Subject:
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Brief review of Alien Agency set 5601 "Freaky Fill-Up"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.clone-brands
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Date:
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Mon, 13 Jan 2003 20:52:06 GMT
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Viewed:
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1020 times
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Price: $9.99 at Target
Pieces: 95
Minifigs: 1
Aliens: 1
Disclaimer: Just bought it during my lunch hour; haven't had time to build
it yet.
Overall impression: Not a bad little set. A trifle pricy for MegaBloks
standards, at just over $.10 per piece, but not exorbitant.
MINIFIG:
The set includes Agent Smash, a serious-looking fellow with a headset
communicator and an armored jacket of some kind. The legs are black and are
the latest MB form, similar to LEGO with the holes in the backs of each leg
and IMO vastly superior to the older MB design. The armored vest is painted
dark gray and is sculpted directly on the black torso. A new innovation
(for MB) is the addition of "teeth" to grip the studs from the leg piece.
LEGO has been doing this for years, and MB did something similar in the
Dragons line. The arms are black with pockets or emblems sculpted near the
shoulder, as well as sculpted cuffs painted dark gray. Most important for
MegaBloks is the fact that the hands are separate elements and rotate at the
wrist. Moreover, they're shaped to simulate an opposing thumb, rather than
the pincer-like design of LEGO minifigs, and the grip diamater is the same.
The head is also sculpted, with hair, sunglasses, and headset attached, as
well as a painted-on mouth. Continuing the format of the Dragons figs, the
head is mounted on a peg like LEGO minfigs and is therefore interchangeable
with them. The hands and head are pale pink.
The design of the minifig is somewhat cartoon-ish, but it's an improvement
over the old MB design, if you ask me. The arms are limited to one plane of
movement, but as a trade-off we have articulated hands and better detail; a
worthy sacrifice.
PARTS: Like I said, 95 of them. The instructions don't give the graphic
inventory, so my numbers are estimates, including:
4 plate 4x16 2/3-height in dark gray
4 wall panels 6x5x1 in red
2 wall panels 12x5x1 in red (new)
3-piece lights/radar dish combo in red w/ silver detail (new)
2 alien "molds" disguised as brown shipping crates (new)
1 oil drum/bioplasm container (new)
1 alien creepy-crawly in light brown (new)
A few greeblies for attaching to the alien (new)
2-piece alien containment chamber (new)
1 motorcycle (new design, I think)
1 lump of snot-green bioplasm
1 decal sheet
1 catalog
1 instruction book
1 Alien Agency comic book
1 plastic scalpel (kid-sized)
1 pair plastic tweezers (kid-sized)
Also a small assortment of MB basic elements
Points of note: The comic book is similar to what LEGO includes with its
Star Wars sets and serves the same basic function of showing play scenarios.
Amusingly, there's an ad for Gyro-Fighters in the middle of it, just like
there might be in a "real" comic. Also, the last few pages include the
recipe for making one's own "bioplasm" as well as "Liquoplast," whose
characteristics escape me. Bioplasm is nearly identical to Play-Doh in
texture, consistency, scent, and (frankly) taste. I hope it's non-toxic. I
don't have any plans to make my own bioplasm, but I think it's a nice touch
that they included the recipe, since it's only a matter of time until the
goop dries up. The back cover of the comic book shows names and pictures of
17 agents and scientists, kind of like the Dragons poster showed the various
figs from that series.
There had been some speculation about the nature of the molds and aliens in
these sets, and I'm happy to report that they're better than we'd feared.
Although they're mold-pressed, the bioplasm is meant to form a gushy shell
around the plastic creepy-crawly which can then be dissected using the
scalpel and tweezers. Kind of a neat idea, in a benign, blood-and-guts sort
of way.
Let's see... That's about all I have to report at the moment. No rayguns or
scanners in this set; Alien Agency features a return of the old "Planetoids"
zapper and assorted alien knicknacks that are so darned hard to model in LDraw.
One other point, now that I think of it--the plastic seems to be of somewhat
higher quality in this set, though I can't specify why, exactly. I think
it's still styrene, but perhaps it's a better grade of plastic.
Since current toy-thinking seems to support a trend of named characters, I
think MB has made a good choice in creating a small cast. Granted, they
have no presence outside of MB, but it still might tap into the
collectibility virus that seems to have afflicted kiddom everywhere.
So in essence, I like the set. It's small but clever and will probably work
well with the others in the series. In the future I'd love to see a town
series from MB, since they'd probably do a great job of it, and we could
then incorporate these Alien Agency sets into a larger setting.
Quite cool.
Dave!
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