Please use our links: LEGO.com • Amazon
Recent discussions • Categories • Privacy Policy • Brickset.com
Brickset.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, the Amazon.com.ca, Inc. Associates Program and the Amazon EU Associates Programme, which are affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Comments
and there's not anything in there that they like?
If that's the case, then get a creative bucket and get designing.
> No new Pirates, the Castle theme is just a warmed-over theme
I don't really understand what that means. Do you think pirates would be done any different to castle if there were new pirates sets?
Chima is making a valiant effort to follow in Ninjago's footsteps (how successful it is will remain to be seen, but it certainly hasn't caught on to the same degree). Still, its sets have a lovely balance of brick-sculpture and exciting play features.
LEGO City is also doing remarkably well. LEGO City Undercover was a heavily-promoted and favorably-reviewed title for the Nintendo Wii U and 3DS, and it is remarkable to see just how well TT Games did at crafting an iconic LEGO game with compelling characters, even without an existing franchise or storyline to rely on as a backbone. As far as sets are concerned, I'm always impressed to see what LEGO City has to offer, and for the past few years the designers have done a remarkable job incorporating as much building and play value into LEGO City as you would get in a sci-fi or action theme. I don't expect to see kids wearing Chase McCain T-shirts everywhere in the near future, but certainly LEGO City is more than just "baseline" LEGO.
LEGO Friends has also performed phenomenally, and stands out from the crowd with its emphasis on complete and harmoniously-furnished interiors. This year's #41015 Dolphin Cruiser is a masterpiece that I hope to acquire at some point. My younger brother has #41005 Heartlake High, which is another lovely design.
One of my personal favorite themes, Hero Factory, has been diminishing a bit as far as story media is concerned, but it's continued to deliver fantastic action figure set designs. I have had so much fun with #44009 Dragon Bolt that I can't bear to take him apart, though many of my other sets have been disassembled for MOCing resources. I spend a lot of time building with Hero Factory parts. The new building system is as therapeutic as it is versatile.
And the basic brick buckets that the general public myopically thinks of as "regular LEGO" are still around, and still offering lots of play value. #10662 and #10664 both offer plenty of that kind of play for people of all ages who are tired of character-driven sets and want to enjoy LEGO purely as a creative medium.
If you want non-character-driven sets but don't want to reduce building opportunities to basic multicolored bricks, Master Builder Academy offers a fantastic experience that is as fun as it is informative. Each kit is designed to teach you LEGO building tips and tricks as well as challenge you creatively to build within a number of different genres. Unfortunately, it's still exclusive to the United States, but I hope we'll see that change fairly soon.
And next year, LEGO is continuing to explore new ideas with the Mixels series of zany brick-built critters. I am very intrigued by their new joint pieces and can't wait until I can experiment with them both in real life and digitally. So it's not like LEGO is caught in a rut by any means. They're still finding new ways to surprise us, even with the financial success their current ongoing themes have had. So overall, I think LEGO is on a strong upward path, and I don't expect that to change in the foreseeable future.
Modular Buildings are very appealing to me from day one but it takes time to save up for one, that's why I only have Pet Shop #10218 but now I will be adding the rest to my collection.
Other sets do occasionally catch my eye but I do say away from City, Ninjago, Chima, TMNT as the builds and display value gets beaten by the Lego Exclusives by far :D
If Pirates were released next year, even if their sets were very similar to the recent/old pirates, that would be ok, because there haven't been other pirates for what, 4 years? They would still be 'new'.
Maybe the mid-year wave will be better, but thus far 2014 looks like a money saving year for me - except the extra I'll be shelling out on full-price exclusives of course