City

LEGO Space Shuttle (Literally) Headed into Orbit

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NASA and The LEGO Group have announced an agreement that will literally send a LEGO Space Shuttle into orbit on November 30th, 2010. It would have went up this week, but the STS-133 shuttle mission that would have launched the Discovery into space, had to be temporarily delayed through November … Read more

LEGO 30001 City Fire Chief – Review

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This is going to be very similar to the LEGO 30002 City Police Boat Review. It’s nearly identical in the number of pieces, and has the same price. You can view a comparison between the 30001 City Police Boat and 30002 Fire Chief (that is a flickr gallery) if you are curious.

What you are looking at is the 30001 City Fire Chief, a small 33 piece impulse set that comes with a Fire Chief minifig. It’s basically a 4-wheeler/All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV).

LEGO 30001 City Fire Chief

Again, no idea on the availability outside of Target stores or the US in general (or outside the US for that matter). I will say up front that if I had to choose between the two, I would pick this one. If you are picking for a small child, definitely buy this one in my opinion.

By the Numbers:
Set: 30001 City Fire Chief
Year of Release: 2010
Type: City / Impulse
# of Pieces: 33 (including 2 extra)
# of Extra pieces: (2 extra, see photo below)
# of Minifigs and what kind: 1 – Fire Chief / Firefighter
Stickers? No
Price: $2.99 at Target (US)
Ages: 5-10
Time to Complete: Less than 10 minutes

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LEGO 30002 City Police Boat – Review

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This review is for one of the impulse sets available at Target (in the US) for some kind of Easter promotion. There is also a 30001 (Fire Chief) set as well as two Star Wars sets – 30050 Republic Attack Shuttle and 30051 – X-Wing. Both of the Star Wars sets are micro-scale and while the non-licensed Police Boat and Fire Chief are $2.99, the licensed Star Wars sets are $3.49. The Star Wars sets do come with more pieces. I’ll be posting reviews of the other three sets tonight and tomorrow.

Update:
* LEGO 30001 City Fire Chief Review
* Comparison between 30001 City Police Boat and 30002 Fire Chief (flickr)

LEGO 30002 City - Police Boat

As for whether these sets will continue to be produced beyond this run, or will be available elsewhere, I have no idea. They are actually cool little sets and I think good values for the price. They are not located in the toy section in the Targets I’ve seen them – I’ve only seen and read about them being in the Easter sections. They have popped up on Amazon.com and eBay, but you’re paying more.

By the Numbers:
Set: 30002 City – Police Boat
Year of Release: 2010
Type: City / Impulse Buy
# of Pieces: 32 (including 2 extra pieces)
# of Extra pieces: 2 (see photo below)
# of Minifigs and what kind: 1 – Police Officer
Stickers? No
Price: $2.99 at Target
Ages: 5-12
Time to Complete: Less than 10 minutes

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LEGO Movie – Adventures of Clutch Powers Shipping

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LEGO’s first movie on DVD, the Adventures of Clutch Powers, should be available today (February 23, 2010), at least in the US. Amazon.com is currently listing it for $14.99 (normally $19.98) with a release date of today. This is for the widescreen version in English, with English, French, and Spanish … Read more

Previews of a Lot of 2010 LEGO Sets

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Last weekend, Kris Abel from CTV News visited the Canadian Toy & Hobby Fair and got a good look at upcoming LEGO sets from the LEGO Canada display. He posted a lot of pictures (would have loved more from some of the Atlantis sets) and a lot of them I was surprised at. They were some of the first good photos I’ve seen of some of the unreleased sets scheduled for later in the year.

A few highlights:

8077 Atlantis Exploration HQ
LEGO 8077 Atlantis Exploration HQ (2010)

8078 Portal Of Atlantis
8078 LEGO Portal of Atlantis (2010)

My observation on the Atlantis sets:
* The 8077 Atlantis Exploration HQ looks to be shaping up well. The first blurry shots I saw a while back made it look closer to the 7775 Aqua Raiders Aquabase Invasion. It looks to be a square-ish/self-contained structure which makes sense. I’m assuming the vehicles will dock on top.
* The 8078 Portal of Atlantis (the infamous Shark Temple or Shark Castle) is bigger than I thought and looks to have a lot of really cool and unique parts. It’s hard to get a sense of the minifigs since they were mixed together with other sets. There looks to be some parts in colors that we haven’t seen before. The box shows 898 pieces but that’s obviously subject to change since it’s a prototype. I’m not sure on new minifigs – there is a skeleton with some diving gear on that has a trident symbol on their head. You can barely make out what looks to be the “turtle warrior” on top of the Portal, that’s been discussed in the past.
* Kris mentioned when discussing the Space Police sets that Atlantis was the focus this year, hence the lack of a lot of new Space Police sets.

As Kris notes, a lot of the upcoming sets are prototypes/mock-ups and details are not yet finalized. Nothing from Harry Potter and nothing new from the Toy Story line that’s not already out. I’m not quite as interested in the World Racers line or the Hero Factory line, but it looks like both could give us some new parts or older parts in new colors. Looking at the boxes for the World Racers, I think they’ll probably sell very well to the target audience.

Some of the other sets shown (besides 8077/8078) include quite a few sets that are currently available and some that are limited right now or unavailable (depending on area), such as:

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10211 Grand Emporium – Available from LEGO March 3rd

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Update: It’s available now (March 1, 2010) online at the official LEGO Shop. We thought that LEGO’s 10211 Grand Emporium would be showing up in March as did everybody else. Turns out that we may get it at the beginning of March. Huw over at Brickset mentions that it looks … Read more