Hero Factory 2010

[80 Dollar]

^

it's a new piece that looks like a stars foot

No, it is a Star foot.

[Mesonak]

Yanno, I wonder whatever happened to the "Bulk and Vapour" set.

I have no doubt in my mind it's a store exclusive, and that's why we haven't seen it yet. :P

-Mesonak

[Bundalings]

Now that we have some at least kind of decent pics of these guys...

Thunder: New color Stars feet is good... too bad it's silver. Can't tell much else, really. Except that zamors are being used once again. Not that I really mind...

XPlode: He's posed so poorly I can hardly tell what the set is supposed to look like, so the only judgment I'll make is... why is his chest dark red when the rest of him is bright? Also, I see he's using the new Hero Factory torso. I guess the other villains are, too.

Corroder: Again, the posing is awful. Can't tell much about this guy. He uses Avtoran limbs, though. >_<

William Blaze: Ugly helmet. This is one of the little guys I'll probably skip on.

Mark Surge: Lookin' good. Can't tell what's going on with the weapons, though. And after how brittle the Bohrok Kal's joints were, I am ever wary of pearl silver sockets...

Drop Ship: I like. Don't see what it drops, though. =P

Blaze Bike: Some cool recolors, like the orange Bitil wings.

Von Nebula: With such a cool name I thought this guy would be awesome, but he looks like the worst of the bunch. I never liked that mask, not even on Hydraxon where it looked ten times better. Is it just me or do his arms look like they have no elbows? I'm crossing my fingers and hoping they just built him wrong. Though, he does look pretty otherwordly... maybe he's just supposed to be an elbowless hunchback. Interesting that they recolored the Tridax pod. Also; lots of gunmetal.

Rotor: If this guy is as cool as he looks like he is now... he'll be the first I get. Lots of great recolors, including orange ankle guards, pistons (look on the back of his legs on the box... though maybe they've come in this color in a non-Bionicle line... they seem familiar), Inika shoulders and Mistika jets. I can't spot any eyes, and it'd be cool if he remained eyeless, IMO.

===

I like the new Bionicle logo, with the Mata Nui in the background... looks very cool. Unfortunate that it's tacked onto Hero Factory, which I wish would remain... Hero Factory. I mean, we never had SLIZER tacked onto Roborider boxes, or Roborider tacked onto Bionicle boxes.

Anyone else notice the stats that are on the boxes? I can only locate them on Rotor and the smaller villains' boxes, but I'm sure they're on the others as well.

[The Alchemyst]

I'll grab one of the small sets for the nifty leg armor, and looks like none of the larger sets. At least not until they go on sale. ._.

Sure they have nice recolors, but they look pretty bad, although that might just be the pisspoor posing.

Corroder's weaps are oversized, 4 triconnectors in a canister sets are <3 though. And if those blades prove to be useful, those too.

But then again, I'd just bricklink them. ._.

Xplode has some as well, but also has gaps in his armor? Mata Red recolors are nice, 2nd best of the 4

Meltdown canister pics: Yellow Metru leeegs, Yellow Ankle guaaards

Thunder. Eh. That's all there is. Eh.

Drop ship looks well designed. If I get it, I won't use the stickers though.

Furno bike: Orange Onua Shieeeeld. Also Oragne Bohrok faceplate. Also some orange piece near the seat.

Von Nebula: Exclusive mask and funky Xplode armor. Other than that, hes's full of pure black and he sucks. His weapon has some nice Tridax recolors

Rotor: Eh, I need some Orange Mata Feet, and he has Orange Inika armor and a pretty sweet mask, as long as there are holes in it in the final product. :P

And I still think those weird pieces on Corroder, Thunder and a couple of bigger sets are some sort of launchers.

Edited February 4, 2010 by The Alchemyst

[cheesey skrall]

Or they could be those Stars feet that make up Thunder's feet.

ah i see it now. its his feet. i thought people were on about the armour on his hand.

On the dropships box, right next to the HERO factory logo, there is a word/s

Can anyone read it?

[80 Dollar]

ah i see it now. its his feet. i thought people were on about the armour on his hand.

On the dropships box, right next to the HERO factory logo, there is a word/s

Can anyone read it?

Yeah, it is the number of the set.

[Leugi]

They seem to still be prototypes, Rotor for instance, has a lot more silver on his box than on the image...

Well, I'll admit both Rotor and Von look nice to me (aside from Von's feet)... I actually love the color scheme of Von..., sure they reused Hydraxon's mask, but it isn't that much of a problem to me, since I love that mask... Now, the great bad thing I noticed about both of them is that they like the beatifuk glatorian hands...

[The Dor]

I guess I'll throw in my two cents:

Thunder: I don't care how simplified this guy's build is. He looks awesome. I love the claw thing in his right hand, and how the new piece is used 3 times (both hands and torso). I'm a little curious as to the construction of his arms, but he looks good. Even with Ben 10 thighs, and possibly asymmetrical shoulder armor.

XPlode: This is probably the worst posed set here. I'm not sure on how the Skrall armor piece is attached to his torso, but hopefully it's more solidly than it seems in this picture. I should also add that I love the way the extra socket (that would normally be the neck) is used to add back armor.

Corroder: Are his armor pieces the same as Thunder's? I think it's possible, but I'm not sure. I definitely will be leaving the stickers off, though. Anyone know what his little crotch piece is for? Because it looks entirely useless right now. Also, this guy has the most basic build imaginable.

Dropship: I'm not sure if that is Crotesius's helmet or Surge's. Both have a piston there. Either way, this set looks awesome. This is probably my favorite vehicle yet. :D

Furno Bike: Is he going to be Blaze or Furno? Probably Furno, seeing as that's on the box. I love how this set looks. I can't tell if the orange is legitimate orange, or the orange brown used on Pewku. Either one is great.

Von Nebula: Oh my. This set looks terrible! He doesn't even have elbows! If there is one set I'm missing this year, it's this one. I'm curious as to what degree this is finalized. The Hydraxon mask makes me wonder, seeing as it looks slightly altered.

Rotor: This guy makes up for all of Nebula's short-comings. I love this guy. He also utilizes the new shield piece introduced by Thunder and Corroder. And I absolutely love the box art! Although I do hope he maintains the level of orange used in the actual set and not on the box art. And I hope he still has the orange Mahri tubes!

[The Crazy One]

Hahaha, the nose is ridiculous!

I actually am pleased with all the sets apart from Nebula. Not happy there.

[cheesey skrall]

right, my turn to revew 'em!

VON NEBULA: very nice. like the bohrok headshield on him in solid black. his forearms look small and puny and his feet are tiny. 4/5

ROTOR: love the colour, the orange shooter, and the orange shin guards. definetly gonna get, but has no eyes. 4.5/5

XPLODE: posing is awful. he looks skinny but has an interesting look. 3.5/5

CORRODER: phinochio gone green, naked and giant weapons. no armour on body, small 2 toed feet and av- matoran limbs. looks like lego have failed with this guy. 1/5

THUNDER: looks like vezon, yet brilliant. has a nice wepon, face and silver stars feet to add to the pros! 4.5/5

MARK SURGE: also badly posed, but looks OK. nice feet and leg armour. 4/5

WILLIAM BLAZE: probobly the best posed, but not great. again, legs and feet are great, sword looks good to. 4/5

FURNO BIKE: love it! the bohrohk shield could be translucent to look more like a windshield but oh well. love the colour scheme. 5/5

DROP SHIP: damn stickers! still looks interesting. like the giant engine. 4/5

MELTDOWN (OBSCURED BOX): PURE EPICNESS! my personal favourite, looks menacing with its 1 eye and its toxic waste canisters + spray. 5/5

overall a good theme. i think it will not beat bionicle, but in 9 or 10 years time, fans will be complaining about the ending of this line.

also, does corroder, thunder and MELTDOWN have stickers?

the bad guys may be factory test failures or mutants, as some of them look part organic. and their names are what you find in a factory: Xplode= explosives, MELTDOWN= toxic waste, thunder= electricity and corroder= acid

[prateek]

The Heros are just meh, but the "villains" and the vehicles are really nice, especially the bike

[cryoshell]

If Hero Factory continues Bionicle ´s

storyline, I´ll buy it for sure. Why is

there a Bionicle logo on the packages?

These aren´t preliminary...

[Artahn]

Can someone get a zoom in on the Bionicle logo? there seems to be some text too small to see in the photos.

[Aanchir]

Can someone get a zoom in on the Bionicle logo? there seems to be some text too small to see in the photos.

I wouldn't be surprised if it said something (or at least meant something) along the lines of "BIONICLE Building System". After all, even the LEGO Ben 10 website advertises in its "Combinations" section that "LEGO Ben 10 sets are also fully compatible with LEGO BIONICLE® sets, so you can use your BIONICLE elements to create even more custom creations!"

Speaking of which, some of the combination models make very creative use of what you'd think were difficult parts to combine. A lot of them are even more impressive than BIONICLE combiners were (in overall appearance, at least, which is helped in part by the stylistic consistency between the cartoony part designs). Makes one wonder if we can expect any HF combiners-- perhaps in the magazines or on the web, if not pictured on the actual packaging or instructions.

[Illari]

Can someone get a zoom in on the Bionicle logo? there seems to be some text too small to see in the photos.

Seems like "From the creators of BIONICLE" judging by the length of the words. And propably www.BIONICLE.com beneath that.

[vexorian]

If Hero Factory continues Bionicle ´s

storyline, I´ll buy it for sure. Why is

there a Bionicle logo on the packages?

These aren´t preliminary...

It is just there so people that just buy the sets without caring about the story or web surfing continuously about them buy these things when they go to the toy store looking for ... bionicles.

[squidman85]

Why there is a small Bionicle logo?Hero Factory is in the Bionicle universe?

I very like the Rotor,Corroder,Meltdown,dropship and bike,thought.Meltdown is the best,because of his mask,weapons and yellow+black+trans lime colorsheme

[ultimate antrozek]

Now the question. Is Rotor a good guy or a bad guy?

[Phantoka Kopaka Nuva]

Now the question. Is Rotor a good guy or a bad guy?

Who knows. There's not even a set description for him.

Hmm, XPlode has Telluris-styled arms. FAIL. If my brother gets him, I'll have to change the pieces.

[80 Dollar]

Who knows. There's not even a set description for him.

Hmm, XPlode has Telluris-styled arms. FAIL. If my brother gets him, I'll have to change the pieces.

Yeah they are all unbelievable hybrids.

[cryoshell]

Ahh... now I see what it´s all about:

shut down the best Lego theme ever,

Bionicle, and bring on a new one, with

recycled Bionicle parts, stupid names

and an uninteresting story.

A least, you need to print

"from the creators of BIONICLE"

on the box and people will buy it.

´cause of the lack of alternatives.

TLC, i beg you, bring back Bionicle..!

[Aanchir]

Ahh... now I see what it´s all about:

shut down the best Lego theme ever,

Bionicle, and bring on a new one, with

recycled Bionicle parts, stupid names

and an uninteresting story.

A least, you need to print

"from the creators of BIONICLE"

on the box and people will buy it.

´cause of the lack of alternatives.

TLC, i beg you, bring back Bionicle..!

Errr... what? First of all, you're treating "best LEGO theme ever" like an objective statement. You're also saying that they've "shut down BIONICLE", which isn't quite true-- the BIONICLE story is continuing, and there's still a possibility they might bring out new BIONICLE sets in the future.

Who says the HF story's uninteresting? We scarcely have any of the story yet, just a blurb. Just because it's not as elaborate-- yet-- doesn't mean it can't be interesting As I said before, it reminds me in both appearance and story a bit of Rescue Heroes, which was a very charming toy line in its own right.

Seriously, you're acting a little closed-minded here. You went straight from "buy it for sure" to hating the theme just because you have some preconceived notion that no story can be good without being attached to BIONICLE's. Give the new theme a chance, or at least wait until it's actually out to start judging it as better or worse than BIONICLE.

On-topic: Looking at various pics of this new stuff, I'm impressed. LEGO seems like they have indeed been selective about which BIONICLE parts work for the new feel: we see the awesome technique of ankle guards on Rahkshi shins (a wonderful combo I've been waiting for LEGO to use), as well as a number of Bohrok faceplates (on Von Nebula and the Furno Bike) to contribute to the smooth look that's echoed elsewhere in the line. Speaking of Von Nebula, while I haven't got any idea how his arms work (they look a bit of a mess), he makes noteworthy use of a Phantoka Makuta torso (which is a hard-to-use torso piece), and his mask (a Hydraxon mask) is accented by two Mantax claws attached to the sides of the head as mandibles. The head, by the way, would seem to be a Glatorian head turned on its side. Overall, there's definitely some creativity in the designs.

Also, the models seem to still be very preliminary-- Mark Surge's tools in particular are vastly different than in the finalized images we've seen. So I highly expect the new pieces in particular and possibly some colors to change in the final sets.

[cheesey skrall]

Now the question. Is Rotor a good guy or a bad guy?

im guessing bad guy. he/she/it would have a human name if it was good. unless its a bodyguard of the heroes

[Zarkan]

First of all, what the heck is with that Bionicle logo on all of the Hero Factory sets? I know that this was announced a while ago, but it looks really weird, especially since the actual Hero Factory logo is on the top of the box. I guess I understand the strategy of this move, since it's basically TLC saying "look, this is close enough to Bionicle that you won't even notice that the original theme is gone," and yet it feels kind of cheap somehow.

Now, to the individual set comments:

Thunder: Probably the best of the canister set villians (except for Meltdown), even though he looks like he's only slightly more complex than the impulse sets. Decent color scheme, some cool new pieces and recolors (silver Stars feet for the win), the face is decent, and the background is superb. However, why on earth are they reusing the Thornax launcher if this is a brand new line? Taking 2009's gimmick and replacing the spiky fruit with Zamors does not qualify as innovation, and neither does putting lame stat bars on the front of the box. Oh, and they're using Ben 10 limbs in the sets... just terrific.

Xplode: This might as well be one of the worst posed sets I've ever seen in Toy Fair pictures - but at least I can mostly tell what he looks like. And he doesn't look that good. Come on - a red vorox armor on top of a 2008 makuta torso is just not good building, and it looks absolutely horrible. And while those red armor pieces look interesting, they're barely even covering his limbs or body at all. Only good thing is that, again, there's a few recolors in Mata Red. But that sure won't be enough incentive for me to buy Xplode.

Corroder: What the... this is even worse! Av-matoran limbs for arms, no chest armor, Ben 10 limbs, and extremely silly looking weapons - this might just be the most unattractive villian I have ever seen. Worse, unlike the last two sets, there's no recolors, and barely any useful pieces besides the lime head and weapons.

William Blaze: Nothing much new here, but once again I'm really wondering how anyone can actually like that new torso mold. It looks far too big on the actual set, and that emblem on the front drastically reduces its uses. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's worse than the Hordika torso, which already was a very poor piece of plastic.

Preston Stormer: Again, nothing much to say here, except that his color scheme looks terrible now, and his weapons don't look nearly as cool as I thought they did in the early photos. Come on TLC - they were fine the way they were, and now you had to change them for the worse!

Drop Ship: Recolored Glatorian helemts, Midak skyblasters, Kopaka wings and Lewa jetpacks... seriously TLC, show some originality! Still, this model aint that bad, and I have to admit that I like the concept.

Furno Bike: Again, not really that original (we already had a bike in the 2009 Bionicle sets), but the construction looks very solid, and I like that we're getting new tires.

Von Nebula: Gunmetal Hydraxon helmets, blue spikes, and mantax pincers was not what I imagined when I first heard this guy's name. But, I have to say that I'm not as displeased as some of you are - partly because this set seems more complex than most of the Hero Factory lineup, and partly because he's a haven for recolors. After all, you really can't go wrong with more parts in gunmetal, or recolored Tridax pods for that matter.

Rotor: And the best set was saved for last! Besides having lots of recolors and an interesting concept, this guy seems very solid in his design, and that head looks very awesome. This might be the only one I'll really consider buying, as he looks like he would fit right in with my 2008 sets.

[EspEth12]

Are these sets expected to come out in spring or summer?

Edited February 5, 2010 by EspEth12