Last year, to coincide with Star Trek‘s fiftieth anniversary, Mattel released a line of Star Trek Mega Bloks sets. A few years previous, Hasbro had a line of LEGO-compatible Star Trek KRE-O sets, based on the Chris Pine/Zach Quinto films, and I thought those were well done, even if I did rebuild the miniature Enterprise … Continue reading Adventures in Off-Brand LEGO: Star Trek’s The Guardian of Forever
Category: LEGO
Yesterday evening, after attending the Maryland Renaissance Festival, I found something I knew immediately I had to have — The Peanuts Movie: Olaf's Biplane construction set from Lite Brix. Lite Brix is a LEGO-compatible building block made by Cra-Z-Art, a New Jersey company. To tie in with The Peanuts Movie, they produced a number of … Continue reading Adventures in Off-Brand LEGO: Olaf’s Biplane
Six weeks ago, when I went to the Mid-Maryland Celtic Festival in Mt. Airy, Maryland, I made a stop at Dollar General on my way home. I had bought a Celtic art print at the festival, I needed a frame for it, and Dollar General seemed like a good (and inexpensive) place to get a … Continue reading Adventures in Off-Brand LEGO: Fortress Tower
On occasion, I’ve bought non-LEGO building sets. Hasbro’s line, KRE-O, has produced some interesting — and very nice — Transformers and Star Trek sets that I’ve enjoyed building. Character Options’ Doctor Who sets were very nice and felt very LEGO-like. MegaBloks has made World of WarCraft and Halo sets that, while conceptually nice, weren’t fun … Continue reading Adventures in Off-Brand LEGO: Castle Clash
In my closet there’s an ammunition crate, painted red. It’s where I keep my LEGO bricks. There are LEGO bricks in that crate that are older than some of my coworkers. No, I’m not kidding. There are some LEGO boat pieces (that float on water) that I know date from the late 1970s, and I … Continue reading The Itch to Build
Last summer, to tie in with Star Trek Into Darkness, Hasbro released several Star Trek-themed KRE-O sets. KRE-O is Hasbro’s LEGO-compatible building set series, and they’ve released Transformers, Battleship, and zombie-themed sets in addition to Star Trek. I’ve built some of the Transformers sets, and I’ve liked them. The bricks may be a little slicker … Continue reading Adventures in Off-Brand LEGO: The Mini KRE-O Enterprise
Yesterday I went to Big Lots. It wasn’t the reason I went out — I needed to go to Kohl’s to buy a new pair of shoes for work, as the pair of shoes I had was utterly blown out — and since Big Lots is in the same area as Kohl’s I made a … Continue reading Adventures in Off-Brand LEGO: Stargate SG-1 Deathglider Attack
A few days ago on All Things Considered, NPR’s Planet Money wanted to know, “Why are Legos (sic) so expensive?” The segment compared LEGO to MegaBloks. While Mega’s products are less expensive, their annual global sales are only about 10 percent of LEGO’s. The segment pointed to several factors — better manufacturing techniques for LEGO, … Continue reading On the Cost of LEGO and New Worlds to Explore
Though its existence has been known for weeks, today it became official with a press release and a trailer — later this year, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and TT Games will be releasing LEGO Lord of the Rings, a video game that transports J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic story of good’s struggle against the forces of evil … Continue reading On Excitement for the LEGO Lord of the Rings Video Game
Today, I frightened my cubicle neighbor. I’d come into the office, and I walked into the middle of a conversation he was having with another writer in the Bullpen. “I bet,” said my cubicle neighbor, “that you can’t jump up and down for joy.” So without taking off my coat, without unslinging the BPRD bag … Continue reading On LEGO Lord of the Rings
Yesterday afternoon, a couple of us from work went to Target on our lunch break. While wandering around the store, I found myself back in the Toys section, looking at the LEGO sets they had. And there I saw the KRE-O Transformers sets. Hasbro has created a LEGO-compatible building system called KRE-O, and they’ve done … Continue reading On the KRE-O Transformers Sets
On Saturday, I built the Tripod Invader, one of the sets from the new LEGO Alien Conquest theme which is based loosely on H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds and alien invasion B-movies of the 1950s. When I wrote about the set yesterday, I mentioned that I was thinking of modifying the Tripod Invader … Continue reading On Contemplating the Martian War Machine