Mega Blocks Set 96810 Aerial Ambush

[The Eye]

96810 - Aerial Ambush!

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Haunt-Fo...bush/hi_024.jpg

... that enemy being MEGA BLOKS, Lego's unfortunate competitor. The company MEGA BRANDS owns both MEGA BLOKS and Roseart (the regular piece-by-piece puzzles), with many licenses including Iron Man 2 and Halo Wars. Founding in Montreal, Quebec in 1969, they have had Lego sized bricks since 1991, and Lego has of course loathed them for it. Vicious lawsuits ensued, though they were overruled in favour of MEGA BRANDS, due to expired patents from Lego.

In my opinion, I both love and hate them. MEGA BLOKS may copy Lego, but they are somewhat cheaper and some of their sets are well designed, and can take hours to build. One of these such sets is 96810 Aerial Ambush, which is surprisingly good and is what I consider "almost equal to Lego".

Why I am doing this review is simple- to take a look at one of Lego's competitors and give AFOLs a look at the quality, design and set-up of a MEGA BLOCKS set. In no way am I trying to sell their products to you, nor am I trying to convert anyone to loving MEGA BLOCKS and hating Lego. I'm just trying to show everyone that maybe the bad rap is a little outdated. Maybe one day in the far future, Eurobricks can entail both MEGA BLOCKS and Lego equally.

Now, read on, into a world of Spartans...

BASIC INFORMATION:

Pieces: 376

Price: $54.99 CAN for the Aerial Ambush set, $16.99 for the Combat Unit III.

Company: Mega Bloks

Figures: 4 for Aerial Ambush, 5 for Combat Unit III.

Final Ratings

Aerial Ambush = 8/10

Combat Unit III= 5/10

THE BOX:

The first thing I noticed about the box was of course the glossy box art. I was standing maybe five feet away from the shelf when I saw it in TRU for 54.99 CAN (not bad... see the rest of the review to understand why), and I'd been eyeing it for months. The box art speaks for itself- it's good enough to attract you, but it has flaws. The image, first of all, is entirely computer generated, though at a much higher level than Lego, making it look somewhat fake. The bricks are considerably brighter than in the set- the purple banshee is pink and the camo-green hawk is yellow-green. The figures are in poses impossible to balance, even on a table. There is a fresh and interesting background of what I'm going to guess is Africa, if only because I've played Halo 3.

However, this is from Halo Wars, not Halo 3- and the box shows this as well. In Halo text, "Halo Wars" is written across the box, below it being "The Authentic Collectors Series". To the left is a UNSC Spartan II, proudly standing over his qualm with an assault rifle. At the bottom is a white strip with set information, there being 376 pieces and an age of 8+. Way to make me feel insecure. Ah well.

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Haunt-Fo...bush/hi_025.jpg

On the back of the box, there are excellent pictures of the set, including bios of both ships. It informed me that the hawk is actually an upgrade of the hornet in-game, if you have Professor Anders as your hero. It also gave me the names of all the in-game/set characters- a UNSC Flame Marine, a UNSC Spartan II, a Covenant Grunt, and a Covenant Elite. Lovely! In the bottom right hand corner, there is a picture of most of the sets that had been released- the Scorpion (which is excellent as well), a Warthog w/ Shade, Ghost and Turret Battle Packs, and a Hornet. Lots of muchness to it, isn't there? This just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser...

The sides were nothing to write home about. The top shows off the figures, Covenant and UNSC standing on opposite sides. Otherwise, it's just set information. The Aerial Ambush set was the largest in the first wave, and therefore sixth in the series.

The Combat Unit III I got as a bonus to the review had similar backing, although it showed different sets in the bottom right hand corner, including a wonderful covenant locust, a gremlin and a brute chopper. The rest of the packaging was transparent.

THE INSTRUCTIONS:

The instructions were surprisingly thin, mainly due to there being more building per step compared to LEGO. The instructions are glossy like the box. The cover has the same overly bright image (and a better view of the excellent background), along with a similar back. Please note that the Combat Unit III had no instructions.

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Haunt-Fo...bush/hi_052.jpg

The first two pages are the piece catalogue, which shows off all the pieces used in this set. It is practical, easy to understand and split based on the three sub-models- the hawk, the banshee and the shade. The figures are already built, so they are shown fully constructed, without weapons. Note that the grunt does not have weapons. The next page is basic "if you choke, we can't help you" information, along with how to build the excellent flame marine. In total, the instructions are 39 pages short, with great imagery in the background of spartans standing over a fiery Planet Harvest. There are sticker callouts, much better than Lego's, surprisingly.

THE HAWK:

The Aerial Assault Set was something I expected to be mediocre. It looked simple, easy to build yet durable and flamboyant. I was wrong on all fronts.

The Hawk, as I've said, is the super-unit upgrade of the UNSC Hornet in the Halo Wars video game. I rented the game shortly after receiving this set for my birthday, and because I'm not a very good gamer, the hawk plays poorly, so I can't say much. But looking through Youtube, there are numerous mixed receptions. Armies of 12 year old Halo fans arguing with adult Halo fans about whether the unit is good in-game or not is not a pretty sight. In fact, it burns the eyes. However, this review is about the set, and judging by its excellent looks, surprisingly high swooshability and long build time, it's simply unbeatable. Building the set was a real joy, using mainly plates and bricks. Build time for me was about 35 minutes. The stickers weren't as annoying as the banshee to add.

The only real specialized pieces were the cockpit, rockets, guns and VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) pads. The ship is about thirty centimetres long, and it can seat a spartan- though not a elite, or at least not very well.

Not easily, however. He usually ends up keeled over in the cockpit. The cockpit is well designed, but seeing as the MEGA BLOCKS figures have no leg holes, they don't stay in place well. He is as wide as the cockpit window, meaning his broad shoulders get caught and it ends up lifting him whenever you want to put someone inside. Bummer. There are also no controls inside the cockpit, not even stickers.

Unfortunately, the ship is not very durable. The wings stay in place, but the guns are always falling off. The back fins always shatter when they hit walls as you swoosh them.

The colours used for the ship are great, however, the camo varies in parts and ends up looking like dog poop on barf green if they didn't do it right. The greys in this set all seem to have "sparkles" in them, and therefore shine when exposed to light. I didn't like that one bit. At least they aren't flamboyant like they appear to be on the box.

All in all, I loved the ship. It's fun to swoosh, and without a doubt it's better designed than even some of Lego's ships. Unfortunately, this is where the excellence stops, with...

THE BANSHEE:

The cool Banshee, however, is less of a treat. Despite being well designed and looking great, it uses over-simplified pieces, is delicate and will shatter if dropped. It's fun to swoosh if you hold it right, although you end up crushing it anyway if you have larger hands. Of course, MEGA BLOKS intends on having eight year olds play with these toys, so no problem there. The banshee seems to have higher appreciation in-game on Youtube, with few people bashing it as compared to the hawk. Appreciation for the banshee seems to be lower in-set, especially from my own opinion. The cockpit is also garbage, it can't be used for anything other than a banshee cockpit. The wings, although big, can at least be used for something. Not that cockpit, though.

An elite or spartan can grab a hold of the handlebars inside the cockpit, and ride along. They often get caught by their wide shoulders on the banshee windshield, however, which is annoying. It works well, as you can close the lid on them, realistically, like in Halo 3. The wings are good and the engines are excellent, but the stickers that go on them are both ugly and pointless. There are "laser guns" on the engines, which are basically blue circles. On the cockpit are bullet holes, where you can see the outline of the sticker clear as day.

The ship is much taller than the hawk (almost twice as tall when stood up on its wings) and like a real banshee can be hi-jacked by a spartan (which looks hilarious).

The colours are duller than a duck, but at least it's consistent. It looks to be a dark purple, rather than a bright pink, like on the box.

THE SHADE:

The shade is horrible, let me tell you that. There are 8 stickers on the base alone, which are difficult to add on and slip off sometimes. The turret is far too top heavy to support the guns, so if it isn't turned onto the baseplate, the turret falls over. The guns fall off frequently, and the grunt who is supposed to be manning the turret (he's unarmed in all Halo Wars sets, however) often slips out of his seat in a crying heap.

There are a total of 9 stickers on this tiny model. Ridiculous. While this isn't much of a review, there isn't much to say about the shade. It's very poorly done.

THE FIGURES:

This makes up for the banshee and shade big-time. The Aerial Ambush set comes with a camo UNSC Flame Marine, a camo Spartan II, a Grunt and an Elite. The Combat Unit III gave me an extra two Elites and Spartans, and an awesome yellow flame marine. All of these figures are highly articulate, if not slightly <insert that tiresome argument> (and can't be used with the Aerial Ambush's block pieces). The flame marine was poorly painted, but from far away it looks great. I found that the glittery grey used in the larger set was not present in the combat unit. All figures except for the grunt bent at the knees and elbows, have ball joints and can be taken apart (and their body parts put on other figures). I made a custom spartan that looks like my Halo 3 one, with an EVA helmet and CQB armour (lol noob). The weapons are all well designed, including beam rifles, shotguns, and SMG's.

Watch in terror as Man Mythic, legendary noob of XBOX LIVE, tries to take on two elites, with a sniping Beam Rifle and SMG!

IN CONCLUSION:

The Aerial Ambush set was a mixed bag. It included the amazing hawk, which I felt was worth buying the set for. It included a pretty cool banshee, although it fell apart a lot. It also included a horrid shade and great figures with crappy painting. The pieces did not feel weak like the used to, so I feel this is no longer an issue. I got the Aerial Ambush set for $54.99 CAN (a good price) and the Combat Unit III on sale for $11.99 instead of $16.99 CAN. (an expensive price). Could these sets be on par with LEGO? I don't think so, now that I've bought them, but with a little improvement, I feel they could as good as LEGO. Right now, they're almost as good as Lego, however. Almost Alice.

I've chosen to give the Aerial Ambush set an 8/10, 10/10 on the Hawk alone, 7.5/10 for the Banshee alone, a 4/10 for the shade alone and a 7/10 for the figures.

I've chosen to give the Combat Unit III set a 5/10.

Thanks for reading my review! Please post your comments, whether they be complaints about what a noob I am at Halo or on the set itself below.

Edited April 10, 2010 by WhiteFang

[WhiteFang]

This is not a LEGO set.

I am going to move this over to the Community section.

WhiteFang

[Peppermint_M]

Thanks for the review A lot of Mega Brands stuff passes me by as I persue the stranger sets from china

Just a BTW: You can deeplink images from brickshelf before they get moderated. It is in the deeplinking tutorial.

EDIT: Wow, WhiteFang, that was swift!

Second Edit: You might want to resize those pictures a tad... just a heads up -_-;;

[The Eye]

This is not a LEGO set.

I am going to move this over to the Community section.

WhiteFang

Sorry Whitefang, I'm kind of new here and this is my first review.

Thanks for the review A lot of Mega Brands stuff passes me by as I persue the stranger sets from china

Just a BTW: You can deeplink images from brickshelf before they get moderated. It is in the deeplinking tutorial.

EDIT: Wow, WhiteFang, that was swift!

Second Edit: You might want to resize those pictures a tad... just a heads up -_-;;

Sorry about that, I don't know how.

[Peppermint_M]

Right oh. I am assuming you have MS Paint? (if you are running windows) Open the photo with this programme and then "ctrl" and "w" this should open a little box for resizing. You can ut a percentage in the box (make sure it is the same for both virtical and horizontal). Then you simply save the image and re-upload to brickshelf. It should auto resize the images too (but i am not 100% sure on that).

I have added this to the index

[WhiteFang]

I have removed the image tag, and will like you to read the tutorial on image resizing, before posting it once more.

The images are way too large for our readers to download and view them.

EDIT: Wow, WhiteFang, that was swift!

Hee.

[PMJ]

The intro kinda had me worried!

[The Eye]

The intro kinda had me worried!

How so? MEGA BLOCKS isn't as scary as one might think...

Edited April 22, 2010 by The Eye