The Hollywood Reporter is reporting on new DC Super Heroes Mighty Micros sets. The sets are based on the big three from DC: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman going up against villains Bizarro, Killer Moth, and Doomsday, respectively. This will be the first time that Doomsday and Bizarro will be made available at retail, albeit with short legs. All three sets will be shown at the LEGO booth at San Diego Comic Con but won’t be for sale until January 2017.
I’m pretty sure my feelings about Episode I as a movie are fairly well established around here. Spoiler alert… not good. That being said, one of the things I think that Episode I did fairly well was setting up a lot of interesting and fairly unique designs, especially compared to some of the stuff we got later. Naboo was simply gorgeous, with an aesthetic that was fairly diverse and definitely unique compared to the rest of Star Wars that we saw.The Naboo starfighter was an fairly interesting ship, that unfortunately only a player for about 10 minutes in the movie (though spread across far longer, because everything was).
We didn’t get to see a whole lot, other than the fact that the Naboo never felt the need to install parental controls, lockout programs, keys, or any sort of protections on their military hardware. Well, that and that they valued style over function big time, what with the sporty paint job and the chrome and leather option. It really matches the rest of the movie in that whole look over purpose… but it also did the look really well. Even though it’s kind of slick, it was a ship I could believe was there more for parade looks than military prowess. In other words, I’m suggesting that the military on Naboo is made up entirely of Blue Angles pilots. So maybe Anakin really did see an angel.
We’re a bit late on getting around to reviewing this set; I bought it during the May the 4th sales, mostly because it was on sale and I didn’t buy the last version (I have multiples of the one before that, and even the original 1999 version)… mostly because, while I like the ship well enough, as a build and LEGO set, it was always sub-par and fragile. But since there wasn’t a lot else to buy to get above the limit I needed for the VIP set they had, it went on the pile. At $49.99 and 442 pieces, and what feels like somewhere around seventeen million figures (3 minifigs, 3 Battle Droids, R2-D2, and 2 Droidekas), there is probably a lot of value hiding in a set that most of us would overlook just because of the source… but who really needs more yellow parts?
Amazon Japan listed the above-pictured set, 76060 Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, as a tie-in to the upcoming Doctor Strange movie. The listing shows a ship date of August 5, 2016. I took a peek at the LEGO [email protected] page for Marvel Super Heroes. They list the three Spider-Man sets we knew about since Toy Fair scheduled for an August 1 release, but no Doctor Strange set. It could be that the set will be released at a different time here in the U.S. or it could be that there is an official announcement being prepared and Amazon JP just jumped the gun a little. No matter. Dr. Stephen Strange will soon be mine.
The release day for LEGO Star Wars The Force Awakens is is June 28, 2106 and it’s right around the corner! To whet your appetite for the game, I present to you this video I shot of some of the space battles you can play in the game. At E3, TT Games had a demo station on the show floor for the upcoming LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This segment shows one of the space battles you get to play through. The first part has your starfighter fly on rails and all you can do is try your best to not run into things. The second part is where you can pilot your ship freely but within a designated area. This is a new feature for space battle as previous LEGO games that featured space battles had your fighter on rails.
The game will be released next Tuesday June 28, 2016. You can still pre-order the Deluxe Edition from Amazon for PS4 and Xbox One. Prime members get free shipping, free release day delivery, and 20% off the list price. The deluxe edition comes with Finn as sandblasted First Order Trooper who lost his helmet polybag.
Amazon has applied a 19-22% discount across the board for all of the LEGO Disney Princess sets that is shipped and sold by Amazon. This is for all of the Wave 2 sets. The only Wave 1 set that is still in production is 41055 Cinderella’s Romantic Castle and that price is down to $56.99. These prices beat the current Toys’R’Us promotion as each set’s MSRP has the infamous TRU tax added to it, making their respective discounted price slightly higher. The Princess Pet sub-theme is NOT included in this sale.
On the last day of E3, the LEGO Dimensions demo stations had been outfitted with the Mission Impossible Level Pack demo, replacing the Ghostbusters Story Pack demo. The demo allowed you to play the first two levels of the pack, giving you an idea of Ethan Hunt’s appearance changing ability and how you have to use it to progress through the level. The levels are modeled after the cocktail party mission from the first Mission Impossible movie.
I also had enough time to go back and get some video of the Objectives mode in Battle Arenas. In Objectives mode, you have a series of objectives to complete which you can choose to do or you can try and hinder your opponents progress. Power-ups are still available to use to either disrupt your opponents in some way or give yourself a slight edge. We played the LEGO Harry Potter map and while it feels as large and expansive as the Adventure Time map, my only complaint would be that it was really difficult to tell where your home base is. This looks almost as fun Capture The Flag.
With Objectives and Capture the Flag out of the way, that’s two out of the four Battle Arena modes. I’m looking forward to seeing the other two and can’t wait for Comic Con where they will hopefully reveal them there. The first wave of LEGO Dimensions Year 2 ships in September. You can pre-order your packs right now from Amazon.
I’m kind of late posting this but hopefully it’ll reach enough of you out there to set up your dvrs in time. LEGO Star Wars The Freemaker Adventures debuts tomorrow morning June 20th, 2016 at 10:00am EDT / 7:00am PDT on Disney XD.
I’ve seen the first episode. And I gotta say, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. If there’s one way to describe the previous LEGO Star Wars animated specials, it’s that they were full of gags and in-jokes and tried to be all about humor. The Freemaker Adventures felt tonally different. It wasn’t so much about jokes or gags or things happening in the background for laughs, there was an actual plot and it felt like things were at stake. It’s not without its fair share of comic relief, though, coming in the form of a repurposed battle droid R0-GR or Roger for short. It’s a solid episode and I’m hoping the production team can keep up with the quality. And by solid I mean that any plot holes I recognized or questions I had were immediately addressed in the next scene or two.
The first episode airs tomorrow, with the second, third, fourth episode airing on Tuesday June 21, Wednesday June 22, and Thursday June 23, respectively, at the same time, 10:00am EDT / 7:00am PDT.
Please do yourselves a favor, go watch it and let’s discuss.
Toys’R’US is putting all of their LEGO Star Wars sets on sale, and Amazon is following suit, sort of. Amazon is usually pretty good about price matching so maybe they’re slow on the draw as of this posting but I’d imagine the rest of the sets would go on sale as well. The other catch with Amazon is that you have to be a Prime member to get the discounted price.
For Toys’R’Us, most of their sets start at MSRP with no TRU tax, so you’re seeing a true 20% off. Their exclusive Episode I sets and a few others though, have a bit of the TRU tax applied so the discount is slightly less than 20% off but any discount is better than no discount though in my book.
The Ghostbusters Story Pack is the first of it’s kind for LEGO Dimensions. The LEGO Batman Movie and Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them will also be getting Story Packs. They are basically augmented level packs and will feature at least 6 levels that are bigger and more involved. The demo kiosks at E3 lets you play through the first level and I was able to shoot some video while Katie Tuck took the controls and explained what was going on with some of the new game mechanics. The video shows the playthrough the entire first level to give you an idea of what’s to come.
Abby Yates is the only minifigure you get in the Story Pack along with a mini version of Ecto-1 and a new portal model of Zhu’s Chinese Restaurant. This is designed to replace the portal that you get with the starter set and works with the existing toy pad. When you scan Abby into the Story, you also get access to Jillian Holtzmann and Erin Gilbert as playable characters. The whereabouts of the fourth Ghostbuster Patty Tolan was purposefully kept secret for spoiler reasons.
The Ghostbusters Story Pack will be released alongside the rest of the initial wave for Year 2 Dimensions sets in September of this year. You can pre-order all of the sets directly from Amazon.
LEGO artist Brandon Griffith and I spent the day at E3 trying out some Battle Arenas at the LEGO Dimensions booth. We spent some time playing the Capture The Flag and I honestly think it’s the best thing to happen to a LEGO video game ever. Before I get into why it’s the best thing ever, here are some details about the Capture The Flag mode:
It’s a four-player game with any number of real players and CPU-controlled players.
You start the level by free-falling into your base. Once you land you make your way to your opponents’ bases and try and capture their flag.
You gain a point for every second you are holding the flag, three points per second if you hold two flags, and five points for three flags.
You can return your opponents’ flags to your base for 50 points or just hang onto them for as long as possible to let the points rack up.
If you are using a flying character, you cannot fly while holding a flag.
You can bring vehicles into the field, but cannot get in one while holding the flag.
You run slower while holding a flag.
If you die while holding a flag, the flags will drop allowing your opponent to come pick them up. They will automatically return to their respective bases after some time. If you recover your flag in this way, it will go back to your base.
Sounds pretty basic but that’s precisely why I think it’s going to be great. LEGO games aren’t known to be complicated and they’re so easy to play that anyone can just pick up a controller and go. The ease in which one can start playing is its greatest strength. You ever go to your friend’s house back in the day to play a game that he owns and you just get your butt kicked because he owned the game and you didn’t and he put in hours and hours of game time compared to the mere two minutes you just put in since you got to his house? That situation probably happens less and less these days since most games nowadays are all online-enabled for competitive or co-op play and if you and your friend wanted play something, you’d both have to have copies of the game anyway. TT Games’ choice in only having local co-op play may seem a bit odd and some may call it a bad and/or questionable choice, but it hearkens back to the days of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark where you get together with some friends and talk smack while trying to outdo each other in four-player split-screen mode. Whether TT Games intended it or not, these Battle Arenas will be great party games because anyone can just pick up a controller and give it a go. All it takes is one five-minute match to get acclimated to the environment, the controls, and after that, let the games begin.
There are a total of four different Battle Arena game types, and each pack in Year 2 will have it’s own map that any of the arena games can be played on. We saw two maps today: Adventure Time and LEGO Harry Potter. The two maps weren’t simply reskins of one another as the castle which holds your flag was very different between the two maps. Only Capture The Flag and Objectives were playable at E3. I didn’t get a chance to play the Objectives one but basically you’re placed on the same four-player map and have to complete a series of objectives such as collect the studs or break three crystals to get points. If I have time, I’ll try and go back play a round or two.
I wouldn’t be surprised if battle arenas made its way out of Dimensions and in to future standalone LEGO games. And I’ll tell you what. It’s invigorated my interest in playing LEGO games like nothing has before.
