Subject:
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Review/Comments on Mega Bloks Legend set 9611 - Griffon's Hide Out
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.clone-brands
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Date:
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Wed, 9 Jun 1999 04:52:15 GMT
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Viewed:
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491 times
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I just picked up this set for $4.99 from KB Toys, and thought I'd give some
comments on it (this is not a full review as I probably won't actually build
it).
Quality: several 2x4 plates were misformed. Pieces hold together, but
nowheres near as well as Lego bricks.
Interesting colors:
Brown
Brownish Yellow
Interesting Parts:
Large 4x4 round shields with center stud and 1x2 plate on back
at 90 degree angle, these are the same as in the viking ship,
but have different (nice) stickers supplied.
Red minifig armor with griffon (fits Lego minifigs)
Green spiked mace
Green 6x6 leaves (these sort of form a grid, with holes to fit over
studs,
an interesting way of doing it, which in some ways looks nicer than the
Lego studded leaves.
Green 6x6 leaves with 90 degree 1x2 base, these will mount vertically.
Again
the same grid pattern.
Brown 2x4x5 doorframe with red door with boards molded and griffon face
(and 2
glow in the dark 1x1 cylinders for eyes). This door has much more detail
than
almost any Lego door (only thing comparable is the large doors used in
the Ninja
sets, but this is a small door).
Green chest with grille top and sides. Has a 2x4 base, but slopes out so
footprint
is larger, doesn't have studs on top. Too bad it's green, otherwise a
real nice
chest.
Black griffon with red wings and red head piece. This is the star of the
set. This
griffon has 4 moveable legs. The wings are about twice the size of Lego
wings, and
are feathered rather than bat. The attachment on these is a little too
large to fit
on a Lego dragon, but putting a pair of clips on top of the dragon (I
tried with
1x1 tile w/top clip) looks real nice (in fact the top clip puts the wings
closer
together which looks real nice). The griffon's body is the same size as a
Lego
dragon but its tail is much smaller (and doesn't move). The griffon's
head also
moves. The set is almost worth it for the griffon.
A green trapezoidal gate (which uses Mega Bloks ball and socket
attachment).
Not so interesting unique pieces:
A huge special purpose tree which is in two parts. This thing isn't quite
so
bad as Mega Bloks single piece buildings, but looks kind of goofy (though
it
probably could be worked into a Lego setting using the brown castle wall
trees.
"gold" (yea right, a goldish brown) 1x2 plates. These are worse than the
"silver" in the Mega Bloks viking ship.
Two (different) funny swing things (beats me what they're for - maybe so
the
minifig can mount the griffon).
Minifig, Mega Bloks usual minifig. Helmet and griffon visor is not
useable with
Lego minifigs.
Catapult thing (which only mounts to the huge tree)
2 large green "plates" which are 1/2 brick height (most Mega Bloks plates
are
1/3 brick height).
Stickers to decorate with (though the stickers for the shields are nice).
One of the alternate models is a nice looking (though non-functional) gate
made up of 1x8 bricks separated by 1x1 circle bricks, with a walkway on top.
This gate would be easy to build with Lego bricks, and would be easy to
hinge (either using 1x4/2x2 hinge plates or bricks, or by setting up a hinge
using the column of 1x1 cylinder bricks on one side of the gate).
For a 140 piece set, this has a fair amount of play value (reduced of course
by the lower quality, but at least these days, Mega Bloks bricks mostly seem
to hold together).
Final Thoughts:
If you're willing to mix some Mega Bloks into your Lego Castle world, this
has enough parts to be worth 5 bucks (I wouldn't pay the 10 bucks it was
marked down from). I might even pick up a 2nd. The griffon is almost worth
the 5 bucks by itself, and will work well in the Lego world. TLG really
needs to watch Mega Bloks, they're coming out with some nice sets, of which
the only major problem I see is the brick quality. They have nice colors,
nice detail on the specialty parts, nice stickers, and mostly decent set
design (while this tree looks sort of goofy, it also actually looks nice).
Ritvik also realizes that people want to play with the animals also, and
gives them more moving parts (the Mega Bloks horses have moveable legs
also).
Frank
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