Dave's Lego Exo-Force Rant: 8100-Series General Comments

     This short review covers the second year of the Exo-Force line in
general, its common gimmicks, themes and so forth.  Each set that I buy will
get its own short review.

     Last Updated: 11/24/07 - Story updated.

The Story:

     Nothing's really been revealed yet, but from the way the online comics
at http://www.lego.com/exoforce are going, it looks like the humans will lose
the battle for Sentai Mountain and be forced to retreat and retrench.  This
is good news for the line, if not for the heroes, since a happy ending might
mean a short 8100 series followed by cancellation.
     All of the packaging shows a new fortress with stout walls of yellow
stone.  The bridge defense aspect is still there, but the fortress appears to
be on the outer face of a mountain rather than on the split-face of Sentai
Mountain.  There's only one bridge connecting the golden fortress with a
shining beacon at its center to a dark and spiky fortress of the bots.
     According to the comic packed with the Blade Titan, the golden fortress
is called...the Golden City.  Well, naturally.
     Update: After a victory at the bridge in Sentai Fortress, Sensei Keiken
realizes that there's no way they can stop the next assault, and sends the
heroes up higher on Sentai Mountain to find the ancient Golden City to raid
for new technology to get an advantage.  The battle shifts there, as Sentai
Fortress is abandoned.  Both sides race for codes to unlock the secrets of
the city, but the humans manage to activate enough defensive systems to keep
the robots at bay...until Sensei betrays them all by deactivating the
defenses! 


Design Theory:

     Spindlier in general.  Even the Blade Titan is on the slender side, and
the rest of the opening sextet are more along the build of the Stealth
Hunter.  There seems to also be a drive for more diversity in design, yet at
the same time a lot of standardization in structure.  Many of the figurs can
swap arms and legs, as they use the same jointing system.
     The heroic mechs all have black, white and gray as major colors, plus
one other main color for armor and then yellow as an accent color.  The evil
mechs are black and gray with an accent color.
     

The Gimmicks:

     The lightbricks seem to be gone.  Each figure in the initial six has its
own gimmick, with the exception of Blade Titan and Cyclone Defender, who both
have spinning bladed shields.  Claw Crusher has an articulated claw, Sky
Guardian fires Zamor spheres, Shadow Crawler has the disc shooter seen on the
Mobile Defense Tank, and Iron Condor fires the Technic missile used on the
Sonic Phantom.
     Each figure has an "Exo-Code" printed on a brick (rather than beign a
sticker) that you can take to exo-force.com and enter for some benefit.
Dunno what yet, maybe just wallpaper, but if we're lucky it'll be information
like the Cyber Key Codes in Transformers.  Thing is, the code shown on the
box of the Cyclone Hunter is not the same as the code on the brick I got
inside, suggesting that these are randomly dropped into all the sets, and
aren't linked to any one figure.  The human ones are all yellow so far, and
the one that came with the Claw Crusher is orange, but all codes start with
XF.  Anyway, as of November 21, 2006, there's nowhere on the webpage to enter
the codes, so it's a mystery for now.  :)
     In-story, the codes are used to activate special weapons, and the Robots
seek them in order to improve their own weapons. 
     The Japanese stickers are still present, as are the translations on the
sticker sheets.  Well, some translations.  Not all phrases are translated.
The stickers are no longer numbered, making it a little less obvious where to
put them (since there's no longer a number pointing to the part in the
instructions to point out that it's time to put on a sticker).  Not a real
problem on the smaller sets, but could get nasty if continued on larger
ones. 
     As of Dec 2006, http://exoforce.lego.com/en-us/Codebrick/Default.aspx is
active.  The codes are unique to each of the vehicles, and unlock that mech
in your "garage".  You have to be logged in to the Lego Club to enter codes.
See individual reviews for code info.  Each profile gives a bio, technical
notes, and a short animation of the mech in action.
     In addition to the profile stuff, you can download various things for
each unlocked mech, including stickers, avatars, icons, wallpapers, iron-ons,
etc.  Needless to say, you need the right kind of printer paper for the
iron-ons and stickers.  You can also get similar images to decorate your Lego
Club member page, if you're into that sort of thing.  Finally, there's a
fighting game (flash-based, I think) in which you can fight as one of the
pilot figures (Meca-1 and three human pilots are initially available).  Very
simplistic Street Fighter sort of thing.


Packaging:

     Gone are the flip-top fronts for the $15 sets, replaced by shiny foil
enhancement.  So no techspecs, expect me to be pulling even more names and
stuff out of nowhere for my reviews.  :) The $5 price point has been replaced
by an $8 size, which lacks the foil enhancement.  The $15 boxes are 11"
(29cm) tall, 7.5" (19cm) wide and a little under 2" (5cm) deep.  The $8 boxes
are 7.5" (19cm) tall, 5.5" (14cm) wide and a little under 2" (5cm) deep.
Yes, two $8 boxes take up the same space as one $15 box, nifty.
     The main art looks to be photographs of the toy fed through a filter to
look more like CG, or maybe just really good CG models (in which case maybe
we can expect a CG cartoon direct to DVD as with Bionicle?  Hope hope).  The
pilot is shown in drawn style in the upper right, and named (including the
Devastator robot, which was not named on-package in the 7700 series).
     The back panels have a diorama scene (also CG-ish) of the first six at
the top.  The $8 ones have some comic panels at the bottom (same sequence,
showing the two small mechs fighting).  The $15 sets have comic panels
featuring the enclosed toy in the lower left, and photos of the various
features of the model in the lower right.  The box tops show the minifig
actual size, and the other sides are blank or nearly so, with brown being the
main color.


The Instructions:

     There is no alternate model shown either on the box or in the
instructions.  The $8 books include a larger and more complete version of the
comic from the box back.  The $15 books have a complete 4 page comic (same on
both all four), some have a 1 page "how to draw the face of the pilot"
feature, and there's also a CG shot of the new battleground of the Golden
City and its evil robotic counterpart.
 

Line Summary:

     All prices in U.S. dollars, approximated once I start seeing advance
pics from European catalogs as always seems to happen.  :)

     8100: Cyclone Defender.  $8 mech AT.10, piloted by Ryo and carrying a
blaster and spinning bladed shield.
     8101: Claw Crusher.  $8 mech piloted by a Devastator, with an
articulated claw and a six-barrel gun.
     8102: Blade Titan.  C.10, Takeshi's new $15 ride, with blade and shield
on one arm and long-barreled sixgun on the other.  In-story, the shield is
actually an electrified force field with 2.5 Megavolts of alternating current
running through it.
     8103: Sky Guardian.  $15 mech using a Zamor launcher from Bionicle and
and a big spatula sword.  Also has back fins like the Supernova.  Hikaru's
new mech.
     8104: Shadow Crawler.  $15 mech with three spidery legs and a prison pod
on the back that looks kinda nasty, in that there's a skeleton inside.  Uses
a disc launcher like the one on the Mobile Defense Tank.
     8105: Iron Condor.  $15 mech with a spindly winged motif and a
Devastator pilot.  Fires a rubber-tipped Technic missile like the one used by
the Sonic Phantom.

     7714: Golden Guardian.  Yes, it's a 7700-series number, but Ha-Ya-To's
Golden Guardian is a TRU exclusive in 8100-series packaging.  $25 set, at
first glance looks like it's mainly made from bits of the Grand Titan and Sky
Hunter.

     These next three larger sets are slated for August 2007 release.  I will
probably not get any of them unless I find them on deep clearance.

     8106: Aero Blaster.  Ha-Ya-To found himself a BIG mech, with massive
back thrusters (this thing is practically a GP-03 Dendrobium Gundam).  The
backpack is much bigger than the mech itself, which looks to be built like an
$8 set if you don't count the backpack.  The backpack unit includes a
launcher and trigger-grip, making this the Sonic Phantom of the assortment.
$29.99 price point.
     8107: Sentai Golden Tower.  The central tower of the Golden City, with
the shaft of light at the top (done with golden fin pieces).  Being attacked
by a medium flying vehicle.  $49.99 price point.  Comes with Hitomi and a
Devastator.  Hitomi is a new female pilot, and seems to be getting stuck with
Ha-Ya-To's old job of existing only in bigger sets.  Picked this up on
clearance for $12.48.  :)
     8108: Mobile Devastator.  Big four-wheeled Robot assault vehicle
carrying Meca One and several Devastators and Iron Drones (9 total robots),
fighting a $15-size mech piloted by Ryo (the "Blazing Falcon").  There also
seem to be some small flying craft that parasite to the assault vehicle.
$89.99 price point.  It got a lot of advertising time in late 2007.

     The 2007 line was pretty short overall, wrapping up with a Target
Exclusive that goes back to the 7700 numbers, but is also clearly part of the
8100 series in design.

     7721: Combat Crawler X2.  Six-legged spidery crawler with a big cannon
on its back, it carries a $15-size Devastator-piloted robot on its front end.
The mech has claws like the Iron Condor, but on both hands, and has noe major
weapon of its own.  An Iron Drone mans the main gun.  Comes with Ryo on a
teeny little flying craft ("strike flyer") built around a Technic missile
launcher.  $49.99, exclusive to Target or Lego's catalog/online sales.

     Dave Van Domelen, notes the Sentai Warriors got new outfits, but the
robots didn't.