Lego Dimensions, Elves, Minifigures

Big news of the day is the Lego Dimensions game. This is going to be similar to Skylanders and Disney Infinity games where you purchase a kit and the figs ‘come to life’ in the game. It’s a pretty savy marketing gimmick and this one is backed by several franchises under the ABS umbrella including: LOTR, Wizard of Oz, BTTF, DC Comics and possibly Ghostbusters & Simpsons as well, with the inevitable assumption there will be many more characters included. The game will be put out by Traveller’s Tales and on many platforms but not PC by the looks of it so far.

http://www.lego.com/en-us/dimensions/

A couple of observations: animation style of this video is the more familiar flexible bodies as opposed to the Lego Movie’s stop animation. They are using the same voices for Wild Style ( Elizabeth Banks ) and Gandalf but I don’t think this is the TLM Batman, it seems more like the video game version. You can see the Ghostbuster’s PKE meter in Joel McHale’s hand which makes you wonder if there will be more one off sets in that line as well.

Wizard of Oz!

There’s a nice article over on polygon discussing the whole market of these types of games:

http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/9/8376101/lego-dimensions-release-date-back-to-the-future-wizard-of-oz

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Lego did something interesting and released the first episode of their Elves cartoon on youtube.

It’s not… unbearable. The drawings are pretty good, the animation is quite halted and the story is somewhat formulaic but easy enough to follow. It’s sort of a cross between Mia and Me and The Last Airbender, which isn’t a bad thing.

Looking at the sets it was pretty apparent there was going to be some sort of story with the collectible keys, but it has a nice layer of depth with the elements. I’ve picked up a couple of the sets just for the parts, the show is not going to rope me in any further but I have a hunch my 4 yr old daughter is going to flip when I show this to her tonight.

 

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I’ve been playing the Lego Minifigures game a bit and will do a more in depth review soon but it’s not horrible either. The social landing zone has a real Nimbus Plaza vibe and the game play is pretty satisfying. I found that the classes so far are kind of broken, I have no idea why you would want a primarily Defensive character or a Builder. I’m focusing on Strikers or Builders who have amazing attacks like Unicorn Girl. The cool down between special attacks, or the attack itself is a deciding factor in which character I’m running with as well.

Spooky Girl ftw.

CREEPY!

Lego Roundup: April 2014

Bricks Cascade happened recently and there was some very fine brickery going on. My friend John ( a former S6’er, nay the founder! ) went and took some nice pics.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/j1a3l5/sets/72157642225834783/

Also spotted at Bricks Cascade was Wild Style.

Sunlit Equinox made this Wild Style cosplay, I think she did a great job 🙂
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sunlitequinox/

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Apparently I’m too old for this contest, or any of these Emmet Awards, but neat they are going on:

http://www.us.lego.com/en-us/movie/emmet-awards/?from=0&to=20

Very cool UniKitty creations 🙂

Saw this yesterday…. oh ho ho

https://twitter.com/LEGO_Group/status/451030616734064640/photo/1 

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My friend Jenn the Brick Chick thumped these up the other day: Aluminum Technic Lift Arms

Here is an indepth article on them:

http://www.technicbricks.com/2009/12/build-sturdy-and-stiff.html?m=1

and here is a bricklink store where you can still buy them:

http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=Eezo

These are pretty neat. I don’t have a need for something this industrial ( yet ) but it’s good to know that a product is being made with such precision and craftmanship.

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Coming in May to bricklink is the Moc Shop!

http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/newsview.page?msgid=799670

It’s going to be interesting, instead of selling mocs it looks like they are going to be providing instructions that you can then purchase the bricks for. You might have to get the bricks across multiple sites so they will have some dynamic instructions that show best store candidates and options for different bricks.

This along with the recent 3d model view in the individual parts catalogue shows there are many big changes being rolled out for this long standing pillar in the community.

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This was doing the rounds earlier this week, Leah/Pastlightspeed made a pretty neat resume

She got hired! Here’s a picture of the blockhead at work:

Here’s more pics and info on her project: http://imgur.com/gallery/Z9xiw

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Paul Heatherington celebrated the 40th anniversary of figures in Lego. These go by many names, some call them maxi-figs, I call them homemakers. I have a fondness for them and always happy when I find a part in a pick through. It’s interesting how the arm joints have kept in rotation and now with new ball joints introduced in Mixels, the hand tow balls are back in play!

Paul’s creation has many nods to the era and reflects his consistently crafty building style 🙂

 https://www.flickr.com/photos/14964802@N07/12784012104/

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I defy you to find a more bestest pony moc than this new one from Ochre Jelly

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ochre_jelly/13398180884/

I wholly approve of this representation. Speaking of which, this came across my desk recently too and is one of the best PMV I’ve seen. Great music natch and very well done editing.

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Morbid thought about Ghostbusters and Egon/Harold Ramis. I think that he might be the first person who was made into a minifig to have passed away. I have a cursory, non-exhaustive database in my head on the subject and pretty sure this is the case.

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The Friends are going on a pretty big adventure this year, off to the jungle! The set lineup looks very nice and a great way to get the lil animals into the sets, including Rapunzel’s chameleon Pascal in a new colour. Yellow walky talkies!

http://www.neoape.com/lego-friends-summer-2014-set-images/

 

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Let’s polish it off on theme with this amazing Doctor Overbuild custom by Jared Burks of Fine Clonier

Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kaminoan/12981395645/

Lego Roundup: March 2014

 

I’m sandwiched in between 2 local Lug events and have been meaning to post about them…. and all the craziness that has been going on with Lego lately. I’m sure most of this has come across your radar but just might be some gems you missed. In no particular order, except as I go through my notes…

Have you seen the new 3d model viewer in bricklink? Go find a piece in the catalogue and open up the 3d viewer… pretty boss. I’m guessing it’s all the parts in all the available colours.

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A Bionicle fan made a record by spending the most on a single brick, 15k on a platinum mask.

http://lego.gizmodo.com/insane-lego-collector-spends-15-000-on-a-single-piece-1528631074

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Seen this Sandcrawler? Pretty amazing, packed a lot of play value into something that is essentially a lot smaller than it’s supposed to be

Lots more pictures and info here:

LEGO Star Wars UCS Sandcrawler (75059) Officially Announced

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Really good trailer for the Hobbit vidja game from TT, because the it’s a heist movie right?

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It would be pretty hard to avoid this new, the latest Cuusoo set is the Ghostbusters Ecto 1 with the full squad:

This is pretty beautiful and much like the Lego Movie I’m having a hard time finding anything wrong with it, and with it my estimation of Cuusoo has went up.

http://blog.lego.cuusoo.com/2014/02/16/lego-ghostbusters-revealed-toyfair/
Some candid Toy Fair pics of the set: http://news.toyark.com/2014/02/16/toy-fair-2014-lego-simpsons-ghostbusters-114890

For anyone counting, Peter Reid’s Exosuit which is set #6 is still in development.

Speaking of Cuusoo, looks like they took away some hurdles that were apparently in the way for approving Dr. Who sets. Release the Daleks!

https://legocuusoo.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/325064-license-conflicts-and-resolutions
This project seems to be the one to watch: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/16291

Also, looks like there will be even more Minecraft sets coming out, I’m happy for you.

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Have you seen the new guns? They are in one of the Lego Movie sets and some of the new army builder Star Wars sets. They shoot great! You can fully lose the projectiles. Amazing new design, welcome to the future.

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This was confusing people a week or so ago

http://brickultra.com/lego-polar-bear-certified-professional/

Not a real set, but well made mockup.

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More info on the Simpsons minifigs! From Amazon:

Woo-hoo! It’s The Simpsons! The LEGO Minifigures series continues with this great collection of 16 of your favorite characters from TV’s longest-running comedy. There’s Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie Simpson, as well as Grampa, Ned Flanders, Ralph Wiggum, Nelson Muntz, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Chief Wiggum, Krusty the Clown, Itchy & Scratchy, Mr. Burns and Milhouse. Each The Simpsons minifigure comes in a sealed ‘mystery’ bag with its own special accessories, display plate and collector’s leaflet. Buy a bag, open it up and see which one you get!

Does this mean they will be in the Minifigures MMOG…?

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Did you hear… Mattel bought Megablocks? So after being bumped out the big #2 by a building blocks company, I guess they decided that they needed their own bricks to get back in the game. They’ve been obviously courting the idea for a bit with the Megablocks Barbie line so this is not a huge surprise. I welcome it as it will bring healthy competition, but it is just another successful Canadian company to be gobbled up by the States.

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I’m pretty chuffed about these new mini Hero Factory figs:

The Bionicle ones that came out years ago were great and still use them every year at our VicWars games. These sets look to have lots of nice parts too, looking forward to seeing more.

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In Lego Movie news, the sequel will be coming out tentatively in May of 2017 and check out this out takes video:

and almost can’t believe that this is on all the official Lego Movie feeds:

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There’s lots and lots that has been  posted from the recent Toy Fair, which is going to have to wait for another post, but this is really noteworthy. Not only do we have sets for the upcoming TMNT movie, but there’s this guy, wot:

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I’m sure I missed something. Will be back soon with posts about our various club events and the current ruleset for VicWars!

Lego Cuusoo #7 Revealed and Lego Chrome

Plus what is still under review and what got the axe. I’ll wait for the comments before any doing any spoilers, but if they do this right then there should be numerous happy pandas.

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Hey, have you seen this plugin for Chrome? Have you used it?

http://www.buildwithchrome.com/

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I’m getting all ready for a local Lug show this weekend, the WestShore Mall Hobby Show, something we haven’t done in maybe 4 years, but did for about 4 years before that. It conflicted with Gottacon which was booking us a year in advance. Westshore is a 3 day event where we take over an empty store and do our thing. We’ll have mocs on display, a builder’s corner and our public build and display zone. We are also going to try and make a mini VicWars setup to get brushed up for Gottacon in a month.  Plus some Lego Movie action this weekend….

Have you heard this version of Everything is Awesome? It’s pretty awesome.

Can’t you hear sentry turrets singing this? I feel enriched.

Cuusoo Watch!

I have a roundup of Lego news and there was just so much Cuusoo in it that it needs it’s own post. There is some stuff that is on the chopping block that I’m authentically jazzed about and even hopeful since BTF got the green light. First off is what is in production, the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover

 hhttp://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/3431

I had a chance of seeing this in person at our last Tillicum Kids Show, someone brought it in from instructions posted here:
http://www.space.com/17058-mars-rover-curiosity-lego-instructions.html
I’m assuming that it’s going to be what ships, or pretty close to that. Whatever the case, the picture with the linked instructions make for a really tidy model.

Here’s what is up for review:
http://blog.lego.cuusoo.com/2013/09/03/congratulations-qualifying-projects-fall-2013-review/

Portal is still on the table…. I know everyone has their own fav they are rooting for, this is the horse I’m hoping for. I *know* I just went on about sets but I’d buy this one out of principle, just to let Lego know they are on the right track.

Thinking With Portals
http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/18258

There seems to be all manners of Portal projects included, like a big Portal umbrella, so not sure what one they might go with. Just dooo eeeet.
Go to the project page to see many more pics.

Added in the fall was:

Female Minifigure Set
ATLAS Mini Model – Education Outreach Project
FTL – Faster Than Light
Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary
Poptropica: Dr. Hare’s Lair
Ghostbusters ( moar! )
The Road to OZ

Plus all these other nice sets up for review. The UCS Sandcrawler did not make the cut and not totally surprised. It would be kind of odd if Cuusoo put out a licensed set that was already in an existing line on the shelf. I doubt they would be able to put it out even if StarWars had ended 5 years ago. Maybe if it was a dormant property, like Indiana Jones, but not something that they are actively producing a tonne of content for.

I’m also jacked for Ghostbusters natch and curious how the Oz one will do. I think it’s public domain so that one actually should be fairly easy to swing, unless the MOUSE has it’s teeny happy paws in it.

What are you excited about?