Aanchir

This guy is OK. His color scheme kind of bothered me the same way it seems to have bothered Bfahome, but then again it looks straight-up awesome here, so it's hard to judge. Your low score for the parts is probably well-deserved-- I had hoped for at least one new type of shell in Bright Orange, rather than just having 3M ones like the last version-- but there are three new parts you can't get in other sets. Specifically, I don't think any other sets have that paw piece in silver, so that should be noted as a unique piece in addition to the name badge and helmet. Of course, unlike the name badge and helmet, which are specific to this character, the paw piece is more likely to appear in future sets in this color. I must say I like this guy's name badge, which is pretty significant since I don't really like the 3.0 name badges in general. They just seem more artsy and less machine-tooled, whereas the last wave's name badges managed to stay unique while still having a futuristic, swooshy design. The ribbon is what mainly bothers me about the 3.0 name badges in general, feeling like it belongs on an old-school propoganda poster rather than a robot hero. And some of the animal designs, like on Bulk 3.0, seem too sketchy rather than attractively stylized like Nex's tiger print. Great review overall. I'm not sure if I'll be getting Nex 3.0, but if I have the same lousy self-control I had with the last wave I may end up getting him eventually. I can pretty much tell, though, that he'll be the last hero I get, just as Nex 2.0 was the last my brother and I got in the last wave. This is not just because he has underwhelming contents but also because, as before, orange and green are some of the least compatible colors with the System parts I tend to have up at college.

I think TLG would likely try to make a successful non-licensed girls' theme before either LEGO or Disney is willing to take a gamble with a licensed theme marketed towards girls. While TLG has had some licensed themes that have been successful with girls (for instance, the Harry Potter theme), they haven't recently been able to demonstrate that a market of primarily female buyers can support a building toy theme. The most successful girls' theme so far, Belville, recently ended, suggesting that that theme's market strategy (a dollhouse-style theme with large articulated figures) was not sustainable, and there has not been any comparably successful minifigure-based theme to date.

Some kids have more difficulty following simple pictorial instructions than others. I remember one time during my childhood having a LEGO-themed birthday party, and having the Technic Throwbots/Slizers sets as party favors. I can recall being extremely surprised how much difficulty some of my peers had building them. To make a long story short, there are a lot of us who are just naturally attuned to LEGO building and who don't realize the difficulty others of the same age may have had. Still, TLG can't afford to alienate the audience of kids who has more difficulty following instructions by making the directions more frustrating for them. Also, I'll warn you about that broad generalization of the 90s being LEGO's "golden age". True, some of the sets were good, especially in the early- to mid-90s (I may be influenced by nostalgia, as I'm a 90s kid), but at the same time the late 90s brought the "Town Jr." era, which hardly any AFOL would be proud of.

Last I heard, the molds are not still there-- I believe they were destroyed in a fire or something. There was a discussion of this back when monorail track appeared in one of the Space Police animations, and people began pondering whether there might be a monorail in that theme. As for elevated tracks, while monorail tracks are not available, there are the 6-wide train tracks from the Temple of Doom set, most recently used in the Alien Mothership from the Alien Conquest theme. Those could possibly have potential for some sort of rail system, if not for monorails or standard trains.

I like Waspix, although he doesn't feel quite as original as Raw-Jaw. Perhaps that's just because his construction is so simple, using pretty much all his parts for their intended purpose. And I guess, in retrospect, the wings and legs are very original; they only feel like they've been used before because they could so easily be built using the last wave's pieces. Shame about the head not working on hero heads... you'd think TLG would have thought to make that possible and increase the part's versatility. Of course, the lack of eyeholes means that it's still fairly versatile, as it could be used for armor or a weapon without necessarily standing out as a head piece. For the record, I definitely prefer Waspix's molded eyes to Witch Doctor's hollow ones-- yes, Witch Doctor's face is supposed to look like a skull, but I still don't like looking at a face from the side and seeing through both eyeholes to the other side of the face. That joint on his back will be amazingly useful, and I hope more of them appear in other sets. I've tried making smaller Hero Factory creatures (i.e. about the size of the two BIONICLE Brickmaster sets, possibly with a slightly higher piece count), and it's not easy. With this, stick three of these underneath a 9M Technic beam and you're well on your way to creating a zany insect! Thanks for the review! Waspix certainly seems to be a desirable set!

Putting a plate on a hinge brick is far from a new technique. It's been done for years-- for instance, in this set from 1988. The types of hinge and plate have changed a lot over the years, but the technique has not. In my opinion, both techniques can be carried out effectively. The 2009 farm set indeed reduces the hinge technique to the bare minimum, which makes the roof look pretty awful. On the other hand, the Fire Temple from Ninjago uses the technique very effectively. Both techniques have design advantages and disadvantages. Plate-based roofs are flatter and often sturdier, while slope-based roofs allow for more variations in texture and angle in a smaller space. Plate-based roofs often take up less interior space, while slope-based roofs connect more solidly to walls and are less likely to leave a seam. It depends on which matches the type of building you're trying to cover.

Sorry I took a while with the color corrections; I've actually been away from the internet for the past two days and so didn't realize there had been an update until I got back this afternoon. Thankfully, unless I was not paying enough attention, there didn't seem to be any color or part errors at all with the last update. I'm enjoying seeing this model expand! I'm not a builder, but if I might make a recommendation to future builders, the Hangar is currently a large, empty room without much in it. It would be nice to see a docked spaceship and some minifigures in there, as none of the buildings so far have had the same level of activity as the first building (the repair bay).

No, the old-style ball joints were never discontinued. The fact that this set uses one where a new-style one would have worked just as well is a bit odd, but since the instructions dictate that it use an old-style ball joint (and list the old-style ball joint in the inventory), I see no reason to believe it's just a matter of circumstance that this set happened to contain one. See the summary-by-year of the part here. While this piece is not used nearly as often as it was in 2001 or 2002, its use never waned for any considerable length of time. It was used about as much in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, and 2010 as it is today. Frankly, the old-style ball joint is superior for most System applications (specifically as a detail piece), and the only surprise here is that it's being used here in a Hero Factory set alongside the newer-style ball joints, when the newer style could just as easily be used throughout.

As far as Rocka is concerned, I am a bit worried that it'll be another Nex/Evo instance of "New hero built using the latest tech!" It'd explain the fancy golden armor, but at the same time wouldn't bode well for future years of sets, which would have to use more and more complex gimmicks to demonstrate that "newness" or risk upsetting continuity by having the brand-new 5.0 rookies looking less advanced or refined. Something else I feel I ought to point out about the whole Witch Doctor situation is that he's not a complete repeat of Fire Lord, judging from the story info we've seen so far. Fire Lord was never suggested to have any villainous tendencies before he began absorbing too much energy. In this way, as my brother and I have been observing since Fire Lord's nature first became apparent, it's like he's driven by a drug addiction, going to more and more extreme means to get his "fix". A year or so in the HF equivalent of rehab, and he could be back on mining duty. Witch Doctor, on the other hand, had a jealousy of heroes even before getting pumped up with Quaza, and the bios make it sound like he was up to no good in going to Quatros in the first place, intending to mine Quaza illegally from the get-go. Thus, rather than being driven crazy by the power he stole, he had villainous tendencies to begin with and continues to take Quaza not to satisfy some addiction, but rather because he has the means to do so and lacks the self-control (or incentive) to place any limits on his ambitions. Witch Doctor is a lot more villainous than Fire Lord in this respect. Now, the TV episode/episodes for this series could potentially disprove this interpretation. Perhaps his skull staff is a dark artifact that influences his thoughts and compels him to continue his pursuits for self-empowerment. The heroes could break its spell over him by destroying the staff. From a Hero Factory perspective that could be more original, but it'd be a little too Knights' Kingdom for my tastes (but then, Von Nebula being sucked into his staff is already fairly similar to that theme's conclusion). Alternatively, the episode could make his motivations just as shallow as Omicron Squad Leader interprets them to be. Sadly, this may be more likely if this is anything like Ordeal of Fire, with only one 22-minute episode. But either way, my point is just that, having seen neither OoF or the Savage Planet episode, I came to interpret Witch Doctor's motivations and Fire Lord's fairly differently.

How was Fire Lord related to the Hero Factory? He was just a mining robot before he turned evil. Being a pre-existing robot in the same universe hardly reeks of repetition, in my eyes. Meanwhile, being power-hungry is a classic villainous motivation. We've known for quite a while that he was draining the planet's Quaza; what motivation did you expect him to have besides personal gain? It always bothers me when people take claim a character we don't know "had a lot going for him/her". It's just as silly as claiming a clearly unfinished sketch model for a set is better than the final set. Whether or not Witch Doctor is an interesting character, we never were given any reason to expect him to be a deeper or more original character than he actually turned out to be. We may have speculated about possible origins or backstory, but our speculation was never a part of the character in any form. In a similar sort of situation, my twin brother expected Rocka to be a veteran hero who had been stationed on Quatros prior to the Hero Factory alert call, rather than a new rookie. But Rocka had as much potential to be a rookie as to be a veteran, and as much potential to be a boy as to be a girl. In that sense, any rough idea without any details will have more potential than the same idea when the details are filled in. If the details prove unsatisfactory, it doesn't mean the rough idea was more satisfactory than the final details. It just means there were other possibilities, perhaps better or worse but still no more likely than the one that turned out to be true. Sorry for the rant. I'm not trying to jump to Witch Doctor's defense or TLG's, but rather just trying to speak out against a personal pet peeve. None of the new information about Witch Doctor changes anything we knew or had reason to suspect about him before. It just cancels out all other speculation about his character.

Not too happy with this guy. He's basically Fire Lord with a new paint job, but also with a lot of new flaws. For instance, his arms don't have the same posability as Fire Lord's, his torso is less streamlined, and his overall look is less unified. His only serious advantage over Fire Lord-- the fact that the legs look less gappy-- could be remedied on the older set just by adding the new piece used on Rocka's upper legs to Fire Lord's. Thankfully, it's in a compatible color so for people who have both sets this is totally possible. Rocka XL's arms seem a little less obtrusive than Fire Lord's, but it's hard to judge. Their joints are almost exactly the same, but Rocka XL's look a little more compact. It's hard to say whether this assessment is correct, though. Overall, I imagine I'll be passing on this set. That may change as the months go by, but I don't anticipate it.

The fact that Witch Doctor had the last name "Witch" when he was a good guy is slightly off-putting, but it's more than made up for by the awesomeness of the first name "Aldous". The videos are pretty good, and I like the jungle remix of the Hero Factory theme. But the narrator's script for the Scorpio vs. Rocka XL video is so, so awful. And I can't help but notice that Stringer doesn't get a video. It wouldn't be so egregious if they hadn't managed to feature every other character in the two commercials. The stills on the Story page lead me to believe that the animation for the Savage Planet episode will be every bit as good as the others. Can't believe they chose a still of Bulk with such a dumb look on his face, though. I'm very disappointed that the Gadgets and Weapons page doesn't include any new ones other than the Skull Staff. Main reason I'm disappointed is that this means the blasters Scorpio, Witch Doctor, and Rocka XL carry will probably never get names. I'm perfectly satisfied with TLG's decision to keep using the Thornax/Zamor combo as the primary launcher of Hero Factory, but I'd like it if they at least went to the effort of giving them story roles besides generic blasters (especially when they did so with such consistency in the first two waves). Anyway, over at HeroSector01 it's becoming hard to keep pace with the influx of story information due to the HeroFactory.LEGO.com web updates. Personally, I'm trying to figure out the best colors for the templates (as usual, sticking to official colors taken directly from LDD). Previously, I had Warm Gold as the primary color for Akiyama Makuro's template. Now that a set is out with that color (something which, granted, I had plenty of time to prepare for), I need to come up with new colors for his page. Still loving the Hero Factory theme, and hoping to get at least a couple of the next wave's sets!

I personally love the text on this BIONICLE bootleg. "The world! Champion! Great king bearing! Need not the argument sharp point!". Engrish in general is funny, but when it's trying to sound macho and failing so badly it's particularly hilarious. At the same time, I hate LEGO bootleg brands in general, particularly the sleazy ones. Clone brands show us that yes, you can capitalize off LEGO's success without resorting to downright plagiarism and deceptive packaging. I haven't had much experience with bootlegs here in the US, although a clone brand called Super Blocks has emerged that's dangerously close, with almost identical parts to certain specialized LEGO parts like curved slopes. And since now even Kre-O is getting in on that action, I'm a bit worried that even major toy companies are beginning to lose the decency of coming up with their own spin on the brick building toy, instead just copying whatever LEGO parts suit their purposes.

No, it'll always start out as red when you launch LDD. It's never caused me any problems since I tend to place parts in red and then recolor them with the paint bucket tool, but I can see the reasons why having a different default brick color would be useful.

This is perfectly true. It is part of the reason that with the BIONICLE collectible packs in late 2003 (set 8580 Kraata), The LEGO Group had a plastic canister for these sets-- the previous collectible masks and accessories had been in either cardboard boxes or polybags, and there had been problems with people breaking into them. However, since collectible packs didn't sell too well to begin with, they couldn't make up the cost of this extra security. For the next four years (2004-2007), TLG returned to using small cardboard boxes for collectible accessories, although from this point forward the collectibles were always in the form of "ammo" for the launchers included in larger sets, rather than being actual building components, and many people considered them inferior to the collectible masks from previous years. The 2006 and 2007 packs stopped having randomized contents, and after 2007 the whole idea of separate accessory packs was dropped since the sales never really met expectations. In general, I'm probably a bit biased since I am one of those people who feels the packaging of collectible minifigures to determine the contents. It's a very reliable method, and mostly a fair one-- anyone can do it, although some people might not be able to recognize tactile shapes as easily and thus not everyone can do it. Store employees have never given me any flak about it, and since I only get one of each fig I like (rather than building armies and thus more significantly upsetting the balance of figs available in a store), I don't feel much guilt for it. Perhaps I would feel more guilty about it if I were in a locality where the figs ran out more quickly, but I go to college in rural New England, and the main store I frequent for these figures takes a long time to run out of any series. Even the figs considered to have a higher demand (like "army-building" figs) don't run out too quickly. If I were in a community where boxes of figs would be emptied of higher-demand figs by pack-searching in a week or less, I would probably feel worse about it, even if I'm not "singling out" figs to buy multiples of. The main aspect of pack-searching I look down on would be in the case of individuals who cherry-pick high-demand figs from stores, and then resell them online for exorbitant rates. But people do that for any set with any kind of scarcity-- even a new set that's not yet available worldwide-- and really, if I don't stop my own pack-searching then I'm not in any place to condemn those who use the same technique for monetary gain. Also, I really disliked when many people complained about TLG removing the individual barcodes from the collectible minifigures after Series 2. However, this was not a problem I had with the pack-searching itself (I wouldn't have hesitated to use the barcodes if I weren't more comfortable with just feeling the packaging), but rather the sense of entitlement (as if TLG were doing a bad thing by trying to eliminate loopholes in the blind-packaging that they were aiming for in the first place). If TLG made it so that I could no longer feel the bags for collectible minifigures I wanted, I'd probably buy fewer-- I don't like getting duplicates-- but I wouldn't hold it against TLG for enforcing their own market strategy.

What do you mean? If you mean the gray color used for the interface, then no, there's no way to change that. If you're referring to the color of the bricks in the brick palette, that can be changed the same way as in Universe mode-- click the button at the bottom of the palette in the same place the "Filter bricks by color" button would be in DesignByMe mode.

Keep in mind that using a lot of pink, purple, and other "girly" colors does not mean that it will necessarily be overloaded with them. Paradisa's color scheme was distinguished by the inclusion of pink, but looking back at the sets most of them included very few pink parts. The main construction was generally based on grey and white parts. Hopefully a new girls' theme will be at least a little heavier on these new colors so that they're not as boring-- after all, white and grey on their own can be pretty boring without accent colors like red to spruce them up-- but it demonstrates that a theme with "girly" colors will not necessarily overuse those colors. One thing I do expect, of course, is that baseplates (or regular plates, which may be more likely) might be in 326 Spring Yellowish Green, which would be a disappointment for me. My family actually owned several Paradisa sets, and one of the things that bothered me most was that the color of the grass (6 Light Green) was inconsistent with all of my other baseplates and road plates. I'm hoping that Spring Yellowish Green will be more of an accent color for certain plants and that baseplates will be in a less garish color like Bright Green, but given how girls' themes in the past have liked using pastel green colors for grass I'm not really confident that we'll be free of that trend.

Well, being designed for girls means more than just stereotypical "girly" color schemes. There are other obvious factors-- I imagine this theme will have a lot of space and accessories for role-play (much like a dollhouse) and a majority of female minifigures over male ones. At the same time, I have no doubt that there will be a lot of "girly" colors used in this theme-- after all, the two lavender colors introduced this year (324 and 325) are scarcely used in any sets, so I figure TLG must have bigger plans for them next year, and the girls' theme is perhaps the most likely application for them. The same applies for 326 Spring Yellowish Green, which has yet to be seen in a single set-- not even as part of a printed decoration or sticker! Here are the six new colors introduced to the palette this year, if anyone's curious.

Keep in mind, guys, that just because the prelim pic just recently made its first appearance online doesn't mean it's new, or that the final version of the set hasn't been designed yet. For all we know, TLG may already have made all the changes to this that they're going to make, and comments in this topic won't influence the set significantly. With that said, I agree, we can't expect any major changes. At the same time, nobody here is saying that because it's a preliminary picture, any posts pointing out its flaws are invalid. Flaws are flaws, whether they make it to the final set or not. It's far too early to be making decisions of "I will/won't be getting this set", but that doesn't mean people can't be impressed or disappointed. At the same time, there's no harm in being hopeful. Personally, I don't care about many of the flaws people are pointing out, like too few windows or cannons. These are minor flaws as far as I'm concerned, and the ship would be just as recognizable as the Black Pearl to me whether or not it was exact about such things. The main flaws I'm concerned about are the plainness of the sails and the ugly gap between the figurehead and the front of the ship-- neither of which would be too huge a change to at least hope for before the final set is revealed.

I can answer the first question, if not the others. It certainly hasn't escaped you that there are several Episode I-themed sets coming out this summer, which could have something to do with The Phantom Menace being re-released in 3-D February of next year. I'm not sure why this influx of Episode 1 sets is showing up this year rather than next, but perhaps it has something to do with next year being the ten-year anniversary of Episode II, and thus a stronger focus on sets based on that film next year. Or perhaps there's something else Lucasfilms wants to begin promoting through merchandise in 2012. I kind of agree about the Destroyer Droid being pretty bad. It's just way too tall compared to the ones in the movie. My twin brother has disagreed fervently with me on this-- he loves the new Destroyer Droid-- but in my opinion TLG still hasn't come up with a version that has the appearance, scale, and functionality all at acceptable levels. I wouldn't mind some specialized parts at this point-- they've created so many specialized droids and aliens by now, I see no reason the Destroyer Droid should continue to get the short end of the stick. As for the set being nearly the same as the last version, though, I have to say I don't mind. I see a number of improvements from the last version, such as the lovely cockpit stickers. At the same time, I have to say I'm not remotely excited about this set compared to others from this year like the Sith Infiltrator or the podrace set-- after all, the reason I'm not upset about the lack of improvements in this one is because the last one did pretty well on its own IMO. I'm not a Star Wars buyer anyway, so I suppose my opinion doesn't count for much, but I just figured I'd share. Good review. Some of the photos could stand to be improved a bit-- in particular, the cluttered backgrounds are a bit distracting, something I have trouble with in my own photos a lot of the time. And resizing/cropping some of the photos could make the topic easier to read. Still, I'm very grateful that you reviewed this set for us here at Eurobricks!

Well, to be honest it's far from the most impressive ship in the franchise. Despite being the one that appears in the most movies, it's very simple in design compared to the QAR, the Flying Dutchman, or even the ships used by the British navy. As I see it, it basically looks like a simplified and slightly-smaller QAR, which is probably how it should look. And I'm sure some of the simplicity will go away before we see the final version, even though some of the obvious flaws like the ugly gap between the figurehead and the front of the ship may or may not stick around. There's certainly not much chance that it would have been designed at the exact same size as the QAR, however realistic that might have been. If that were the case, the sets would probably be priced far too similarly, and thus there would be two very similar sets competing with one another on store shelves. It could be either larger or smaller, and since QAR ties in with the most recent movie it's natural that it would end up with a larger design budget. It's regrettable, but at the same time all of the ships in the PotC franchise are pretty majestic in their own right, and they can't all be the same level of detail as the Imperial Flagship (certainly not in one year, given the release patterns for Pirates sets in the past). Personally, I'm glad that TLG is treating every one they've released with at least some respect rather than giving us rinky-dink ships like this one at any point (to my regret, I believe this is the only full-scale pirate ship set anyone in my family owns). I'm still hoping that if we get any ships to the same level of detail as the Imperial Flagship, the one we get will be the Flying Dutchman. After all, unlike the Black Pearl or QAR, I don't see any way it could be designed at a lower price point with its intricate details, overwhelming appearance (not to mention artillery), and importance to two out of four movies in the franchise. I'm looking forward to seeing what D2C sets are released in January, and if it's one for the PotC theme then I'm sure it will be extremely impressive no matter what it depicts.

Depends. It's really heavily stylized compared to other creatures and scenes from the Harry Potter theme, but if you're OK with that then it's entirely up to you. It should also be considered that the dragon might be more familiar to other people if you were to make a dragon based on the one in the upcoming final movie rather than using a pre-designed LEGO dragon. Ninjago's four dragons are a great place to look for inspiration in any event-- I personally love their wing designs. And they manage to feel a lot more like regular LEGO animals than the Technic-intensive dragons from the Vikings theme.

That'd be Medium Blue. Maersk Blue doesn't show up in any sets that aren't licensed by Maersk, since the color itself is a trademark of said company.

The problem I have with his hips is that his legs can't twist at all. They can move forward, backward, or to the side. But no matter which way you move them, his knees will always be pointing straight forward, which is slightly limiting. As complex as his hip articulation is, this is only to compensate for his size. On a smaller set with less weight to hold up, you could make legs just as poseable without using a single ball joint.

Even Peeron isn't always totally accurate with colors. But then, it's hard for any site to be, given how TLG only began publicizing their color palette just last year. There have been three official LEGO colors I know of which Bricklink has classified as Pearl Light Gray. The first, 131 Silver, was introduced in the 90s. Its first appearance in System (as far as I know) was in the cars for the Santa Fe Super Chief, but I'm told it had previously appeared in Duplo sets. Unfortunately, 131 Silver suffered from a great deal of internal inconsistency. Its formulation has been adjusted several times over the years to compensate for this, but unfortunately this may have caused as much inconsistency as it helped prevent. In 2006, the first attempt was made to completely replace the color with a new color-- 296 Cool Silver. BIONICLE, Knights' Kingdom, and Vikings sets made heavy use of this color. It was slightly lighter than 131 Silver, and evidently didn't do a good enough job to replace 131 Silver for good. Instead, 131 Silver came back in 2007 and 296 Cool Silver was discontinued. In Summer 2010 a new color, 315 Silver Metallic, was finally introduced to replace 131 Silver once and for all. This color is significantly darker than 131 Silver, and has been labeled extremely inconsistently on Bricklink-- as either Pearl Light Gray, Pearl Dark Gray, Flat Silver, or Metallic Silver, depending on the person who inventoried the sets. However, Bricklink has recently become a lot more consistent in labeling parts in this color as Flat Silver. Not all Summer 2010 sets used 315 Silver Metallic, as some continued to use 131 Silver for a short while. Early 2010 sets from later production runs also use 315 Silver Metallic rather than 131 Silver. And you can count on any Pearl Light Gray or Flat Silver parts from 2011 to be 315 Silver Metallic. Since your problem is with Pearl Light Gray parts being too dark, is it possible that these are from the Kingdoms theme? If that is the case, then they're probably 315 Silver Metallic rather than 131 Silver like the same weapons would have been in the Castle theme. And thus they will be darker than any pre-2010 Pearl Light Gray parts. Overall, pearl light gray has been an extremely inconsistent color-- partly because it refers to more than one official LEGO color, and partly because one of those LEGO colors was inherently inconsistent. In general, it's not usually a good idea to blindly trust Bricklink's color names with respect to metallic colors-- just take a look at their Copper parts, which include up to three different colors that don't even bear a passing resemblance to one another. I hope this information is helpful and not too confusing.