Yatkuu

Yesterday I bought the A-Team LEGO Dimensions pack... Just like any well-informed AFOL, I knew this was coming but still... I can't help it, as I look at this box... my first tought is... The A-team... in LEGO? I just can't wrap my head around this. There are so many things that just scream "whaaaaat?!" Or rather... "How did we get there?" Let's start with the subject material... The A-Team.. Or "L'Agence tous risques" as I knew it. A TV show from the 80s that nobody has watched in years despite the reboot attempt... Regardless, I am sure anyone who is >35 still remembers this. This is genius. The IP probably cost nothing.. Instant hit. Try to picture this... You are the NBC (or whoever happens to own these rights nowadays) lawyer in charge of representing this IP and you get a call from a LEGO or TT Games rep.. "So, we would like to make a minifig of Barracus to put in a LEGO video game". After discarding this as a prank... I guess the deal eventually got signed. Now.. what is the A-Team? I did not research this and I'll just respond from memory. A bunch of funny freelance mercenaries helping out people in need against cliche looking bad people. These are good guys who are hunted by some Military dudes who want to put them behind bars.. I never bothered to ask myself why exactly. There is the boss who smokes big cigars and likes good plans... The fancy looking guy who gets all the girls... The looney pilot ... The girl (often forgotten)... And of course Barracuda, the big black angry looking dude. To put this mildly, this just does not strike me as the typical LEGO good guy crew. Then, as if their resume was not borderline enough, there is the weaponry and contemporary military equipment matter. In my memories, the A-team was 2 things - over the top gun fights and do-it-yourself handywork à la Mc Gyver. Even as a 10 year old I was telling myself these guys were shooting a lot of guns (and what a terrible aim they were). I remember these silly episodes finales where they would ambush the bad guys in some sort of non-sense M-16 or AK-47 crossfire showdown resulting in explosions galore. The debate around what makes a LEGO set appropriate is getting really old and I sure don't want to re-open that can of worms... I forged my opinion on that a long time ago. I will just ask this.. are we not crossing yet another line here? Anwyay.. Who am I to be asking these pesky questions... Now, let's take a closer look at the set. The MF is perfect.. Remember my description of Barracus here above? A black angry looking dude. And this is just what you get... with 2016 LEGO MF standards. Gold chains detailing, back printing, custom mohawk hair piece. Just. Bloody. Brilliant. As if it was not enough, we also get... The Van. Holy Molly... what 80's kid has not dreamt of having a car like this? This van sits in the pantheon of mythical cars right next to the BTTF Delorean, the Ghostbuster hearse, the Zebra 3 Starky and Hutch Gran Torino or KITT.. (and so many others). I will say this, the van is probably the best looking vehicle in the entire Dimensions game...and it comes with custom printed parts! I honestly think the MF and the van alone justify the purchase of this set. I will put these on my desk at work and every time I'll look at these I will get a smile on my face and I cannot wait for the questions I'll get from coworkers. Sure, it would be even better with a lower price tag but... whatever, it's only 15€ and there are a lot of sillier ways to spend this sort of cash. I wish I could stop this post right here on a positive note... but there is also the question of the game. Yeah, Dimensions is not just an IP milking cow.. It is also a video game, and a surprinsingly good one too. I got most of the year 1 sets, some from Bricklink where I just purchased the tags for cheap. It all worked great. I naively thought these new packs would work in the same way. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as that. When I got back from the store, I got the Dimensions portal out of its box, placed Barracus on the thing, switched on my PS3 and booted the Dimensions game. Then, I waited one hour for a 5GB patch to download and install. As if this was not frustrating enough, when the game eventually started I finally got to the portal of the A-Team world... and I could not get in. The character would just jump through the portal and nothing would happen. That's when I gave up. Today I gave it another try, upon starting the game I was prompted to accept another 5GB update... seriously. I had to restart the patch download 4 times. The 1st time it got stuck at 30%, the 2nd time around 70%... But eventually it went all the way... Yay! Then, after installing the patch, the game started and I got to the exact same point. I can get to the A-Team portal, but if I enter it Barracus just goes through without entering the dimension... At this point I just want to scream at TT games! What are you guys trying to do? This is Wave 6 and there are more coming! What sort of monster have you created... a Windows OS?! To the best of my knowledge, the "only" thing I still need to do is to download the DLC specific to the A-team world... But somehow it does not show as available. I did a bit of online search and I know I am not the only one encountering these difficulties so I am sure it will eventually be fixed... But what a sorry mess this is! I am an adult and pretty familiar with the necessity to update softwares..I get these often enough at work and I try to rationalize all this.... But... try to explain that to your core audience, a kid who got a Lego set and just wants to play his new game? Better, try to explain to a kid that he won't be able to play his game because you just don't happen to have a broadband internet connection with the ability to swallow 10GB updates!? (And it is still not working!) I am not a gamer, I do not know if this is common in other games but I just don't get it. If this is the new LEGO Dimensions business model... I just don't see this working out despite the great IP and good models. That being said, I still recommend this set for the work they did on the MF and model. If you grew up in the 80s and watched this show you will love this.

Category A: #13 #4 #7 Category B: #1

It is not meant to be a shortcut, it is more like an added difficulty. The path is more direct if you skip that corner but the game scenario demands that you stop at the house (to pick-up Shaun's mom).

You nailed it with this one, I can practically hear the Main Street music as I'm looking at this. I fear the design may be a bit unbalanced though and it could hinder the playability as the board would be too heavy on one side. I can see why you did it like this as a way to be as close as possible to the original park design... I guess it would have to be tested in the bricks to know for sure and possibly make some adjustments or include counterweights.

Good design and a good representation of the movie atmosphere. Just an idea..What would really help to root it in the Wall-e dimension completely is to recolor the tilt system to the Wall-e colors (yellow, grey, black stripes).

Great design, I like that the shape of the maze is not a perfect square but it mimics the shape of a real castle - this actually opens up different maze design possibilities. Good job on the ball collection system too!

Interesting concept! Once familiar with the path I could see a time-trial challenge from this design.

Man, you literally took this one up to the next level! A 3 day render?! Congrats on the outside the box thinking and dedication!

Fun entry! This must be a very difficult maze to play - so many holes! I am not sure the ball could go up the yellow cheese slope ramp. I think the only ramps that are playable within the limits of the official Maze system are the curved slopes - unless perhaps if you have enough recoil to gain some momentum... but I did not try it so I am not certain.

Great job, this definitely looks like a plausible official LEGO maze board with great details all around and a fun gameplay. Using the shop stalls both as decor and as maze walls is very clever.

Oh my.. this is a brilliant entry! For some reason, my favorite detail are the spiders from the tunnel.. is that a printed piece or a sticker? I was wondering if the temple in the corner did not affect the balance of the board, did you include some sort of counterweight on the other (under)side?

These are fun to use as they definitely add something to the gameplay, the ball speeds up a bit thanks to the curve. But they also have some constraints. I initially wanted to have the walls to be lower on the board - 2 plates high instead of 3. Unfortunately you can't do that with Macaroni bricks because you can't tile the floor around them to raise it. (I hope I'm making sense here?) Thank you everyone for the enthusiast feedbacks!

Hello everyone, I have the pleasure to present you today my entry in this a-maze-ing contest: “Shaun of the Dead - THE Plan”. This entry is actually the outcome of a collaboration with my usual partner in LEGO-crime … my good friend PixelFox. This creation is also the opportunity for me to celebrate the 4th anniversary of the Winchester project being turned down on Cuusoo (anyone still remember this?). In a way, this MOC is shock-full of irony (and tiny zombies), presenting an undead “Cuusoo” project within an approved “Ideas” one is almost like LEGO inception.. a dream within a dream… Anyway, I digress, on with the pictures! Shaun of the Dead - THE Plan My goal with this ‘maze’ was to keep the design simple - allowing for a fast-paced gameplay - but also have a layout that would hopefully be instantly recognizable. I did try different scales for the micro buildings – some versions allowed for the ball to roll in or through them but I found that due to the larger scale and added weight it was then becoming increasingly difficult to keep a well-balanced board and it ended up hindering the gameplay. So, I kept it simple. I wanted to give credits to Barton Thinks’ Brownstone design that heavily inspired my take on Shaun’s townhouse. As a bonus, please see below or at this link an action-packed video gameplay, enjoy!

Congratulations to everyone who entered, and in particular to the deserving winners! Thank you WF and Eurobricks for running this show once more, I can't wait for the next one... for the Disney Series perhaps?

Just a few thoughts about this topic: - regardless of the option you choose, what matters in my opinion is the ability to make it evolve. No matter how big or small the size of your containers is going to be, chances are that you'll end up one day with the need to split some categories of bricks. To give you an example - let's say you store your 1*1 and 1*2 bricks together in a drawer - at some point it becomes impossible to manage so you will need to assign each brick its own container. - plan the expansion of your collection. Once you settle on the type of container you want, try to buy (a lot) more of these than you strictly need to begin with. I find that a LEGO collection never stops to grow... so, trust me on this you will want to have backup containers to grow your storage capacity. Also, if you need to purchase new containers in a few years from now, there is a good chance that you will not be able to find exactly the same ones.. so your whole setup could become less "aesthetic" because of the different types of storage. I know this may not really be an issue for everyone but I know an AFOL or 2 that have small OCD issues...

8) Series 12 - Battle Goddess Entry (Build by Vorkosigan) - 1 point 27) Series 1 - Spaceman Entry (Build by Qbeat) - 1 point 38) Series 12 - Prospector Entry (Build by FrankM) - 1 point

18) Farmer Entry (Build by JacloS_UA) - 1 point 48) Ballerina Entry (Build by Pakita) - 1 point 60) Frightening Knight Entry (Build by Graham Gidman) - 1 point Great job everyone, it was very difficult to narrow it down to 3 votes.

Great job, you nailed it!

Woohoo!! My favorite contest is back!! Thank you White Fang and EB for organizing this once again, it has been too long! oh, and my entries are up... Have fun everyone!

Here is my entry for the Series 9 Knight. Knight practice by Gregory Coquelz, on Flickr Featuring an original <i>broken</i> Falcon Shield and a sword gnawed on by yours truly.

Drawing first blood... hehehe, here is my entry for the Janitor. Here is a view of the vignette with the MF.

Very good one, I can totally relate to this. Some of the "vignettes" made me smile too, like the lawn mower... Dang it, won't that grass ever stop to grow?! The bottom line is to be able to set priorities... Family and friends I would say (oh and the dog too, otherwise you are going to have to clean the mess!)

Same here! One thing I have learned, no matter how much LEGO I give to my son he always wants to play with mine! ;-)

I don't think that is the real issue here and I don't even think the (limited) discounts/incentives are either. This part right there tells me the program did not run smoothly everywhere. Some Stores perhaps had specific problems like inappropriate content being brought for display or lack of responsiveness from certain LUGs. These probably resulted in trouble for the store managers having to deal with customers' complaints and then had to loose time chasing a representative of the LUG or swapping windows content. I don't want to start a debate here but some people get offended reeeeal fast these days so I would not be surprised that this is the bottom line of the issue here. Better safe than sorry, instead of addressing these specific issues they chose to make a clear cut that would affect everyone. I had the opportunity to read the set of rules that used to define the program before these changes were announced and I was very surprised to see how detailed these were. Obviously they want to have a strict control over what is going on in these display cases and that is totally fair. What is not fair though is to change the game for everyone while the trigger may have been some isolated cases (pun not intended, lol).

10. 6kyubi6 - 1 11. jaredchan -1 22. Emma - 2 26. Cara - 1