Tag Archives: Reviews

Not sure which LEGO sets to pick up for yourself? Need ideas for that LEGO fan who already has more LEGO than he or she can possibly build with in a lifetime? Nervous about the quality of the custom accessories that tempted you at your last LEGO convention? Read our reviews of LEGO sets, books, accessories, and more right here on The Brothers Brick.

Collectible Minifigs Series 8 Is Hitting Stores Now [Review]

In the USA, at least, Series 8 of the insanely popular Collectible Minifigs is trickling out. A few days ago, I picked up a full set (minus one, due to an improper baggy identification on my part) and have thoroughly enjoyed them. I wasn’t nearly as excited for this line as I had been for previous ones; I think in part because the novelty is just wearing off at this point, 8 series in. But once I got my hands on them and took a good close look at them, my trepidations fell away, and I went back to feeling that the Collectible Minifigs are as awesome as ever.

The evil robot was an awesome surprise. I hadn’t seen images of it without the helmet on before I bought it, so the head was totally new to me. It’s a fantastic print, and almost has a mechanical skull vibe. Other favorites of mine are the Diver, Thespian, and Conquistador. I’m probably just a sucker for period costumes, though. The Thespian, or Shakespeare, as I think he looks, is probably my favorite of the lot. Renaissance figures haven’t been common in LEGO, with most Castle figs being much earlier in style, and predominantly militaristic. On that note, though, the Conquistador is a great military figure from this same general time period, and really makes me want to revisit the old Armada theme of the 90’s. The Faerie was also a surprise to me, as I expected the wings to be flimsy plastic, like the wings on the angel keychain. Instead they’re a hard ABS molded neck-piece, which is far superior.

Oddly, the Diver is the only one of the lot with printing on the back. He’s super fun, though, with the chunky lead shoes (just 1×1’s) and a huge faceplate, which is actually a magnifying glass piece.

Many of the other figs, to me, are much less interesting, however, like the Skier and Cheerleader, which are basically differently colored re-issues of previous figures.

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Animated set building videos

I’m familiar with the custom brick lights by Max Yang (Artifex Creations), but I’m just now aware that he also produces some excellent videos showing brick-by-brick constructions of the newest Lego sets. In my opinion they are more interesting to watch than speed-up builds, which don’t show the techniques or parts used in the sets. Here are two examples; you can see the rest on Youtube.

Thanks for the tip DarkkosiS!

Lego Minecraft Set 21102 Review

Here’s a video review of the newly released 21102 Minecraft set, the first CUUSOO product to be released outside of Japan. You can get it starting today for $34.99 on Lego Shop at Home.

Summary: the Minecraft set is a decent buy for a collection of small plates and tiles. It is more geared for display with its detailed texture and modular sections. Even though I am not a Minecraft player, I’m believe that Lego has succeeded in turning the game concept into a product (although my initial sentiments still stand).

Monster Fighters: 9461 The Swamp Creature [Review]

Here’s the second of the sets I picked up on Friday, 9461 The Swamp Creature, from the new Monster Fighters line. Given that this is such a small set, with only 70 pieces, this will be a short review. The Monster Fighters theme looks fantastic as a whole, though, with lots of classic movie spooks getting a bit of showtime.

This is a simple set, with one of the Monster Fighter heroes riding an airboat, and the Swamp Creature protecting his little spot of terrain. The box is nothing special, though nicely designed. The back includes a little comic showing the Swamp Creature giving–or perhaps being forced to give, as he doesn’t look too happy about it–his green swamp crystal, one of six rainbowed crystals, to the Vampyre Lord, presumably to activate some nefarious device which is included with 9468 Vampyre Castle. Inside the box are two little baggies, and the instructions, comparable to any other similarly sized set. Oddly the instructions include no advertisement for the rest of the sets in the Monster Fighters line.

The build is quite simple, with no surprises. The airboat is nearly identical to many others that have been produced by LEGO, except that this one is armed with flick-fire missiles, which I’m still unimpressed by. The little square of swamp is about as simple as it gets, but you can’t expect too much from a set this size. The inclusion of a frog is always nice, but I’m not sure if the fish is dead, or just kept swimming away, because he’s clipped to the base.

Clearly the highlight here are the minifigs, which are terrific. The Swamp Creature is a lovely design, obviously imitating the infamous Creature from the Black Lagoon. I really like that LEGO has gone the extra step and included printing on the creature’s head that isn’t even visible with the fishy headpiece in place. Similarly, the hunter (Jack? He looks like a Jack to me) has a great torso print of a leather bomber jacket overtop a dirty white tee. Nicely enough, both figs have back and leg printing. I’m thinking that LEGO is realizing that minifigs are a huge selling point in their sets, and we all love super detailed figs. So I’m guessing that detailed front and rear prints and leg printing is going to become the rule, rather than the exception, with sets from here on out. The Swamp Creature is pretty sparse on new pieces, aside from the aforementioned crystal, and the Creature’s headpiece. A quick Bricklink search tells me that the propeller, which was new to me, has actually been around for a while. Of most interest to me was Jack’s leg piece, which is in the new olive green color. It’s basically a greenish shade of dark tan, and is really going to be a fantastic color for both foliage and military models.

All in all, it’s a fun little set, but with Jack and the green crystal included in other sets in the Monster Fighters line, the Swamp Creature is the only thing really unique to this set.

The Lord of the Rings: 9471 Uruk-hai Army [Review]

I was elated this morning when my local toy store got in the new Lord of the Rings and Monster Fighters themes. I immediately picked up several of the smaller ones, and I’ll review them over the next few days as I get time. I’m super excited to finally lay hands on these sets. Today I’ll start with the largest set I picked up, 9471 Uruk-hai Army, from the Lord of the Rings license. Clocking in at $35 USD, it’s not a bad size set, considering it’s a licensed theme. With 257 pieces, it’s fewer pieces-per-dollar than the unlicensed themes, but still comes out cheaper than many Star Wars sets, and this set includes six minifigs.

The box art is gorgeous, with a large image of Sauron’s finger wearing the one ring, with a fantastic map motif behind it. The rear of the box is pretty standard, showing all the play features, and also advertising the forthcoming LEGO The Lord of the Rings video game. Inside the box are two numbered bags, and the instruction manual. Unfortunately, it seems the brilliant idea of packaging the instructions in their own bag with a stiff piece of cardboard didn’t last long, as my instructions were quite curled and bent. On the upside though, there’s not a sticker in sight. The instructions continue the map motif lightly in the background of each page, which looks terrific.

The first bag contains the four Uruk-hai and the ballista. In keeping with recent practice, and especially the habit of licensed lines, the figures are all exquisitely detailed with both front and rear printing, and all the heads are double-sided, with a neutral expression and a battle expression. The legs and hips all have printing as well, though on the front only. The machetes and armor of the Uruk-hai are all in pearl dark grey, and seem to be of excellent quality. There are only a few pieces here that are new to me, like the Bracket 1×2 – 1×2 Inverted (recently released with the Marvel line), and a lovely brown 1×4 tile with a wood grain printing (ever so slightly different than the one found in The Burrows set). This is, though, the first time I’ve seen 4×4 round plates used as wheels on a siege engine, instead of the old method of 4×4 round bricks, and I think I prefer the bricks, which look more like heavy wooden wheels and less like bicycle tires, even though these are probably quite serviceably within scale. The build for the ballista is pretty straight-forward, with a simple Technic frame. The ballista fires two flick-fire grappling hooks. Like most flick-fire projectiles in official LEGO sets, I’ve never been able to get much distance or speed. At least these have a little pushing mechanism, instead of pushing directly on the projectiles, as in some sets.

Bag two is for the wall chunk from Helm’s Deep, and Eomer and the Rohirrim Archer (or, as LEGO puts it, the Rohan Soldier). Eomer seems a little out of place in this set, though until they make a Meduseld set (here’s hoping!) I suppose this location makes the most sense from a play-set standpoint. Eomer’s helmet is in its own bag, as is the case with most specially painted pieces. The helmet is quite amazing, both in shape (which the Rohirrim archer shares) and in printing, with golden horses on each cheek. The two men’s torso and leg printing is no less detailed, with wonderful generic armor (front and back) that will be of great use to Castle builders. The soldier’s torso is my favorite of the set, and would fit perfectly with the recent dark green dragon faction from the Kingdoms line. And then, of course, there’s the new horse. It’s really quite something. I have to admit that LEGO has done an absolutely fantastic job of re-designing something so iconic as the LEGO horse. I immediately grabbed a classic horse, and took some time to compare the two. The new horse’s head is slightly wider, meaning it can’t wear the head-pieces designed for the old horses, but LEGO has assured us that they’re making new ones. The body, however, while posed differently, retains the classic dimensions, meaning that classic bardings still work. The new pose-able leg-section allows for a two-legged reared up stance, and the legs actually make a soft click into place when they’re fully extended. The horse is remarkably well balanced when standing on two legs, and isn’t particularly off-balance even with a rider or when posed running.

There aren’t any new pieces in this section beyond the horse, though several pieces do make appearances in useful colors. Most noteworthy of these is the 1×2 brick with brick pattern, which appears here in light grey for the first time. This piece is going to be amazing for castle-building. Again, the construction of the 16-studs long wall is straight forward, though it is worth noting that the wall is built modularly, and is intended to fit with 9474 The Battle of Helm’s Deep to make an even longer wall, which is rather a cool idea. The wall includes a small catapult fixed in place, so you’d best hope that the Uruk-hai don’t veer to the left or right as they charge. Beyond that, the set is pretty sparse on built-in play features, though somehow I doubt kids (and big kids) will have much trouble figuring out what to do with it.

My conclusion: With six highly detailed minifigures, a bit of wall, and a ballista, this set is a great introduction to the Lord of the Rings line, even though it doesn’t come with any members of the Fellowship. I’m sure a great many of you plan on buying the whole Lord of the Rings line no matter what I say, but if you want a larger orc army, this is a fantastic way to get it.

Series 7 minifigures reviewed

WhiteFang from Eurobricks has reviewed the upcoming series 7 minifigs. You can see the full review on Eurobricks or pictures only on Flickr.

LEGO Moleskine notebooks out now – two of the best things ever together [Review]

Over the past decade, every poem I’ve written, every observation from a moving bus or plane, and each idea for upcoming collaborative displays at BrickCon or new classes of vessel in my ever-expanding microscale fleet has been jotted down in a Moleskine notebook. The arrival of officially licensed LEGO Moleskine notebooks combines two of my favorite ways to express my creativity.

I pre-ordered all four of the notebooks, and they arrived from Amazon.com yesterday.

Each notebook is embossed with a unique LEGO design, and has a real LEGO plate glued to the cover. I’m not entirely sold on the bit of actual LEGO, since any other LEGO I use to personalize my notebook will inevitably fall off, and I foresee the plate getting pretty banged up in my bag. Still, I think it’s a pretty cool design element — pun intended. The notebooks all come with a sticker sheet of minifigs (the same one) for further personalization, I suppose. Not really my thing, but it’s a nice inclusion for parents who are buying their little builder his or her first Moleskine.

Personally, I prefer — and recommend — the unlined large plain LEGO Moleskine notebook (the red one). When I’m not sitting in the middle of a pile of bricks, I generally do all my idea-generation with words, but I do occasionally sketch out a basic design. The plain notebooks allow you to do this without constraint, and the larger format gives you more room for drawing.

In anticipation of all the LEGO-themed Moleskinerie I expect to start seeing soon, I’ve gone ahead and created a LEGO Molekine group on Flickr, which at the moment is as empty and inviting as my new notebooks, waiting to be filled with creativity.

New Custom Parts Roundup [News]

We recently have received news about a number of new custom items so it seemed appropriate to cover them together.

First off, I was sent a package of some new items from Brick-Warriors. The new items are high quality and fit well, as did the last batch that we reviewed. The new items represent a fun cross-section of genres. Naturally I’m a big fan of the Medieval/Fantasy pieces, but the modern weapons are very nicely done too. Check out the set in my photostream for more pictures.

Secondly, Brickarms has released four new variants of the M-16. While I haven’t had a chance to see them in person yet, I have to say that the M110 is my favorite. But they all look good and Brickarms quality has always been high. I was also remiss in reporting the awesome Castle prototypes that Will announced at BrickCon back in October. You can check those out in my photostream as well. They are incredible and I only hope that they become production pieces at some point.

Lastly, there have been some new items over at Brickforge that slipped in under our radar. Their Shock Trooper armor is now available in Dark Tan and Azure Blue (with Alien Defense Unit logos). The Shock Trooper helmets, Tactical Vests and Tactical Helmets are available in those colors as well. Pretty cool stuff!

LEGO Friends – a father-daughter review

The Brothers Brick recently purchased several sets from the LEGO Friends line in order to give our readers a feel for the new line. My 11 year old daughter and I reviewed the following sets and I let my nieces (6 and 8 years old) play with the sets for an afternoon. Nannan has already done one review from a parts perspective and Caylin has done one from the perspective of an adult female fan. Hopefully this review, from a father and daughter view, will be just as useful.

3188 Heartlake Vet

This was my favorite set of the four that we built. It’s a well-designed set with lots of play value. The exterior is a rather simple build but the interior is packed with some pretty cool details, such as an X-ray machine, scale, and examination table. It includes a stall for the horse and lots of new accessories, which are only slightly over-sized when held by traditional minifigs. It also includes the new flowers, which I liked. The new animals are cool, but I was pretty disappointed in the horse. It has no moving parts and the new mini-dolls can’t sit on it or interact with it in any way, except to stand on its back. So unless you’re going to build a horse-vaulting arena with it, the horse is pretty useless. I liked the mini-dolls more than I expected but they’re nowhere near as versatile as regular minifigs. The biggest drawbacks are that the legs can’t move individually and the almost total lack of connectivity.

3061 City Park Café

This set has the most interesting exterior of the sets we reviewed. But the interior is really good as well. It has a display case w/register, booth for customers and small kitchen area. The forks and knives will be useful and the mixer has some interesting connection points that I’m sure will enable it to take a place among its greeblish brethern. My main complaint with the set was the new cupcake pieces. They’re designed to hold a 1×1 round plate/stud but there’s really no “connection” as the 1×1 just sits in it. A tighter connection would have made this piece much more versatile.

3065 Olivia’s Tree House

The tree house is a fun little set with some interesting animals. The tree design is really nothing new but it is sturdy and stands up under play very well. The set comes with the new flowers in red but also includes some of the old flowers. Having the two together in a set makes it immediately obvious that they two don’t go well together. They each have their place but together looks rather off.

3936 Emma’s Fashion Design Studio

This was the smallest set we got and I’m not sure that it is a good buy for what you get. There are unique printed pieces in the set (ipod, anyone?) but there were no interesting design features.

Josh’s Daughter:

To start with, I think that one of the biggest drawbacks is that the girls feet can’t separate and they can’t sit on studs. Also the horse in the Vet set can’t pose very well because the head does not move up or down.

Their hair is pretty neat because it can be switched with a different mini-doll or regular mini-fig. I also really like the three sets of silverware in the Cafe set. They are cool because the mini-dolls can hold it and it looks more real when they eat. Also in the Cafe set there are cupcakes that a single stud can sit in. I like those because it adds another food.

I like the pastel colors but I think there needs to be more dark colors in the sets. Also having only five mini-dolls could get boring because you can’t switch them around as much as you can with mini-figs. Having all the new animals and food is really nice. My dad had the cat chasing the bird. The new flowers, butterflies and Ladybugs add some more detail to the sets. Also, since every new animal I’ve seen has a hole in their heads, you can put bows and things on them all. The girls also have the holes so you can put bows and ribbons on their heads. The Vet set has a little hat for the veterinarian to wear. She also has an icepack that fits into the hole on the animals heads.

Out of all the sets that we built, the Vet is my favorite. All the new animals are cool and the hedgehog is my favorite.

My two nieces both enjoyed the sets, but the 8 year old liked them the best. She already likes LEGO and she loved the new mini-dolls. Her favorite set was the vet because of the animals. My six year old niece is normally bored with LEGO as she prefers Playmobil. But she played with them for a couple of hours and specifically commented on “the pretty colors”. After I had put the sets away, she came up to me and asked if she could get those “Playmobil Lego sets” out again.

If you have any questions about these sets, please feel free to ask them in the comments. Here is a link to my entire gallery of Friends pictures. I hope this review was helpful to you!

3315 Olivia’s House [Review]

Hi there. I’m Caylin, and I am an AFFOL—a female adult fan of LEGO. And I might just have a new infatuation with the LEGO Friends line. It looks serious.

As a kid, I grew up with the typical “girl” toys like Barbie. Oh, I had plenty of Barbies—and my favorite was the ballerina. I had a Joey doll, too, from NKOTB. I played with Kenner’s original Littlest Pet Shop, I had My Little Ponies. And I had LEGO. Now, granted, I taught myself to tie a noose with my Barbies and my Littlest Pet Shop iguana went head to head against the Jurassic Park velociraptors. So my play habits might not have been fully in line with maybe the norm.

But oh, the Friends line. My inner child is laughing with sheer glee.

I built 3315 Olivia’s House. I really quite enjoyed the build. I’m impressed on a number of levels with the model itself. It’s not parts intensive, of course, like the Café Corner and comparable sets. But thankfully it’s NOT Belville. The walls are some of the larger pieces, but I think that’s okay. I wouldn’t be buying this line for the bricks, anyway.

The accessory builds are pretty nifty, too. I love the blender design, and the barbeque gets the point across without getting too overly bulky. The shower door is simply but effective.

What I liked most about this particular set is that it’s modular. Each room is a completely separate build. And they’re quite detailed, too. I do, however, want a word with whoever is the interior designer of this house because purple furniture is terrible, and the resale value has to be in the hole with that lime-green kitchen. But again, my inner child is squealing with glee over the fun colors. So I’m torn.

The adult me, however, is asking who sleeps where because there’s only one double-occupancy bed for a family of three. I can’t say I understand why you’d sunbath on the roof, but that I think is a question for the architect of the house.

This house is completely designed for interaction and customization, and certainly not with the silly levers and numerous catapults from some of the other lines. There’s nothing to pull to make a mini-figure drop, and nothing to fling. And it’s totally fine. I don’t miss any of that. I’d describe it best as a “build your own dollhouse” with the LEGO edge to it. It is definitely ALL LEGO, though. I think the best description I’ve seen is that the Friends line is most definitely a “gateway” line. Some of the other lines are definitely marketed towards boys, which is fine. But this line is for their sisters, which is ultimately bad news for the brothers, since now there’s competition for available brick during playtime.

Now, I get that this line has caused something of an uproar with certain groups. I’m going to tell you that I do not feel marginalized or stereotyped at all by this line. I am offended that the color choice for the bed is blue and yellow, which are not complementary colors and one is a warm color and the other is a cool color — NOT the fact that there’s pink and purple and lime green and whatever other color the set designers put in the sets. It’s a complete non-issue for me that the mini-dolls made more of an attempt at a general human design rather than a flat block. The vibrant colors are for accent, but the bulk of the build is white and tan. I’m 26 years old and I sat down and played with the set after I built it. And once I was done, I made alterations to it. Because it’s LEGO and that’s what you’re supposed to do.

LEGO Friends 2012 parts review – sets 3933, 3187, 3183, 3936 [Review]

The just released LEGO Friends theme introduces an array of new colors for common elements. Taking parts from 3933 Olivia’s Invention Workshop, 3187 Butterfly Beauty Shop, 2X 3183 Stephanie’s Cool Convertible, 2X 3936 Emma’s Fashion Design Studio, and my own collection, I built a spaceship to show a use for the new pieces.

The interesting colors that I found in these sets are medium azure, medium lavender, bright pink, and light aqua (when adjectives are used on colors that don’t come in a Crayola 8-pack, you know it’s a treat for the palette). Although previous LEGO themes for girls included unique colors, they were wasted on useless parts such as large castle turrets and giant facades. Fortunately, LEGO learned from their mistake and concluded that girls are no less competent than boys at using standard LEGO elements. As a result, LEGO Friends includes the usual mix of LEGO parts like bricks, tiles, and cheese slopes in glorious psychedelic colors.

While the new colors are certainly exciting, the same cannot be said for the figures. These anorexic Barbie counterparts may be tolerated by their target audience, but LEGO fans who value the modularity of the traditional minifig will be disappointed to see that only the hairpieces on the new figures are compatible with the minifig. LEGO has proven that they can make excellent female minifigs, and I don’t think fans (both kids and adults) will be disappointed in having regular minifigs in these sets.

If you’re a connoisseur of exotic colors and eager to try new color schemes, then Friends is the best thing to have happened to LEGO in years. Even the price per parts ratio on these sets is decently low and won’t break your wallet. The only question remains on what to do with those dismal doll-things. Reply on what you would do with the Friends figures and The Brothers Brick will send all of mine to the person with the most creative comment. Stay tuned for more reviews of the line.

UPDATE: the winning comment comes from lady_brickster, who says: “well, once i’d taken away their hairstyles, i guess i would create an island of bald amazonian women.”

The Cult of LEGO is a must-have book for every LEGO fan [Review]

With books about LEGO starting to fill up the shelves in one’s hobby room, how does the discerning LEGO reader choose which books to buy and read? John Baichtal and Joe Meno’s The Cult of LEGO is an easy choice for inclusion in your LEGO library.

When the book arrived from No Starch Press back in October (yes, I’m that backlogged), I was pleasantly surprised at how hefty it was — an unexpected contrast to the paperback Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide. For a book featuring hundreds of LEGO photos, I’m glad they released a hardback book with full-color, glossy printing.

John & Joe provide a solid overview of the LEGO hobby, from Bionicle and Technic to SYSTEM and Mindstorms, with sections dedicated to ApocaLEGO (including an appearance by Zombie Apocafest 2008), Steampunk, LEGO graffiti, and more. You’ll see a lot of the iconic LEGO creations that made the rounds of the ‘net a few years back — Henry Lim’s MC Escher LEGO, Sean Kenney’s Yankee Stadium, big LEGO battleships, the “No Real Than You Are” minifig, Hannes Tscharmer’s Jawa sandcrawler, and more.

As long-time LEGO fans and readers of this blog might infer themselves, the lists in that last paragraph support the justified critiques Nannan had about the book in his own mini-review.

Many of the featured models are the ones that merely happened to go viral on the web, not necessarily what we might consider “the best” of a particular genre. And with the exception of the sandcrawler (posted this past June, just a few months before the book’s release), nearly all of the LEGO creations in the book date to 2009 or earlier.

It’s also odd to see Brickshelf and LUGNET featured as two of the primary websites under “LEGO on the Web.” Yes, Brickshelf and LUGNET. In 2011. (And yes, TBB does make the list under “LEGO Fan Resources” later in the book.)

But I’m willing to forgive all these flaws in the face of lead times for printed books and the daunting task of making a niche subject like ours much more widely appealing. It was really lovely to see The Cult of LEGO on the Seattle Times’ front-page banner and included in Powell’s Books Black Friday deals as I shopped in Portland after Thanksgiving with my mom.

And for me, it’s those local, personal connections to the book that make it a must-have — seeing pictures from BrickCon, reading profiles of my friends, and thinking back to fun times with Lewis & Clark on the Pacific Coast (the late, great Mr. Pugsly even makes an appearance).

Despite all the pretty photos, John & Joe manage to weave a thread of humanity throughout The Cult of LEGO, so that in reading it you can step into this tight-knit yet simultaneously open-armed world of builders and bloggers, brick artists and LEGO engineers.

Whether you’re a casual LEGO fan or a hardcore builder, The Cult of LEGO has a lot to offer. The book isn’t so much about the unattributed pictures of viral LEGO models you’ve been sent a hundred times by relatives and coworkers as it is the diversity of real people and the community behind them.

My verdict: Find room on your LEGO shelf for The Cult of LEGO.