Review: 76014 LEGO Spider-Man Spider-Trike VS Electro

Wow hello all!

It's been a long time since my last post.  All that real world stuff caught up with me in big way.

So to ease myself back into this blog writing thing I'll start with a small set: 76014  LEGO Spider-Man Spider-Trike VS Electro.


The Box:

Pretty standard and comes with the Ultimate Spider-Man logo

The instructions:

Pretty standard stuff with the front of the manual being a copy of the exterior box art.

And then inside it's the usual Lego instructions

The Minifigs:

The set comes with Spider-man and the one of the villains in Amazing Spider-man 2, Electro!


Electro comes with some nifty accessories to represent electric bolts coming out of his hands.

This is the same piece that was used to demonstrate Flash's speedlines.

And here we have a stock Spider-man that doesn't come with his usual web line accessory.  I guess they decided that a spider-trike with two missiles was enough for Spidey in this set.

Hey buddy do I look like Jamie Foxx?

And more of those electric discharges for Electro.  And he swiped a green gem to boot!

The Spider-Trike:

Whoops I almost forgot to mention, although I bought this set I decided to give it to my girlfriend's nephew AJ as a birthday gift.  So it was AJ who did all the building for this one.  The set of course was acquired through the help of my friend Kathryn.


Here's a highlight brick, a modified 2x2 slope with the spider symbol.  I wished it was printed though and not just a sticker.  But it does look good!

When AJ finished the top part of the Trike we both looked at it like it was a jetski.

Here's the completed trike.  Two flick missiles complete the weapons array for this Spider vehicle.

And here's a shot of the trike without Spidey.

The jetski attaches to the lift arm that's strangely in two colors.   Before it was built I thought the back wheels would be angled up a bit but apparently they were on the same level as the front wheels.

Here's Spidey responding to a crime!

In conclusion:

Not a bad small set.  The actual retail price for this set is around 1,388 pesos at local Lego retailers.  I got it for far less than that.

The pieces in red and blue offer a nice selection for other builds like jets and battle armor that will be done in Spider-Man colors.

The minifig of Electro was nice except sometimes he reminds us of the X-Men's Iceman.

The wheels are also awesome for your MOCs.

So yeah it's good to be back!  Please do come back for my new series on how to build some MOCs :)

Review: 6873 Spider-Man's Doc Ock Ambush

One of my favorite Lego themes are the superheroes sets.  I've always been a fan of DC and Marvel comics starting way back when I was 5 and my parents bought me a couple of issues of Green Lantern.  A friend offered this box with a good price and I couldn't say no.

So the name of the set is Spider-man's Doc Ock Ambush which looks to me like Webhead trying to either rescue Iron Fist or he himself gets trapped by Dr. Octopus.

The Minifigs:

Let's look at the heroes first.  We get Spider-Man of course with his usual Lego web line.  And the fig I like from this set: Iron Fist!  Danny Rand has always been one of those B-list heroes that I've always liked.

So here's Spidey:

And here's Iron Fist.

This is pretty timely since Peter Parker is back at being Spider-Man.  And Iron Fist is getting some love from Marvel with his own series running right now

And here's the villain of our story: Doctor Octopus.  For people who follow the comics Ock spent the past year being Spider-man in a twisted revenge against our favorite webhead.  In the end Ock became somewhat of a hero, managed to save New York city and die in the process.

The minifig Doc Ock has the pin connector as an attachment for four grappling arms.  He mostly needs a stand otherwise the sheer weight of the arms makes the fig unstable to stand up by itself.

But you can establish awesome shots with Ock's arms as shown below:

Ock!!!!!

Here I managed to get Ock to stand up by using the two lower arms like a tripod.

The Build:

Ok for some strange reason I seem to have misplaced my pictures showing the structures in mid build.  So I only have pictures of the structures after building.  The lab is split up into 3 major sections.  Shown below are two of those sections.  The main computer and lab table as well as the vent section.

Aside from the lab itself we have a vehicle which Ock can ride on.

Here's the vent section:

Here's Ock with his weird buggy.  Oh and look at that he even has his own Doc Ock logo!

The third section of the lab is a containment facility that can fit one minifig.

You can set-up stories where both our intrepid heroes are trapped by Doc Ock for further experimentation!

Iron Fist is trapped in the containment unit.

Ock about to experiment with Spidey!

Here's one way to make Ock stand using his arms.

The lab table!

And here's our final picture.  Doc Ock triumphant!

In conclusion:
The set was a simple straight forward build.  There weren't that many gimmicks involved but there were a lot of parts that can be useful for other future builds.  The air vent for one has a turbine piece that can be used for spaceships and robots.  The containment unit has a cockpit like transparent buble and OCk's arms can be repurposed for future robots.

The vehicle's wheels are great and the nice computer screens are good pieces.

The figs of course are outstanding and buying this set let's you get Spidey with one his most iconic villains. This is also the only set so far where you get Iron Fist.

Until next time.  Leg Godt!

WIP: Some cool sets I recently picked up! Thanks to Kendrick Chan's sojourn to Divisoria!

Will you look at these!

I got a ton of brick toys because my friend Kendrick Chan shopped around in the cheapest shopping district in Manila - Divisoria!

For those who need to know where to get their fix here are my old blog entries regarding place to shop at and brands to look for: Where to get brick toys!  and Brick Toy Brands to Watch Out For!

Divisoria is sweet brick heaven if you are looking for the best in China-sourced brick toys!  

For the price of one big Marvel lego set (around 5,000 pesos) you could get a lot (and I mean a lot) of China brick sets from top manufacturers like Star Diamond and Enlighten.

So let's see my haul:

1.)  Star Diamond Super blocks deformation 6-in-1 robots

This box cost me all of 2,000 pesos.  Yep go read that again - 2,000 pesos.  The huge box comes with 6 medium sized robots (about the size of a 1/144 fully built Gundam HG kit).   That's about 333.33 pesos per bot. That in itself already makes the kit worth it (since a single kreo of smaller size comes out to 600 pesos).  

But wait there's more!  

Each robot also has a vehicle mode similar to Kre-O.  You have to disassemble the robot form and rebuild it to form the vehicle mode.  Now if you know me you also know that I hate Kre-O.  Why?  Because they make OFFICIAL Transformers brick sets that DON'T TRANSFORM!  Why even bother calling them transformers???

In this Star Diamond set I don't mind it at all since the robots look cool and they didn't exactly label themselves as Transformers!

And even more!

The medium size robots can pair up to form a much bigger robot!  So my 6 robots become 3 bigger robots!  3 bigger robots!  3 more cool robots!  Just Awesome!

And even more!

The piece de resistance is the final form of this kit!  All 6 bots can be disassembled and reforemed into one big robot!  Think Constructicons!  Think Aerialbots!  Think Bruticus!  

Yessir the set comes with instructions to build everything into one beast of a robot!

AWESOME doesn't begin to describe the contents of this box!

Times like this I wish I had no work so I can proceed to actually building this monster of a box!

In the next few weeks I'll slowly do reviews of each bot and then proceed to combine them until
I eventually get to the big robot at the end!



2.) Star Diamond 20-in-1 boxed set

This boxed set costs 450 pesos.   It contains 20 boxes of what you might call micro build sets in Lego.  What's awesome is that its a sci-fi themed box and most of the kits have robot forms.  All 20 boxes in the set form one micro vehicle and most of them have a second build in robot form!  I got this box as a gift for my girlfriend's nephews who are both star pupils.

I'd bet they would love this set!  It's taking all my willpower not to open the box and build em myself.

More robots!  More brick toys!

Yep.  Boys will definitely go crazy over cars and robots and planes.

Nice sci-fi themed vehicles!

Armour warriors indeed!

Yes.  Robots!

Oh.  My.  Each box actually has THREE forms!

Its like a mini-Lego Creator set!

Battroid! Gerwalk! Valkyrie!

3.) DeCool Hawkeye

For 35 pesos you can get DeCool minifigs that are knock-offs of the Lego superheroes minifigs.  That's the part that's not cool of course since LEgo and Marvel actually own the rights to making Marvel brick toys.

Kendrick gave me one to try out and it actually looks and feels like the Lego version of Hawkeye!

Looking good in those shades Hawkeye!

So thanks KC for these boxes!

It cost me all of 2450 pesos for all of these!

Wait for my reviews of the big box on top!

Review: Star Diamond Ice Cream Truck #82108

So my dad is recovering from his heart bypass and after visiting him in the hospital my girlfriend and I decided to unwind a bit and do some malling in Greenhills.  We found this small shop in a corner of Shoppesville on the second floor called Regina.  It was awesome!  They had a good selection of China brick toys that I've only ever seen in Divisoria.  Their prices were also very reasonable being only about 15 pesos to 100 pesos more than the Divisoria pricing.

So tempting!

So I thought I would get out of the shop with almost zero damage to my wallet when I got the following minifigs for 60 pesos each:  A Hulk knock-off minifig and a Chima knock-off which said Ghima on the box.  Both were pretty sweet minifigs!

That Chima knock-off had awesome build quality, almost Lego levels

Before I dashed off to pay for the two minifigs I decided to wade into the stack of boxes at the back.  I saw a ton of Star Diamond school buses (which I actually also want but the sticker price was 700 pesos) and then at the very back we saw the Ice Cream Truck!  Yeah that 200 peso price difference with the school bus and the Lego Friends color scheme made both me and my girlfriend yelp with delight and caused my wallet to groan. :)  It was the last box there (as opposed to 3 school buses) so I grabbed it and bought it.

So yes this nice brick set is 500 pesos or about 12 US dollars (at the 43 peso to a dollar rate).  The same sized Lego set would have cost me anywhere from about 1,500 pesos to 2,000 pesos.  The set itself was manufactured by Star Diamond, what I personally think is the closes to Lego among all the China brick toys (see my previous article about alternative brick toy brands: List of Alternative Brick Toy Brands)

Sweet colors! Even sweeter sticker price at 500 pesos!

Well let's get down to the set:

THE BOX

Star Diamond as I've said is what I'd like to think as top of the totem pole for China brick toys.  Their box has some of the best quality I've seen in brick toys not named Lego.

Although I don't understand what "The first car of carve the dream!" means...

Yep MADE IN CHINA alright...

At the bottom we can see the other sets from this series.  It seems to mimic the Lego City line of vehicles that normally cost from 1,500 pesos to 2,000 pesos in shops here.

The minifigs that are in this set are some of the nicest City type figures I've seen .  The guy on the bench look somewhat like the Harry Potter mini fig.

Yes shine bright like a STAR DIAMOND!

Sweet detailing!  In the truck there is an ice cream machine!

Model no. 82108

And just like Lego they brand this line of sets as CITY!

BUILDING THE SET:

Minifigs in Pieces!

The minifigs are something you totally build including deconstructed arms and legs!  HAHA!

Did I open a Friends box?

The bricks have a nice gloss to them and gives the overall feel of opening a box of Lego Friends.

Looks like a Lego instruction sheet!

The instruction sheets also gives that same Lego feeling.  Top class!

Yep you have to really ASSEMBLE the mini fig including arms and legs!

SOME HIGHLIGHTS:

Nice stickers!  Kinda like Gundam sticker sheets!

The stickers looked like water transfer stickers.  Very nice!  Easy to peel off and easy to apply

Somewhat bothersome and nice at the same time!  The minifig is fully deconstructed so you can build it yourself

Help someone disassembled the minifig!

The minifies!  Is that you Harry Potter?

The grey minifig bears an uncanny resemblance to the Harry Potter minifig of Lego.  There was a minor deviation from the box art as the Ice Cream guy had blue arms in the box art but had white ones here.  Again it is a minor deviation.

Promotion for their Transformers like line found as a box insert

GAH!  ambush!  This was an insert in the box!  And now I want them!  Robot sets that look better and seems much much better than the Kre-O transformers line!

Rubber wheels!  Like Lego!

Wheels with their axles!  Nice!

Not so apparent but the pegs have Star embossed on them like Lego pegs have Lego

THE FINISHED PRODUCT:

And here we have the truck fully constructed but without the stickers yet.  Looking sweet there Mr. Ice Cream Man!

Awesome!

And here we have the Ice Cream guy in the truck with stickers applied!

A closer look!

My girlfriend is pleased!  In her opinion this is a much better building experience than the one she had with Kre-O.  Her only complaints were the lack of real ice cream pieces (like the popsicle accessories in Lego) and the seeming tightness of the bricks.

Sweet KISS Lego shirt!

Harry Potter seems to be taking someone on a date here!

On an Ice Cream date!

So yeah if you get a chance grab some Star Diamond brick sets!  They are without a doubt the closest thing to Lego at a fraction of the price!