Tag Archives: lego

Mar 10 2011

Lego Atlantis: Angler Attack (#7978)

[My humblest apologies if you’re getting tired of the Tron-and-Legos-Marathon that’s been going on here lately. I’ve tried to pepper a little Transformers and DC loving around too. As always, this place reflects what I’m into on any given day and lately I’ve just been focused on completing my Tron Legacy collection and getting my Legos fix on as often as possible. Fear not, it can’t last forever. Sooner or later new Transformers or Doctor Who or something else will start showing up to mix things up around here. In the meantime, just be thankful that there aren’t any Tron Legos sets. -FF]

So, if you haven’t guessed yet, I’ve commited myself to the Lego Atlantis line. Or at least I have now that I’ve picked up one of the beefier sets. I tend to prefer the Lego vehicles and buildings, rather than being a big fan of the Lego beasties, so I really wasn’t sure how much I was going to dig this beast-centric set. But the images on the box convinced me to give it a try, so let’s see how it turned out.leg7978a

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And there’s the box. It’s decently sized and contains one instruction book, one sticker sheet, and three unnumbered baggies of bricks. Those bricks include two minifigs, a little Atlantean ruin with a treasure chest, a one man sub, and the Mr. Big and Ugly himself, the Angler Fish. Now keep in mind, while this set does tip out at just over 201 pieces, the majority of the pieces in this set are TINY. Yes, there’s a few sizeable bricks, but for the most part you’re dealing with a lot of really small bits. If nothing else, this was a really interesting build, especially for the size and price point. To the minifigs!!!

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You get one diver, Dr. Fisher, and you get the Barracuda Warrior, which is easily the best minifig I’ve seen in a while. I haven’t been all that smitten by the bad guys in this series, but I still gotta give props to the design on this guy. His head is huge and puts his mouth right in the middle of his chest. You also have to put on his teeth, as they are separate pieces. I dig him. I’m actually surprised they through a bad guy minifig in the set at all, as Fisher seems to have his plate full already what with having to deal with the Angler Fish.

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The little patch of ruin looks like it would be right at home on the bottom of an aquarium. It’s got a treasure chest that opens and closes, a couple of sprigs of seaweed and a piece of ancient column that sits on an angle. There’s a couple of jewels and a bronzed helmet to put in the chest. It’s a cool little accent piece for the set and it gives our hero something to battle the Barracuda Warrior and the Angler Fish over.

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Fisher’s little sub is ok, but nothing special. The Atlantis line features a lot of these little one-man submersables. I’ll at least give kudos that they’ve all been unique so far. This one has a little grabber arm, a clip to hold a harpoon gun, and a spinning propeller on the front. It features the same kind of handlebars as the other subs we’ve seen, so the pilot hangs on, rather than actually sits down. I’m not crazy about the prop being on the front, though, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

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The Angler Fish is a obviously the real draw of the set. He’s a really cool piece and made for a fun build. There’s some really clever stuff at play here. My favorite thing is the complex joint for the bottom of the jaw. I had no idea why I was building it the way I was, and it’s the first time I’ve used those rubbery pieces in a Lego set, but in the end it lets you pull down the bottom jaw and it’ll snap back. Like I said, it’s really clever. His teeth are awesome, and he’s even got a gold tooth! His bait tendril has a jewel on the end, which is pretty funny as it suggests he’s trying to trap the divers and not other fish. The overall design of this guy still looks more robotic than organic, which is a pretty unavoidable failing of a lot of the Legos beasts, but I still like him a lot. I think the only downside are his little top two fins. They’re the same pieces used for the divers’ flippers so it looks kind of cheesy. They’re also blank on one side, which makes the detail two-dimensional.

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Overall, I’m happy with this set. I’m getting a little tired of the diver minifigs, but even if I consider Fisher and his sub as bonuses, the Angler Fish and Barracuda Warrior make this set a worthwhile purchase. I had a lot of fun building it, and there weren’t a lot of redundant steps like in some of the sets I’ve been building. At just under $20, it’s a fair deal, and it’s also one of the few Atlantis sets left on the shelves in my neck of the woods.

Mar 8 2011

Lego Atlantis: Ocean Speeder (#7976)

As promised, I’m stepping back a notch in the Atlantis series to look at one of the impulse sets, before moving forward to the bigger sets. This one is called Ocean Speeder. It’s about five bucks and contains 54 pieces, so I tempered my expectations a little.

The set comes in a tiny box that contains a folded sheet of instructions, a sticker sheet, and two unnumbered baggies of bricks. The pieces build one minifig, a one man submarine, and a little platform to hold the treasure.

The minifig, Lance Spears, is pretty good, but if you own any of the other Atlantis sets, he isn’t anything you haven’t seen before. He includes a helmet with oxygen tanks, flippers, and a harpoon gun. The paintwork on the figure is pretty awesome and adds a lot of detail. He also has a double printed face. Not much else to say here.

The platform is designed to look like a small chunk of ruins on the seabed. It has a little pedastal that holds the golden chalice and there’s a sprig of seaweed that comes up from the corner. There’s also a little red snake, which seems really out of place to me. Are there really snakes like this slithering around on the bottom of the ocean? Ah well, even so, I won’t gripe about a free snake.

The little sub is simple enough. It has two spinning propellers that can pivot up and down, and a set of grabber claws on the front. Like most of the smaller subs in this line, there’s no seat, instead the diver just hangs on to a set of handlebars. The wings are hinged and can fold down into different positions while the craft is in use. A pair of stickers provide some cool details along the top. Overall, this isn’t a bad little vehicle, but there are a couple of things that bug me. The handlebars should stick out farther and the grabber arms are a little too stubby to be much use. Still, I’m glad to get as many of the small subs in this line I can get for when I finally pick up the Exploration HQ.

Impressive or not, it’s tough to complain a lot about these impulse sets. You still get a bunch of cool stuff for five bucks. It’s a fun build and the finished product certainly has play value. Although, if this is your first Atlantis set, you won’t have any bad guys for the diver to fight, except for that snake. Ocean Speeder is a good way to get introduced to the Atlantis line, but if I didn’t already have the next larger set, this one wouldn’t have won me over.

Mar 4 2011

Lego Atlantis: Seabed Strider (#7977)

I promised myself I wasn’t going to dive into the Atlantis line unless it was an absolute last resort for my Lego fix. But right now the only set on the shelves that I’m really after is the Pharaoh’s Quest Pyramid and $100 just ain’t in my budget for Legos this week. [Next paycheck, though, it’s going to be a sure thing! -FF] Anyway, I was really jonesing pretty bad, so I caved in and picked up this little set to tide me over. Ha ha.. I said dive and tide and it’s an Atlantis set and it’s all about water and stuff.

Seabed Strider comes in a little box that boasts 105 pieces. The box contains two unnumbered baggies of bricks, an instruction booklet, and a small sticker sheet. The 105 pieces include parts for two minifigs, a pedastal holding the Golden Shield treasure, and the Strider vehicle. At over a hundred pieces, it may seem like a lot for such a small and inexpensive set, but keep in mind that a lot of these are really tiny pieces. That having been said, this was a surprisingly complex build for such a little set, possibly because the vehicle involves a number of articulated parts and a simple little transformation gimmick.

The minifigs consist of diver Axel Storm and the treasure guardian Hammerhead. Axel has some amazing painted detail on his body, including little gauges and stuff for his dive suit. He also has a set of oxygen tanks, flippers, and a dive helmet. The Hammerhead figure features a cool translucent red head that the rest of the head fits over for a pretty neat effect. He also comes with a trident weapon. These are the first minifigs from the Atlantis line I’ve actually seen and I’m fairly impressed by them.

The Seabed Strider is a cool two-legged mech. Axel doesn’t actually sit in it, but rather he holds the handlebars and floats along behind it. The minifig grips it tight enough so that he will hang there in mid air, making it seem like he’s actually underwater. The vehicle includes cips for the two included harpoons and two grabber arms, along with a couple of jewels to put in them. I like the red, black and gray coloring on this thing and the stickers go a long way to give it detail.

By folding back the legs and the feet and folding up two wings, the Strider converts into a little one-man sub, which is presumeably how the Strider travels to and from the surface or a larger mother ship. It’s not the most complex transformation, but it is a really cool little gimmick that certainly shows some thought went into the the design.

I’m actually kind of miffed that I like this set so much. I meant it strictly as a little fix to get me through another week or so until I can buy a proper set in one of the lines that I already collect. Up until now I was pretty indifferent on this Atlantis line, but now I’m rethinking whether I want to check out any more of these sets. I may have to sample some of the other small ones and see if the appeal still holds. Afterall, I’m running out of the sets that I do collect, so I’m going to need to branch out or just wait for the new 2011 Kingdoms and Pharaoh’s Quest stuff.

Feb 26 2011

Lego Prince of Persia: Battle of Alamut (#7573)

Hey, guess what? I still haven’t seen Disney’s Prince of Persia movie. I am a big fan of the Sands of Time game, but that’s about as far as my love for this license goes. Suffice it to say, I didn’t buy this set because of the movie or game tie-in, I bought it because it looked awesome and I thought it would fit in fairly well with my Kingdoms stuff in case the Lion and Dragon Knights ever want to bury the hatchet, join forces, and go on a Crusade. It didn’t hurt that I was able to pick up this set for half price either. At 821 pieces, this is the biggest Lego set I own and appropriately, it took me a good part of the evening to put it all together.

 

The box is not only huge, but it’s literally bowed out on the sides from all the parts crammed in there. It’s also pretty heavy, which is something I’m not used to with even the biggest Lego sets I’ve owned. I’ll attribute that to it being a building and a lot of those 821 pieces are honest to god bricks. The box includes two thick instruction books, a loose base piece that is small enough that it could have been put in the baggies, a single bagged camel, and seven numbered baggies of bricks. Nice! Nope, I didn’t leave out the stickers, there aren’t any! The first baggie builds the minifigs and the crossbow carriage, the second baggie builds the gate, the next two build the left and right walls, and the last three build the main building. There’s a little bit of repetition in the building steps but not much, and I have to say I found this set to be a really fun and satisfying build.

The set contains no less than seven minifigs, and that’s not including the camel! Once again, I didn’t see the movie, so I don’t know who any of these characters are, but they’re named on the box: Dastan the hero, Seso, Nizam, Giant Scimitar Hassasin, Razor Glove Hassasin and two Guards. This is about twice as many minifigs I ever got in one set so it took me a fairly long time just to match up their pieces and build them.

Once assembled, the fortress looks great. The architecture is fantastic, particurly on the main building, and I love the color choices for the bricks in the walls. My favorite thing about the fortress is its hinged and modular design. The left and right walls are hinged onto the gate, so you can place them at angles or even straight out to make the main wall look even bigger. When you close them up at 90 degree angles to the gate, they also peg into the main building to form a proper fortified castle, but if you’re going to play with it, you’re probably going to want to detach the walls and gate from the building to give you more access. If pressed, the only real complaint I can level against this set is that it could have been taller, as its highest point doesn’t quite reach that of the Prison Tower Rescue set.

I’m more of a displayer than a player, but I still can’t help but admire all the play features Lego designed into this set. The left wall has beams that slide in and out to give the invading forces something to climb on, while the right wall has a chunk that can be blown out of it. The crossbow doesn’t work too well, but I can usually knock it over using one of my catapults from the Kingdoms line. The main gate has opening doors, a rotating mini catapult with projectiles on either tower and a pair of barrels that can be tipped, spilling their flaming contents onto whoever breaches the gate. Cool!

If you’re looking for a really satisfying build and a set that’s lots of fun you can’t go wrong picking up this baby. It originally retailed for around eighty bucks, but with the Prince of Persia line being discontinued by Lego, these sets are starting to go on deep price cuts or outright clearance, so you can probably start to find it at a deal. Mine was $54.99, and for 821 pieces, that ain’t too shabby.

Feb 19 2011

Lego Space Police: Hyperspeed Pursuit (#5973)

Ahh, I’m rapidly running out of Space Police sets to buy and it’s starting to bum me out. While I’m sure I will eventually pick up the bigger sets and the pair of mid-size sets that I’m missing, Hyperspeed Pursuit was the last one that I was really chomping at the bit to buy and build. At 456 pieces, this is the largest Space Police set I own as it surpasses the Lunar Limo set by over 50 bricks and gives you the best of both worlds with both a police ship and a criminal ship. Let’s take a look!

The set comes in a really long box and contains two instruction books, one sticker sheet, two rubbery hoses, and four numbered bags of bricks, although oddly enough two of them are numbered “3.” The 456 pieces consist of two decent sized ships, a safe with gold bars, a prisoner pod, and three minifigs. As I mentioned above, this set was a really satisfying build and took me more than a couple of hours to complete. While there were some duplicated parts on the ships, the fact that I was building two unique ships made it more engaging.

The minifigs consist of one Space Police officer and two criminals. The cop seems pretty standard and features a helmet with moving visor, a set of oxygen tanks and a double printed face. The criminals are the Skull Twins, which also feature double printed faces and identical skull helmets that fit over their heads. Yeah, making twins is kind of a cheat to drop doubles of a minifig in the box, but I like them well enough. Each ship only holds one pilot, and the other one of the Skull Twins goes into the prisoner pod on the police ship.

I’ve made it no secret that I’m really in this line for the cool designs of the criminal ships. [One of these days I’ll look at the Gold Heist set, which pretty much sums up everything I dislike about the police ships -FF] The Space Truck and the Lunar Limo were both awesome, whereas the police ships have been ok, but not great. The police ship in this set, however, is defintely a step up. I love the design of it and some of the little details are really cool and well thought out. The hoses that run from under the wings into the forward laser cannons, for example, are a beautiful touch, and the complex build of the rear thrusters alone are comprised of about 20 pieces each and articulated to boot. There are weapon pods under the wings and articulated antenna arrays on each of the engines. The ship doesn’t rely all that heavily on stickers either, although the Police stickers on the sides are nice touches.

The police ship is designed to hold the Prisoner Pod, which in turn can hold a minifig. If you have the Galactic Enforcer, you’ll already be familiar with this construct. It can easily detach from the ship and it has a target gimmick that blows the pod open when you hit the disc with a projectile or just tap it with your finger.


The Skull Twins’ ship has a lot of the same stylings as the cab of the Space Truck and the Lunar Limo, which means it’s pure, concentrated awesome. The top of the cabin lifts off so you can place the minifig. The truck compartment can hold the boosted safe and the two front torpedo launchers fire so you can try to hit the Prison Pod and free the prisoner. The amount of detail on this ship is impressive and the stickers really tie the whole thing together. The safe is simple enough and opens from either side, allowing access to the gold bricks inside. It’s not as cool as the one that comes with the Gold Heist set, but it’s a nice bonus all the same.

Based on build and playability Hyperspeed Pursuit has become my favorite of the Space Police sets thus far, and that’s saying quite a bit because I’ve been thoroughly satisfied with all of the sets that I own in this line so far. The ship designs are great and fun to build and there’s a lot of decent play features and stuff to muck about with. It doesn’t hurt that I got this set off of Wally World’s website for only $35 either. If you’re into the Space Police, I’d say this is a must buy, and if you only want one Space Police set to get a flavor of the series, than this is probably the best one to get.

Feb 12 2011

Lego Kingdoms: Outpost Attack (#7948)

It was a bitter-sweet morning at Wally World today as I made my weekly trip for groceries and picked up Outpost Attack the last Kingdoms Lego set that they stock and I still need. There’s still a couple Kingdoms sets I need to get, but I’m going to have to hunt them down online. This poor set had a tough act to follow as the last one I put together was the Prison Tower Rescue at more than twice the price point and about a 165 more bricks. Was Outpost Attack doomed to be a disappointment? Let’s find out.

The box proclaims Outpost Attack is comprised of 194 pieces, which include three minifigs a catapult and the outpost tower itself. The box contains an instruction booklet, a small sheet with two stickers, and two numbered baggies of bricks. This is the first time I got a set with only two bags and had them numbered. Baggie number one contained the parts for the minifigs and the catapult, while the second baggie had the parts for the tower. The build didn’t take me that long. It was well under an hour, but I still found it to be fairly satisfying and while the tower is undertandably short compared to the Prison Tower from the last set, it’s construction was a bit more complex than I was expecting.

As I said, you get three minifigs with this set and man, am I having fun collecting the Kingdoms minifigs. This time around you get two Lion Knights who are defending the Outpost and one lone Dragon Knight who is doing all the sieging by himself. Two of them are basically the same figure, only colored for each side. They both have pike helmets, the other Lion Knight is a crossbowman who also comes with a quiver of bolts he can wear on his back.

The catapult is a larger, more complex version of the one that came in the Knights Showdown set, which I looked at a few weeks ago. It’s basically the same idea, but it hurls a much bigger brick and thanks to a construction gimmick in the tower you can use it to blast a chunk out of the front of it, but more on that in a minute. You get the bricks to build two projectiles and the catapult holds two Dragon Knight shields.

The Outpost Tower is fairly simple, and it’s got a false back just like the Prison Tower so you can get in there with the minifigs and use it as a playset. It’s a nice looking structure, albeit very functional. There are clips two hold two included halberds on either side of the main gateway, there’s a socket to mount the crossbow at the very top and there is a flagpost with flags. It would have been cool to toss in a portcullis, but it probably would have required too many additional bricks.

The breakaway wall gimmick just involves the center wall with the window not being secured in anyway. If you aim your attack with the catapult just right you can blow it right out the back. It took me quite a few tries, but I nailed it twice and it worked really well. The wall holds in there pretty well too, so you don’t have to worry about it constantly falling out when you don’t want it to.

For a $20 set, I was really satisfied with this one. It was a fun build and it seemed more substantial than some of the other $20 Lego sets I own. I’m really tempted to get a second one of these sets so I can mount them back to back and make a bigger and more fleshed out structure. Considering it’s only a $20 set and I’d be happy to get the extra catapult and minifigs, the prospect is looking more and more appealing to me.

[As a nice little surprise, it was announced at Toy Fair today that Lego would be releasing four brand new Kingdoms sets in 2011! This made me a very happy camper! I only hope they’re fairly substantial and not just the impulse sets. -FF]

Feb 4 2011

Lego Kingdoms: Prison Tower Rescue (#7947)

So, like I said last time, I’m on a crusade to pick up whatever remaining Lego Kingdoms sets I can find in the stores so as not to get stuck paying extra for them online when they’ve disappeared from the shelves. That led me to pick up this incredibly awesome Prison Tower Rescue set yesterday morning at my local Wally World. This is the first playset-style Lego set I own, so I was pretty excited to get started on the build.


The set comes in a decent sized box with four numbered baggies of bricks and two instruction sheets. At 365 pieces, it’s a decent sized set and certainly one of the largest I own. In addition to the tower itself, the set includes no less than five minifigs, a horse, extra shields and torches that clip on around the tower, a treasure chest with jewels and a rat, and even gargoyles. It was a truly satisfying build, not only because it took me several hours, but because there was very little redundant building steps like in some of the Space Police ships or the last couple of Pharaoh’s Quest sets. I really had a great time getting this set together.


The minifigs are pretty awesome. You get two Lion Knights and their horse, a Princess to rescue, and two Dragon Knights to defend the Tower. The Knights are all what you’ve probably come to expect from the Kingdoms sets, but I really dig army building the Kingdoms minfigs, so you’ll get no complaints from me. You get one set of swords and shields for each side, as well as a spear and a crossbow. The Princess has a double printed face, and one of the Lion Knights comes with an armor piece that slips on over his torso, which is cool because it’s the first time I’ve seen that. The horse has a helmet with the horn that I was missing from the Prison Carriage Rescue set and an armor piece that fits over him.


As a playset, the Prison Tower has all sorts of cool play features. It’s designed like the great 80’s playsets of old, with no back so you can get inside and have access to the rooms. There’s a boiling cauldron of fire at the very top that can be spilled out over the side. The transulcent orange bricks that make up the fire are well done. There’s a catapult mounted on the side of the lower platform to launch bricks at those attacking goody-goodies. The porticullis raises and lowers via a working windless on that same platform, which works beautifully I might add. The top floor of the tower features a fold down gate so you can lock the Princess in there. There’s also three different flights of stairs and a little room on the bottom to keep the treasure chest in. There’s also a barrel that holds a couple of extra polearms.



Besides being a fun build, my favorite thing about this set is that it can incorporate all of the Kingdoms sets I have so far. The Prison Carriage Rescue set we looked at yesterday was practically made to compliment this Tower, the Knights Showdown set can be used by the Lion Knights to assist in the siege and I like to put my Wizard minifig set in the Tower too. Yeah, at $50 it’s a might pricey, but as much as I liked the equivalently priced Pharaoh’s Quest set, this one has a lot more play and display value to me, so I’m not all that put off by the price. Needless to say, I highly recommend this one, and it’s really whetted my appetite to hunt down either the bigger Castle in the series or some of the Prince of Persia playsets before they disappear too.

Feb 3 2011

Lego Kingdoms: Prison Carriage Rescue (#7949)

I had a few too many other commitments to lay out the scratch for the next Pharaoh’s Quest set on my list, (it is, afterall, the big $100 mama-jama) so I had to get my last Lego fix with something just a wee bit more affordable. I opted for picking up another one of the smaller Kingdoms sets. I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that I should be buying the Kingdoms line whenever I find them, because they seem to be slowly disappearing and pretty soon they’re going to be a lot more expensive. [Which is why I went back and picked up the Prison Tower set this morning! -FF] So, let’s take a look at Prison Carriage Rescue!

Like I said, this is a fairly small set, weighing in at only 50 pieces. The bricks come in two unnumbered baggies, plus one really conspicuous horse, and you get an instruction booklet. Keep in mind that about 20 of the 50 pieces in this set make up the minifigs and their horse and gear, which doesn’t leave a lot for the rest of the build. That’s not a complaint, mind you, I’m just pointing out that this set is mainly about the minifigs. And, hey, minifigs are never a bad thing.


So, the minifigs consist of two of the good guys, one is the prisoner and the other the rescuer, and one bad guy. The prisoner doesn’t have any weapons, but he does have a double printed face, so you can use him as a regular knight without having him look like he’s about to shit himself in fear. The other Lion Knight and the Dragon Knight each come with a sword and shield. The horse comes with a helmet, which is supposed to have a horn no it, but my set was either missing the horn or I lost it. I’ll give Lego the benefit of the doubt and say I lost it, since it was so damn tiny. The horse can be hooked up to the wagon or you can take the bricks out of his back and have one of the knights ride him. If you have any of the bigger Kingdom sets, these figures will be great to beef up your garrisons. The rescue knight is a really fantastic figure, and I love his helm.

The prison wagon is pretty simple and quite easy to build. It has a hinged gate on the back that raises and lowers and it has clips on the sides to hold a lance and a torch, both of which are nice accessories. There’s not a heck of a lot more to say about it. It’s not terribly big, but you could squeeze a couple of figures in there. It probably wouldn’t be difficult to modify it into some kind of other wagon if you have the right extra bricks lying around.

This set was about ten bucks, which I think is a pretty solid deal. The build really wasn’t all that satisfying, but what you get out of it in the end is well worth it. Even if you don’t have a lot of use for the prison carriage, Kingdoms is a great set to army build for and this set certainly lets you do that. Speaking of which, tomorrow I’m going to be looking at the Prison Tower Rescue set, which this set really compliments very nicely.

Jan 14 2011

Lego Pharaoh’s Quest: Rise of the Sphinx (#7326)

Pharaoh’s Quest presses onward and upward with the next set in the series, Rise of the Sphinx. The last time we looked at theCursed Cobra Statue, but now that seems like mere child’s play when compared to the 527 pieces of Rise of the Sphinx. Wowsers! Not only is this set bigger than the combined brick count of all four sets in the series we’ve looked at so far, it’s the largest Lego set I own. That may not be saying much to some of you Legophiles out there, but it’s got me all excited. I even may have pee’d a bit. Let’s tear this baby open and see what we got.


The box is nice and big and does a good job of advertising what you get once you’re done with the build. Inside you get four bags of NUMBERED bricks. Yep, we’re up to the big leagues now and the bags need numbers. You also get two instruction books and a small sheet of stickers. Bag #1 builds the three minifigs and the vehicle, a roadster. Bag #2 builds the temple base. Bag #3 builds the head and body of the Sphinx, and Bag #4 builds the Sphinx’s legs. The three minifigs, vehicle and Egyptian structure has been the basic formula for the last three sets in the series, but this time out, the Egyptian part really monopolizes the brick count in a big way. Oh yeah, the featured artifact this time around is the Golden Sword, which will go nicely with the Golden Scarab Shield from the last set. Enough with the preamble… to the minifigs!

Ok, things are starting to get really redundant here. You get another Jack Raines. This time, he’s got the body of the Aviator Jack Raines that came in the Flying Mummy Attack set, but the hair of regular Jack Raines. Either way, you really don’t need this figure if you’ve picked up all the smaller sets so far. The Mummy Guards are the same ones that came with Golden Staff Guardians only instead of each one coming with a sword and scarab shield, one comes with a sword and the other with a spear. There’s nothing wrong with any one of these figures, they’re great, but they are starting to get a little stale. But hey, at least my Mummy army is continuing to grow.


The roadster falls in somewhere between the jeep from Golden Staff Guardians and the bi-plane from Flying Mummy Attack in terms of size and complexity. It looks great, and holds two figures. I like the build for the exposed engine as it was really creatively done. It comes with a rifle that mounts onto it behind the seats and a pick axe that stores on the rear bumper.


The Sphinx consists of two parts, there’s the temple base and the Sphinx itself. The idea here is the same as the Cursed Cobra Statue. Once Jack helps himself to the Golden Sword artifact, the Sphinx comes to life and chases him down for stealing his shit. Yes, the Sphinx is in reality a fully articulated figure, big enough to squish Jack under his paws. The temple contains an altar that looks very similar to the lid of the Ark of the Covenant only with golden scorpions instead of angels. There’s a play feature that allows you to clip the dynamite to the wall and then by slamming the exposed lever on the back of the temple, you can blow out the wall and reveal the altar with the Golden Sword. It works surprisingly well.

The Sphinx rests snugly on top of the temple, but his legs are all on ratchet joints so he can stand up just fine on his own and be put in various poses. His head is stationary, but his bottom jaw opens and closes. It’s a really big piece, especially when standing with legs extended. Building the Sphinx was lots of fun and even though the legs involved redundand builds, you still had to mirror the left and right legs, which I did without the instructions for a little added fun and challenge.

Even with the rather redundant minifigs, this is one awesome Lego set. It took me about two and a half hours to build it, although keep in mind I was well lubricated on Scotch while I was doing it, so your build time may vary, and it was fun all the way. The Sphinx’s articulation is good and he’s a solid toy that can stand perfectly fine on his own, although mine will spend most of his time squatting on his temple and looking awesome while doing it. At fifty bucks, I was pretty concerned over the value of this set, but having built it, I’ve got no complaints.

Jan 11 2011

Lego’s Pharaoh’s Quest: Cursed Cobra Statue (#7325)

Next up on our jaunt through Pharaoh’s Quest is the Cursed Cobra Statue set. For this set, we jump from 125 pieces (which was the brick count for Flying Mummy Attack) and up to 213 pieces. Like the last two sets we looked at, this set still includes three minifigs and a vehicle. Oh yeah, the artifact du jour is a golden scarab shield. I was really hesitant to get this set, because the Cobra takes up most of the brick count and building it looked like it was going to be a really redundant and tedious affair. Plus, if you’re working your way up from the bottom like I am, this set is going to give you a duplicate minifig and that’s always a bummer. So let’s see if the Cursed Cobra Statue set is really worth the thirty bucks in the end or if Pharaoh’s Quest has finally derailed.


The box includes an instruction manual and five unnumbered bags of bricks. You also get a small sticker sheet and the translucent plastic sheet to punch out the part that makes up the Cobra’s hood. The minifigs include a Mummy High Priest, [Seems to be officially called a Snake Charmer. Just sayin’ is all. -FF] the third new hero in the series, Helena Tova, and the same Jack Raines figure that came with the Scarab Attack set. You also get a jeep and the Cobra and his temple base. Let’s start with the minifigs.

There’s not much point looking at Jack again, as we already saw this figure in the first set. While I can appreciate having a spare to display with this set, it’s still kind of a bummer getting a duplicate figure in a set that cost me thrity bones. Helena, on the other hand is new, and she’s very cool. She has printing on the front and back of her shirt as well as two expressions on her face and a satchel. The heroes come with two pistols, a rifle, a bundle of dynamite and a shovel. The dynamite and rifle are the same pieces that were released in previous PQ sets. The Mummy Priest is the same body and head as the regular Mummy Warriors, but he has a new headdress and comes with two snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes? Oops, wrong series.

The jeep is very cool and it was almost as satisfying a build as the biplane from the last set we looked at. It can comfortably fit three minifigs, two seated in the front and one standing in the back. It also has clips on each side for the rifle and shovel, or whatever else you want to put in there.

The Cobra statue and temple represent most of the building here and while it is true that the Cobra consists of building the same two components over and over again, I didn’t seem to mind it so much while I was doing it. The Cobra is designed to coil around and attach to the temple, but it can be removed and thanks to what I believe are some Bionicle ball joints, it has a nice amount of articulation for when it comes to life to protect the scarab shield. It’s mouth also opens and closes. I do think the use of the plastic sheet for the Cobra’s hood is a bit of a cheat, but it looks good, and I can’t see any way round it. The temple has a platform for the Mummy Priest to stand so he can chuck snakes at the heroes.

I bought this set expecting to be disappointed. Yeah, sounds crazy, huh? But I wasn’t at all. It was still fun to build, even though it didn’t take me much longer than the last set, and the end result is great looking. I’m really happy with the way the Cobra looks on the shelf coiled around the altar. I still wish a unique version of Jack could have been included, and it’s the first set where the price, in this case $30, started to feel like a bit of a reach, but apart from that this is a pretty solid set in the Pharaoh’s Quest.