and two more boring weapons he had been given multiple smaller and more interesting weapons. One thing I love is how his spinner pattern actually references the four NRG spinner patterns: each elemental corner print is one quarter of the design from the NRG spinner matching that element. The green multi-element crown is also a nice feature, and really evokes the "tornado of energy" feel Spinjitzu is supposed to have. The Lloyd ZX minifigure is naturally quite impressive. I like how his face print is just as well suited to the childish Lloyd Garmadon minifigure as to the more grown-up Lloyd ZX fig. Makes me wish that either of his hair pieces from the show existed in the proper color, though. Price-per-piece arguments don't really make much of a difference to me since if you're worried about price-per-piece you shouldn't be buying a spinner set at all-- or at least, you should be buying one of the larger ones like the weapon pack or training set rather than a single-character spinner. Personally, I have not felt compelled to get any of this year's spinner sets besides the NRG Ninja, whose minifigures don't appear in non-spinner sets (and whose spinner sets are really awesome-looking with great weapon parts). Still, I can see how someone who doesn't want to get the Epic Dragon Battle could use this set as a way of obtaining the Lloyd ZX fig.

The latest episode ("Wrong Place, Wrong Time") was great, but a real mind screw. Alternate timelines certainly don't make being a wiki editor any easier!

That's the earlier (fake) synopsis for Pirates Vs. Ninja from IMDB. Good to know that whoever put that guide together checked their work.

Even if they don't, it's listed on LEGOwatches.com. They have clocks for all the ZX Ninja, for the buyer who isn't content with just one Ninjago clock or is very preferential about which character they have telling them the time. It's a shame they don't have their shoulder pads, though.

I was just joking with my brother how all the AFOLs who are worried about this theme will be ga-ga over it when they find out it's a flashy Great Ball Contraption theme. Not really especially likely, but I was just thinking about how whatever Ninjago's replacement is (be it Speedorz or something else) it could easily have some kind of kinetic aspect much like the Ninjago spinner game, and GBC was the first thing that came to mind. LEGO has never done any kind of marble run theme, but it wouldn't be out of the question.

Well, Bricklink also uses Medium Azure (oddly, LEGO's usual name for the color is "Medium Azur" without an e, though I use the two interchangeably), so it's one of the most reliable names for that color. It's always better to use some standardized naming system with LEGO colors so other people can figure out what colors you're talking about, but it doesn't really make a difference which naming system that is as long as other people can look it up if they become confused. I prefer the official names, but Bricklink names are more commonly used among AFOLs. These days Bricklink tends to make sure their names for new colors are semi-compatible with the official LEGO names, with some exceptions. For instance, "Medium Nougat" was named "Medium Dark Flesh" on Bricklink to emphasize its connection with Nougat and Light Nougat, which Bricklink calls Flesh and Light Flesh. "Aqua" was named "Light Aqua" on Bricklink since they already have a color named Aqua (the discontinued LEGO color officially called Light Bluish Green). And Spring Yellowish Green was named Yellowish Green on Bricklink since there were no other colors with that name to confuse it with (personally, I was hoping for a name like Bright Light Lime which would be more consistent with their older color names, but the name they settled on isn't really a problem). Well, I guess it's more important to have female protagonists than female antagonists since your audience (including the periphery demographics that fall outside your target audience) is meant to identify with the protagonists more than the antagonists. It'd be great to have more female protagonists and antagonists, but it's understandable that when there are so few female characters whatsoever they choose to cast those female characters as "good guys" to further strengthen the theme's appeal with girls. The glow-in-the-dark blue color might look somewhat different if it were released today since the original Barraki parts in that color were a blend of Transparent Blue and Phosphorescent Green, the latter of which has been discontinued and replaced with the new Glow White which appears in Monster Fighters. Glow White isn't nearly as transparent as Phosphorescent Green usually was so it might not blend as smoothly. But with that said, more glow-in-the-dark parts would be great in Hero Factory. I wonder if we might ever see glow-in-the-dark Hero Cores. I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't have objected to the standard white cores we had this year if they glowed (and did so clearly enough that you could still make out the "H"-shaped detail).

Also the same reason I have never made any Cuusoo proposals. There are a couple ideas I have that I'd love to create good images of for a proposal, but often they're too controversial for me to be confident that my efforts won't be wasted. Examples are my modular road system I've been working on for the past couple years (perhaps I can work further on that for my industrial design classes at the college I'm transferring to) and a BIONICLE tribute series using existing Hero Factory parts (which would be divisive among both BIONICLE and Hero Factory fans, both of whom probably form a minority on Cuusoo anyway). One advantage of this is that Cuusoo tends to show favor to MOCs that had a lot of effort put into the design. Simple LDD-based MOCs, for instance, can take the least time to create and put on Cuusoo, but as a consequence they tend to lack the refined look of well-photographed physical models or more time-consuming and labor-intensive drawings and renders.

Well, not including the maskless 2.0 Hero head piece, of course. Though this has an advantage over that one in that the "ball snap" can actually be used on the center of a Hero Factory beam the same way you might use a shell, whereas the 2.0 Hero head's chin would get in the way. It's hard to think of much use for this other than as a head, since XT4's head piece doesn't provide much coverage on any size beam, but I'm curious if you could snap two of them onto the shoulders of a 9x9 or 9x11 torso beam as the start to some kind of armor. On a 9x11 torso beam, a standard 8M 2.0 torso shell could effectively be used to finish armoring the lower torso. I seriously hope most or all of the summer set parts are included in the next LDD update... It'll be great to have access to an unlimited number of parts like these for the sake of experimentation. In the meantime, I can see why you love this set. To be honest I'm quite amazed at how imaginative the sets at the smallest price point have been this year-- unlike 2010 and 2011, where the smaller "Hero" sets were fairly generic humanoid builds and only the larger "villain" sets showed a lot of innovation with the building system, this year the villains in the smallest price point actually show some great innovation, whereas the larger villains have more standard humanoid designs (though still creative). It really goes to show how even with the constraints created by set pricing, it hardly puts a damper on the designers' creativity.

There were a couple store exclusives: 7712 Supernova in the first year and 7714 Golden Guardian and 7721 Combat Crawler X2 in the second year. However, since Brickset doesn't list all of these as "limited release" it's possible that they were only store-exclusives in certain countries. I think you're exaggerating Exo-Force's failure just a tiny bit, since the first wave was from all appearances quite successful or it wouldn't have been followed up with such a huge second year of sets. But any success the second and third years had probably came from riding the coattails of the first year-- the theme was evidently expected to grow in success in its second year, which it utterly failed to do, instead diminishing in success until 2008 when they decided it was time to drop the line entirely. I had no problem with any of the years of Exo-Force sets, but I wish the story hadn't been cut short the way it was. BIONICLE at least showed an effort to wrap things up quickly at the last minute, whereas Exo-Force was a "What happens? YOU decide!" conclusion. Anyway, back on topic. The info on Voltix is interesting to hear although it demonstrates how poor choices were evidently behind the confusing presentation of this idea in the Breakout TV special. If Voltix had released an energy projection of himself, it would have been easier to understand that it was an energy projection and not some type of weird hitchhiking spirit or whatnot. As for all the heroes besides Stormer being rookies, that's quite baffling and I'm not entirely sure how reliable it is since I had thought it was established in 2010 that Bulk and Stringer were not rookies.

In a universe where pretty much everyone is a robot or at least partially robotic, I think it would make perfect sense to just call a robotic or semi-robotic creature a "creature". Just like in real life we call the creatures around us "animals" or "creatures" instead of "organic animals" or "organic creatures", in Hero Factory everyone is simply assumed to be robotic and thus it's only when a character is semi-organic that it's worthy of comment. Calling XT4 a cyborg doesn't necessarily mean that he's actually part organic-- it could just be some poorly-chosen usage to imply that he's "more robotic than usual", even if that doesn't make as much sense in a world where pretty much everyone's a robot. Of course, there are other possibilities: Wiktionary offers a second definition for "cyborg" to mean "a robot who has an organic past".

Much better! One of the things I really like about these is that if you build the roof as you've demonstrated, it's 100% removeable without the use of any tiled portions in the construction of the walls. It would be a great feature for Friends and Creator houses. I haven't supported too many of your part proposals, but this is one I'd love to see in official sets and can feel comfortable giving my full support! Currently the Cuusoo link isn't working... is it just not public yet? Haven't proposed anything of my own on Cuusoo so I'm not totally sure how that works.

Well, I have a bit of the same worry, but if anything this year's sets demonstrate that the set designers really do care about what characters they're depicting with the sets they design, so with any luck that will carry over to the next wave of heroes. The worst-case scenario is probably that we'll see heroes based around a non-character-related gimmick/theme like the creature-based designs of the 3.0 wave. They might not be as iconic as the Breakout heroes, but they should still have some character that shines through in their designs, and in any event I'm sure some of them will make decent parts packs. Personally I don't care if the smaller heroes get released as larger ones, or for that matter if the larger heroes get released as smaller ones. I like some diversity in the size of hero sets. I think the larger heroes are a bit too tall and gangly to look proportionate and usually can best be improved by shortening their lower legs by one module, but that's about all I consider necessary. I'm also curious what direction the sets will go in, since Breakout gave us the most iconic and character-driven designs since Hero Factory's initial wave. Who knows? It's been about three years, so perhaps we might see a shift to new characters just as BIONICLE had, although I hope that doesn't happen since unlike BIONICLE there aren't as many well-established side characters to draw from, and I've grown to love our team of nine colorful heroes. Perhaps we will see something like the Breakout wave but with the Heroes specialized for different missions. Surely Furno's underwater gear isn't the only equipment that can suit him so well. We might even see a new "gimmick" like this year's Hero-Cuffs and plasma guns which remains equally versatile. In general, I'm perfectly happy with what TLG has given us this year, but that doesn't mean I'm pessimistic about what they have yet to offer us.

As useful as this sort of thing would be, do you know if it's even possible to mold that 45-degree upper corner in ABS and still meet TLG's quality standards? Normally when TLG molds anything with a point as sharp as that they use a softer, more rubbery plastic (a good example is Exo-Force hair, which is a "bouncy" rubber material, or the tooth pieces introduced in LEGO Atlantis which are just a softer plastic). But I think these bricks would have to be solid ABS or polycarbonate to attach firmly and hold their shape when built into a larger structure. This is probably a major part of why TLG's normal inverse slopes don't mesh with their regular slopes perfectly. There is one ABS part I can think of with a sharp point like that-- the "stafford slope", or 1x2 slope with two-plate cutout released in sets beginning last year. However, even it has a slightly blunted corner if I remember correctly, whereas these look like they'd be quite painful to step on. Blunting the corner of these might also detract from these in an aesthetic sense, and prevent the top surfaces from meeting corner-to-corner when made into a peak. I'm sure this could be an acceptable sacrifice, though.

Interesting... These cars have a new pull-back motor with a "T"-shaped 4x4 footprint and a thickness of two to three plates. It seems like an excellent piece, certainly much more versatile than the old 2 x 6 x 1 1/3 pull-back motors of the early naughts. Coupled with their already incredible looks, this makes me really hope they make it the United States, and I'm not even normally a collector of LEGO Racers!

Well, besides the TV episodes' patterns being spread more evenly across the body instead of simply appearing where the chest piece and leg shells have conveniently flat surfaces, there's not that much of a difference. One bigger difference I do see in the TV episodes, besides the rotation of his lower legs so the larger shells face forward, is that he has friction joints on his shoulders. I sure would have loved if the set had those! It would have made his arms that extra bit longer that they really need, and it would have made the set an even better parts pack.

Great photos! I agree your pic of XT4 looks way better than the official art on the packaging. It's easy to understand why the packaging image lacks this sort of appeal, though. Generally, TLG likes at least one of the set pictures on a box or package to be close to actual size. In the case of Hero Factory, this often means that either certain parts will have to be cropped away (like the legs of the 2.0 and 3.0 Heroes) or the figures will be scrunched into a pose where all of their main selling points remain visible. On a figure like XT4 who looks best when his assorted weapons are spread out from his body, this can cause some serious problems. Your other photos are also good but not as exciting as your XT4 photo. In particular, Evo is in a fairly bland pose and Thornraxx's pose doesn't very effectively show off his stinger tail.