Lego Batman Released

Today the countdown reaches zero, and Lego Batman: The Video Game is released in stores.

Purple Parts Discontinued

It has just been announced at Brickfair, that LEGO will no longer be making sets with Purple in them. This may cause some slight problems with the Joker and Penguin's costumes in the LEGO Batman sets for next year, but Purple has never been a very common color in sets.

The reason for this, is that it was too hard to create Purple in the same shade every time, which is why Danju, Onepu, and the Dark Panther were all different Shades.

Lego Batman Happy Meal Toys

To celebrate the release of LEGO Batman: The Video game, McDonald's will be coming out with LEGO Happy Meal toys, starting on September 12th.



Also, if you look around the site, you'll see we've decorated to celebrate the game, 21 Days left according to the countdown meter...

Set Review #41: Nuparu Inika

Today we have our Second review of the Toa Inika, last time we reviewed Matoro for Set Review #30, in July 2007.

THE BOX: The Inika Canisters were the largest ones ever (Though I haven't had one next to a Mistika Canister to be sure.), and had a lightning filled backround, with a wire fence in the foreground.

Nuparu had one of the best Box Arts of all off Inika, and he is one of the few sets to look better on the Box than in the Set.

THE PARTS: Nuparu has the Flat-Style Inika foot, and the thick-style Inika Armor. The set also comes with a Light up power Drill, and really cool Claw pieces.

THE FEATURES: Nuparu has a couple good features. There's the Red-Light up weapon, and the Inika Zamor.

THE WEAPONS: Nuparu has the most weapons of all the Inika. The light-up drill has a small red "Lightsaber" piece that connects to it, and is used as the aiming sight for the Laser Drill.

Nuparu's claws are a good part of the set, they look very good on the set, and have a lot of MoCing possibilities.

THE ZAMOR: Nuparu has a Multi-Shot Launcher, which can hold up to four Red/Orange Zamor. The problem with the multi-shot launchers is that the top Zamor usually falls out when the bottom one is fired, but this can be fixed easily with only a couple small connectors.

THE MASK(S): Nuparu has the Kanohi Kadin, mask of Flight. The Kadin is a good looking mask, with spikes all over, and an opening for Nuparu's "mouth".

THE COLORS: Nuparu is almost completely black, with some New Dark Gray hands, feet, upper legs, and arms. The set only has a little bit of silver, unlike the huge amounts on the Toa Mistika, and it is on his claws.

THE STORY: Nuparu was one of the Six matoran that traveled to Voya Nui to find the Toa Nuva. They were met Karzahni for a sort time, and escaped from him in the Toa Canisters, they were transformed into the Toa Inika by the mysterious Red Star.

As the Inika, they defeated the Piraka, found the Ignika, Mask of Light, and Saved the Nuva and Voya-Nuians.

The Mask "ran away" from them, and went into the Pit, where the Inika followed it, and were transformed into the Toa Mahri.

FINAL SCORE: The Inika sets did have a slight few problems with them. Their heads were just green and white blobs and weren't able to be used with other masks without a modification (Instructions to do this are avalible here: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=262738 ). There's also the thing with the top Zamor falling out I talked about in the Zamor section of this review.

Lastly, the larger Inika body dosen't look quite right with Nuparu's mask, and he would have looked better with the Thinner one (So would Matoro too actually.), but that would have left it so that only Hewkii had a wide armor, so the sets would have ended up too much alike.

8.6/10

LEGO TV Show in the Making

The creators of the LEGO video games are making an all new LEGO Batman TV series, not much is known about it at this time.

New Theme for 2009: Power Miners

A new theme with be released next year, called Power Miners.

Official description from LEGO:

[Launching in January, Power Miners will have year-round marketing support including a full PR campaign focused on the childrens’ press, online marketing, Lego Club campaign, in-store promotions including Toys R Us end-caps from February and FSDUs and window displays for independent stores.

Power Miners features a team of miners that dig into the Earth’s crust and encounter half-rock/half-crystal monsters. The range features collectible vehicles and mini-figures and monsters.]

Sounds a lot like Rock Raiders to me.

September-October LEGO Magazine Shipping

Even earlier than the last issue, reports of the Latest LEGO magazine arriving have been discovered.

Set Review #40: Doc Ock's Hideout

Today we are going to review a set from 2004's Spider-Man 2 theme; set #4856.

THE PARTS: Doc Ock's hideout contains a lot of parts (nearly 500). It is one of the few sets anymore that has a baseplate, used as the water around the docks.

The Dock building has a pretty good size, large enough to use for a lot of action.

An interesting part of the set is the machine inside of the building, it has all kinds of electricity shooting out, and rotates.

THE MINIFIGS: The minifigures are one of the best parts of this set, and it comes with plenty of them.

Doctor Octopus is the most interesting minifig because of his four tentacles, which allow him to climb on the grips all over the outside of the building. The only problem with the claws, is that they loosen up after too much use, and aren't able to hold on as well anymore.

The other interesting minifig is Spider-Man (Also with an out of costume form), Spider-Man is a really great looking minifig, and he comes with a LEGO webline, which can connect to any brick stud, and it works wonderfully.

The Other two minifigs aren't especially interesing.

THE CONSTRUCTION: This is a fun set to build, there's the main building, a small boat, and Spider-Man's catapult, so that he can swing into action.

The construction of the bbuilding is good, it has a lot of secrets, like the breaking wall, and a removable roof.

THE FEATURES: This set has quite a few features. There's the spinning generator, Spider-Man's catapult, and the breaking wall, as shown on the box art.

THE PROBLEMS: This set does have some problems as well though. The building isn't the sturdiest design, but keeps from collapsing, the coloring of the power generator is not very good, it ends up looking out of place with the rest of the set, and Spider-Man's catapult is not too usefull.

FINAL SCORE: Doc Ock's Hideout is a set with a lot of playability, it has a lot of fun items, and even includes a special "radioactive" spider, that hangs on the catapult.

It is a fun set, but may be difficult to find now.

9.2/10

Set Review #39: Indiana Jones and the Lost Tomb

Now for our second review in the Indiana Jones series, set #7521.

THE PARTS: This set has a lot of tan parts, snakes, minifig items, and even a little bit of gold. It also includes a skeleton, with new Arms.

THE FEATURES: This set has a lot of features; Falling Statues, which fall down when you ake out an axel, then crash through a wall, revealing the skeleton hanging down.

This set probably has the largest amount of snakes in any LEGO set, at the top there is a small holder for all of the snakes, when you pull down the holder, the snakes four out of it, and onto the characters below.

THE PRICE: This set is a good deal, you get a great set with lots of interesting items for only $19.99.

FINAL SCORE: This is my favorite of the three Indiana Jones set I currently own (others are Set Review #37: Motorcycle Chase, and Jungle Duel, which has yet to be reviewed.), it has a big room, and looks very good on a shelf.

This is a really great set, one of the best of 2008.

9.3/10

Three new LEGO stores open next month!

Next month, three all-new LEGO Stores will be opening, the Store locations are as follows:
Arden Fair Mall, Sacramento, CA
South Shore Plaza, Braintree, MA
King of Prussia Mall, King of Prussia, PA

More information here: http://shop.lego.com/stores/?domainredir=legoshop.com

Still none in my area...