The mid-year sale

Just a week after Pat's birthday, Landes held their mid-year LEGO sale. We went to Libis to look for their warehouse/office, tucked away somewhere in Bagumbayan. Going in, my expectation was that maybe we could get a small discount on the stuff that was available in the malls.

It was... not what we were expecting. The selection was kinda small. They didn't have any Creator or Castle sets available; too bad, since that was what Pat was really looking for. On the other hand, the discounts were huge. The stuff on sale was at around 40% to 60% off.

We got a largish box of plain bricks for Pat and a Duplo set for Tesla. We were almost ready to pay when the salesman talked us into looking at their Exo-force boxes (which apparently they had a surplus on). I'm glad we did! Exo-force is Lego's anime/mecha line, and at first glance it just looks like a random robot toy. I can confirm the Lego heritage though; see the mech in the above pic? It's built from 177 pieces. It has pretty good articulation too, using some interesting Lego joints. I'll be the first to admit it's an impulse buy, but man, color me impressed.

Impressed enough to come back on the second day with more money, and get another box of exo-force! These things are really nice, and 60% off didn't hurt either. I'd like to get back with a more in depth photo review, if I can make an opportunity to take pics.

Beware of geeks bearing gifts

I got Pat a bunch of LEGO sets for her birthday. Decided to start her off with relatively small stuff. You know how usually you think of LEGO as coming in ginormous boxes that cost a ton? Well okay, actually that's still true. However, I made the amazing discovery that LEGO is actually pretty fairly priced when you look at the medium sets. I was able to get Pat two decently sized boxes, when I thought that I would only be able to afford one.

The first set I bought was 4939: Cool Cars. It has a lot of parts, 206 in all. Since this is Creator, the parts are very generic; you can use all of the parts in entirely different designs, not just the 3 given on the box. The parts are pretty small, there are a lot of 1x1 and 1x2 tiles. There are very few actual bricks; it's mostly planks, with slopes, smoothers, some grilles, hinges and a windshield for effect.

The finished models are all pretty cool, if you don't mind the fact that they're proud to have studs visible all over the body. I really appreciate the instructions for three builds; I wouldn't say the desgins are amazing, but they're still a lot more creative then I would be able to come up with myself. The only drawback is really that it can't fit minifigs; this won't matter if this is your only set, but if you have a lot of minifigs you might feel that the given designs are out of place. All in all, it's a lot of product for just under 1k Php, so it's a pretty good starter for a grown-up.

The other set I got for Pat was 7040: Dwarven Mine Defender. This is from the Castle line, which means minifigs ahoy! Included are two Orc and one Dwarf minifig; they look pretty neat, with printed torsos and textured helmets. Also included is one orcish sword and a bulky orc banner. The minifigs are great fun, but you do pay for them; the siege machine is kinda small and straightforward to build.

There's only 86 parts, and that counts the minifig components. On the other hand, the parts are a lot bigger, so there's more mass per brick (when compared to Creator sets). Some of the parts are also kinda specialized; there's a one-piece catapult and scoop, and the spinning circular siege blades are pretty much always going to be circular blades. Overall, this set is fun, but at the same price as 4939, it's not so great on value. In hindsight, I would have saved up for a bigger Castle set.

Pet Fish

Last month, I started playing a massively multiplayer online game. No, I'm not talking about WoW. I'm talking about Ikariam, which is a free browser game.

I've heard it compared to Utopia, or (offline) Civ or Sim City. I wouldn't really know, since I didn't play any of those. Ikariam is, to wit: a city-building resource management game, with some pretense at having some combat. It's technically real time, but most people wouldn't recognize it as such since it's so slooow in execution.

In any case, Ikariam is pretty fun for what it is. Making your town expand is reasonably fun, and it has a better interface than I expected. The real failing is that military adventures are pretty useless. On one hand, this is a good thing in an introductory mmo-town game, since I was able to learn comfortably, at my own pace. On the other hand, it might as well be a single player game. I guess some people like that though! Overall, it can be a bit boring, but still less boring than work so that's alright.

Just last week, I joined Travian (speed server), which is pretty much like Ikariam. However, I was promised faster gameplay and more combat. Well... it delivers!

The gameplay is fast, particularly on the first day. You have to note that after a month of Ikariam, you're kind of used to playing for 10 minuites, twice a day. In contrast, the first three hours of Travian are continuous. This is (probably) not something you want do at work.

Combat is also relatively prominent. Attacks come in often, and it can be discouraging to see three hours worth of production taken away by a handful of units. On the other hand, there are ways to just turtle in and weather attacks (Cranny rulez!). This is made more interesting by the fact that there are three races to choose from (Romans, Gauls, and Teutons), and each has their own relatively unique tech tree. Of course, at this point I'm not really qualified to comment on combat since I'm just starting to build my own army. Overall, I'm enjoying this.

LEGO - a wide angle view

Pat had been talking about how much she would enjoy playing with Lego since we got Tesla a Baby Zoo Duplo set. I'm not entirely sure if it's something she would have gone through with on her own, but I took it as a cue to do some research into the scene.

There aren't any local hobby shops that specialize in importing Lego; I'd have to look at the regular mall toy stores, like Rustan's, Hobbes and Landes, or Toys R Us. Sad to say, local SRP seems to convert the official prices at around 1 USD = 100 PHP. But hey, shipping and shopkeeping costs money, and it's still better than importing it myself.

Taking a look at what's available, I noticed that Lego seems to be divided into several different lines. The most classic line would be Creator: it uses very generic parts, has instructions for 3 different builds per set, but it doesn't worry about scale or minifigs. I'd say it's aimed at adult builders who want to make their own creations. Probably best for Pat.

On the other extreme is Bionicle; it's still built from small parts, but it has almost no brick pieces. Instead it uses mostly specialized parts, joints, bars and axles from Technic. Put together, they look like action figures, not like Lego at all. I expect that the target audience here would be young boys interested in posable fighters.

In the middle are a huge number of minifig-scale lines. Castle, Space, City, and also similar licensed lines like Batman and Starwars. These lines are all heavily themed; there are many pieces that are specialized for use in a specific setting. The downside to this is that there's less versatility for customization, and the building experience is a little duller. The upside to all of this is that the finished products look pretty good, with detailed sculpting and prints. These themes are aimed at collectors (like me!) that want to have something that's not too hard to build, while being fun to play with and display. As a bonus, there are minifigs everywhere, and let me tell you: collectors love to army-build minifigs.