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

     This short review covers the third 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: 12/21/07 - Working on it.

The Story:

     At the end of the Golden City comic, the Mobile Devastator shows up,
Hitomi gets to pilot the Blazing Falcon against it (despite the toy coming
with Ryo), and gets swatted down immediately.  D'oh.  It's revealed that the
traitorous Sensei Keiken was actually a Meca-One "clone" (a golden bot who
doesn't claim to actually be M-1) in disguise...M-1 and his copies are immune
to the plot device jamming field.  The robots are driven off, but now it's
necessary to save the REAL Sensei Keiken!
     And so, it's into the Deep Jungle to find Keiken.
     There's no comics in the packaging, not even single-page ones.

Design Theory:

     Human mechs seem to focus on having big melee weapons for hacking
through the jungle, while the Robots have gone in for animalistic designs.
All the human mechs have some animal theme to them, but they're still
bipedal (although one of the merged forms is a quaddie).  All the base form
Robot mechs are non-bipedal, but some of the combined versions are bipeds. 
     Robot mechs still use tenatium armor, although it's sometimes called
tentatium in the online notes.  Humans still use zylium.


The Gimmicks:

     The unifying gimmick this time around is the weapon partner, a little
robot that attaches to the main mech as a weapon.  No light bricks, no code
bricks, although there seems to be a code on the sticker sheets that does the
same job as the code bricks.
     Official combinations are back (pics scanned from catalog):
     http://www.dvandom.com/images/djcombo1.JPG
     http://www.dvandom.com/images/djcombo2.JPG
     http://www.dvandom.com/images/djcombo3.JPG
     http://www.dvandom.com/images/djcombo4.JPG


Packaging:

     Everything is covered in jungle imagery.  The $15 sets also have cut-out
parts with a misty junglescape piece of cardboard behind them, to give an
illusion of depth.  The $8 sets and $20+ sets don't have this gimmick.  Same
general box sizes as before.
     Several of the sets call for a new type of connector piece that looks
kinda like combining three smaller pieces, and these come with separate black
and white warning sheets pointing out that you shouldn't mistake the one for
the other.  Or, as I found when actually trying to build, they really mean
that these new pieces don't exist, and you need to combine the existing
pieces.  Sometimes, I wish Lego would break down and USE WORDS IN THEIR
INSTRUCTIONS.  It's not like there isn't plenty of room on these extra sheets
to say "the following pieces do not exist, you'll have to make substitutes"
in 12-20 languages.


The Instructions:

     The larger sets continue to use the numbered bag system to make it
easier to build a part at a time.  Oddly, the smaller sets have two
instruction booklets...a single small one isn't enough, the next size up is
too big for the box, and they didn't want to refit the printers to make a
size in between.
     The back of every box shows a combination of the toy you buy with one
other set, with instructions promised for online.  The partner drones also
combine to make bigger drones.
     The instructions for 8115 have some extra pages available, so they
included pictures of all the other toys in the first wave, with drone details
for all but the $8 sets.


Line Summary:

     Annoyingly, Toys R Us is either playing "gouge people while the
temporary exclusivity holds" or they're permanently raising prices.  The $8
sets are $10 and the $15 sets are $20 at TRU, although 8117 may really be a
$20 set. 

     8111: River Dragon - One of the $8 pricepoint mechs, piloted by Ha-Ya-To
(his first cheap unit).  The entire right arm pops off to be a companion bot.
Combines with Chameleon Hunter to make a quadmech.
     8112: Battle Arachnoid - As the name implies, this Robot-piloted $8
mech has a spidery design.  Its mouthparts pop off as a drone and the cockpit
can pop off as a flyer.  Early catalogs listed it as the Arachnoid Stalker.
Combines with Dark Panther to make a scorpion mech. 
     8113: Assault Tiger - Takeshi gets a giant buzzsaw and a chainsaw-armed
partner bot on this $15 mech.  Combines with Chameleon Hunter to make a
larger bipedal mech.
     8114: Chameleon Hunter - Hikaru continues to get flying mechs, this one
is green and black with a Mantis motif.  Mini-Robot becomes a set of claws on
the right arm.  Can combine with either River Dragon or Assault Tiger.  $15
price point.
     8115: Dark Panther - Quadrupedal Robot mech with a Devastator pilot and
two Iron Drone gunners.  A spider drone just sort of clings to its back.
Combines with Storm Lasher into a bipedal mech or Arachnid Stalker into a
scorpion mech.  $15 price point.
     8116: Planned, but cancelled because it didn't test well.
     8117: Storm Lasher - Flying ant meets ducted fan VTOL, piloted by an
Iron Drone.  Partner is bee-like, and as with Dark Panther, just sort of
hangs on the main vehicle rather than turning into an integrated piece.
Combines with Dark Panther into a bipedal mech.  I'm pretty sure this is
meant to be a $20 price point.
     8118: Hybrid Rescue Tank - Once again, Ryo gets demoted to non-mech
status in another tank.  This one has treads on the front and a big wheel on
the back.  The drone becomes a sort of mini-flyer unit.  It comes with a
Sensei Keiken to rescue.  $30 price point.

     In 8111-8118 there's no sign of Hitomi, I guess she gets left behind to
guard the city while the boys dash off to save her father.  There's also no
Meca-One, so both will likely show up in the later big sets.

     Dave Van Domelen, expects the online comic will update soon.