Lego Lord Of The Rings Minifigs, on display at London Toy Fair. Photos by Nathan Barry
Toy Fair season is upon us now, with the London one running this week, Nuremberg starting next week and finally the biggie in New York on February 12th. I went for my first time as “press” and here are my favorite things from around the exhibition floor.
1. Lego
I’ll be honest here, I could have written this entire post about all the cool stuff Lego has coming our way this year, and theirs was the only stand I’d actually booked a slot to look around. Talk about a kid in a candy store!
Hulk and Captain America Minifigs
First up was the Super Heroes section, which featured the new Batman sets we already knew about and also a Superman / Wonder Woman set. On the other half of this room were some brand new Marvel sets, all tied in to this summer’s Avengers movie. The five sets (out in April) feature Captain America’s Avenging Cycle, Wolverine’s Chopper Showdown with Magento and Deadpool (Wolverine’s claws are a nice touch here), Loki’s Cosmic Cube Escape with Hawkeye and Iron Man, Hulk’s Hellcarrier Breakout with an ace Hulk jumbo-fig as well as Hawkeye, Loki and Thor and finally a huge Quinjet Aerial Battle pack with Black Window, Thor and Loki and Iron Man.
The next room had a new line launching in time for Halloween: Monster Fighters. The fighters are all 1920s/30s styled figures in art deco/steampunky vehicles and the monsters are the classics: vampires, werewolves, ghosts, etc. Highlights of the range include Dracula’s amazing Hot Rod Hearse, Dr. Frankenstein’s Lab complete with operating table, and a flying ghost train.
The Star Wars section had a ton of great new sets for the summer, including a proper minifig scale X-Wing and a Tie Fighter, an escape pod from the Tantive IV, a Gungan sub (with an incredible minifig of Queen Amidala in full royal garb), a massive model of General Grevious’ flagship (the Invisible Hand or maybe the Malevolence), and huge set of Jabba’s Palace (complete with Salacious Crumb!). Also out this year is a new collectible range, Star Wars Planets — the hook here being that all the pieces come in a two halves of a planet. They include a unique minifig and the model is of a vehicle from that planet, a fighter from Naboo, a Pod Racer from Tatooine etc. After you assemble the model, you can hang the planet spheres form your ceiling and make your own galaxy far, far away. And if you loved last year’s advent calendar, then you’re in luck again this year.
Of course the details everyone wants are on the new Lord of the Rings license and I can safely say that if you love Lego and LotR, then you won’t be disappointed. The image at the top of this post shows the whole Fellowship in minifig form and they look fantastic. Even though these are obviously renders and not photos, I can tell you that the level of detail in the minifigs is incredible, right down to the painting of the ears — which are actually on the hairpieces for the goblins, orcs, elves, etc. The Precious is present in all its shiny glory, as is its former bearer Gollum. There are seven sets in the first wave, all available in August:
- Gandalf Arrives – featuring Gandalf on his horse and cart and Frodo.
- Shelob Attacks – the giant spider tries to eat Sam and Frodo, encouraged by Gollum
- Attack on Weathertop – Merry, Frodo and Aragon battle two Nazgul Ringwraiths (the horses are new moulds and can rear up now)
- The Mines of Moria – A huge set featuring Pippin, Gimli, Legolas, Boromir, goblins, skeletons and a cave troll
- The Battle of Helm’s Deep – another huge, double-sided set with Aragon, Gimli, Legolas, Theoden, and five Uruk-hai
- Uruk-hai Army – with four Uruk-hai, a Rohirrim Soldier and a Rider Of Rohan, which can easily be joined to the Helm’s Deep set
- Orc Forge – five mean looking orcs forging weapons for the army
There are some great little touches in all of them, which I won’t spoil for you now. I hope we’ll eventually get a Saruman minifig so he can battle a Count Dooku one, Lee vs. Lee style!
Last, but by no means least, I ended up in the Friends section. Opinions on this new range have been very divided, but at the end of the day, it’s selling really well — I was told it’s accounted for around 10% of all Lego sales since its launch. My daughter loves it and spent most of her Christmas money on four sets, so she was very excited when I brought her home a freebie pen with the logo on it — hey, she’s only five! For the second half of the year there’s another batch of about eight sets planned. Olivia, she of the inventor’s workshop fame, loses a bit of geek-cred by having a speedboat and beach lounger set, Mia gains some cool by revealing that she’s a drummer, and Andrea goes all fluffy with her bunny hutch. Two of the larger sets both feature horses in a big way, one with a campervan (though not as cool as the VW one) and horse trailer, and the biggest set being a show-jumping weekend camp, complete with bunk beds and a little toilet! The fabulous new colors are also being rolled out in the revamped “Pink Brick” boxes too. I’m sure these will continue to divide the audience and sell really well too. Oh, and they’ll also be an advent calendar for them, which is great as that means we won’t be fighting over one here!
Inflatable RC R2D2
2. Jumbo Inflatable R2D2 from Bladez Toys
Princess Leia herself was on hand to demonstrate this incredibly fun RC R2D2 unit. The motors in the base unit weigh the inflatable top half down perfectly so he never falls over and can always right himself should your driving skills send him down some steps. The £40 RC unit is tri-band so you’ll be able to run three together when the range is expanded later in the year. Coming up are Yoda, Vader, Boba, Trooper and AT-AT variations, although I can’t imagine any of them moving around as much ‘in character’ as R2 does. Maybe if they did a mouse droid?
3. iPieces from Jumbo Games
This is an interesting fusion of apps and board games. There are four packs of these molded play pieces covering four different games; Snakes and Ladders, Air Hockey, Game of Goose and a Fishing game. Their respective apps are free from the App Store and in reality the ‘iPawns’ included in each pack will work with any of the apps, which is handy as the £10 RRP is a bit pricey for what you get. I was given a set of the Snakes and Ladders
iPieces Snakes and Ladders
Each time the game is started up, the ladders are snakes are randomly positioned and the snakes have a little animated and hissing sound effect attached to them. A roll of the on-screen dice and you’re away up the grid. If you land on a ladder square you’re prompted to place the ladder piece on the screen and move your iPawn to the top, if you land on a snake, it animates as you slide your iPawn down its back. It’s a nice concept, but some of the apps still seem like Beta versions. The Snakes and Ladders doesn’t keep track of the pieces or whose turn it is, just a fanfare when the Finish square is touched — which you can activate at any point and this also finishes the game which could be annoying if touched accidentally.
All the games are fun to play for 5 or 10 minutes — especially the Air Hockey, where the act of physically holding something lends it a slightly more real feel to it than just placing your finger on the screen.
Retro Star Wars Shopper by Half Moon Bay
4. Retro styled Sci-Fi merchandise
Half Moon Bay had a great little stand full of fantastic geek-branded merchandise, not just from the Star Wars universe, but also some of our other beloved franchises including Star Trek, Marvel and DC. The thing that they all have in common is that they reject the modern interpretation of the characters and designs and go with the original artworks from back in the day. My favorites have to be these tote bags featuring some of Ralph MacQuarrie’s concept art of Luke Starkiller (love that logo) and The “Guerre Stellari” poster. I wish these guys had a T-Shirt license.
5. Bandai’s AR enhanced packaging
The Japanese toy giant has partnered with app developer Aurasma to make their packaging come to life. If you have the free app installed, you can point the camera at the box art for certain Thundercats, Power Rangers and Ben 10 products and the ‘Auras’ they create will come to life on your screen, or show you a nice TV advert with built in links to online stores! Better to watch the video for this one.
The Sharker
6. Sharker surf/skate board hybrid
I was intrigued by the look of this as I walked by one of the smaller stands, although it might just have been the day-glo colors that caught my eye. The shape of the board it obviously modeled after a surfboard, but with the front trucks of the skateboard replaced by an angled caster wheel. When I first stood on it, it seemed incredibly unstable. I put my right foot on, facing forwards, with my left ready to kick off. Luckily before I could sprain my ankle I was given a demo on the correct way to ride it. Standing sideways on you weave along without needing to kick at all. I’m sure with a bit more practice I could have mastered it, but I didn’t want to fall off in front of everyone!
App Arena prototype from Apptoyz
7. Apptoyz add ons and AR games
Apptoyz had a nice crowd on their stand playing with their wares. They have a simple D-pad A/B button rubber overlay that sticks to your iOS or Android device and controls the action in a Space Invaders clone game. More exciting was the gun accessory, which features a holder for your phone and two triggers that tap the screen for you when you pull them. The game for this shows little aliens that you need to zap, overlaid onto the camera’s view and works with the gyroscopes to enable 360 degree gameplay.
Also on show was some kind of Karaoke mic attachment, a Mario Kart-esque steering wheel and four-player quiz stand for the iPad, but by far the most interesting was the App Arena. They sold it to me with the line, “remember the 3D hologram chess in Star Wars…” and showed me a regular chess board with an iPad 2 in a stand in front of it, warning me that it was still very much in development. On the chess board was a set of crude red and blue counters, but when viewed on the iPad screen they came alive as rough 3D models that walk between the squares after the real counters are moved. When the checker pieces are taken, one monster head butts or throws the other to the ground. Could be really good fun when they finish up the software, especially if they secure some decent licenses.
The Tiny Bike
8. Tinybike balance bike
These have been around for a while, but I’ve included them here because I love the design of the Tiny Bike
Minifig Speech Bubble Kit
9. Lego Minifig speech bubbles from Funtastic
Great fun, especially if you’re doing a certain project from the first GeekDad book, these little speech, thought and exclamation bubbles fit on the necks of your minifigs and hover behind them. The pack provides a selection of pre-printed words and some blank bubbles for you to write your own on.
Makedo Robot
10. Makedo’s ace robot
We’ve mentioned Makedo’s excellent system before here on GeekDad, but this Robot was certainly the coolest thing I’ve seen made from old junk, held together with their innovative clips and hinges. If you turn the big key at the side the little heart beats too. Recycled Robots have feelings too, you know. They were showing their new packs which come with a sticker sheet to enhance the final product, in addition to the a bag of clips — chairs and sofas for the doll’s house kit and controls panels for the robot kit.
And the worst thing I saw there? Well, that has to be moldable chocolate. Imagine rolling chocolate around in your hands for a while before eating it? Yuk!
See some more of my photos over on Flickr
