Dave's Kre-O Rant: Basic Wave 1 Optimus Prime (Semitractor) Bumblebee (Sportscar) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/KREO/Basic1 Kre-O is Hasbro's latest attempt to get in on the building brick market, having let enough time pass that they figure (hope?) everyone's forgotten Built To Rule. BTR had a certain charm to it, I'll admit, but the big core pieces really hurt most of the designs. So this time they've gone for a fairly "vanilla" approach. CAPSULES Optimus Prime: A generally good building kit for its size. The leg joints on the robot mode are iffy, though, and I have some worries about breakage if you go back and forth between modes. Recommended. $8 price point. Bumblebee: Another generally good kit, although about a fifth of the pieces aren't even used in the vehicle mode, which is kinda inelegant. The robot mode as-designed is a bit iffy, but I found an improved model. Recommended. $8 price point. RANTS Build Technique: Kre-Os abandon the idea of a transforming final model, instead having you build each form separately from a common pool of pieces. In general, there's parts left over in either mode. Pieces are generally not pre-printed, they include stickers to add details like faction symbols or stripes. The stickers are paper rather than plastic, they don't pull up and reposition gracefully (I had to redo one of Bumblebee's because the instructions didn't match the sticker size, and it tore a little). Brick Quality: The first thing that struck me was that the tires are rigid plastic. No rubberized pieces like Lego uses, right off making these feel like cheapo knockoff bricks like you'd find at a dollar store. And it's not like the line lacks rubberized plastic, as the heads are rubbery. Otherwise, the bricks feel fairly solid. They fit together very snugly. Instead of a logo imprinted on the studs like Lego does, they left one stud per piece (or more) hollow, a ring rather than a disc. The O in Kre-O, I guess. Or...OXFORD. Yep, digging around some, clued in by the print on Bumblebee's hubs, reveals that Oxford is a brick company that makes a lot of stuff that shows up on eBay, and I can see several of their distinctive brick styles in these sets. Okay, this is probably not a big revelation, especially since the Oxford logo is on the box, but who scrutinizes the legalese parts anyway? The ball and socket joint bricks coat the ball part in a slightly softer plastic to stiffen them up. It's a decent compromise between Lego's practice of just making sure the tolerances are good, and Mega Bloks's little soft plastic insert shims. The joints can bend about 30 degrees to either side, 90 degrees forwards or backwards. At least in the Basics, these joints are restricted to the legs, with arms using horizontal hinge pieces (the type that folds up into a 2x2 thin brick with a semicircular bulge on one side where the hinge is). I'm always a little leery of softer plastics, since they can get crumbly with age, but at least for now the joints work very well and strike me as strong enough to support much larger models. Concept: Based on the online ads and a few other sources, Kre-O Transformers exist in their own setting, in which they're all aware they're built from bricks. http://www.hasbro.com/kre-o/en_US/discover/kreons/ has bio notes for the Kreons, but not for the Kre-o sets. Here's the bio notes for Optimus Prime and Bumblebee Kreons, although the sets reviewed here do not come with the Kreon figures: KREON: OPTIMUS PRIME I am OPTIMUS PRIME. I do not care for the hijinks of the other KREON robots. It is our responsibility to ensure that all brick-made beings are able to live in freedom. I do not have time for pranks. Likes: Sending BUMBLEBEE on missions so I can get some work done instead of worrying about whose bricks he'll rearrange next. Big Plan: To defeat the DECEPTICONS and retire somewhere an idling truck will be accepted. Protoform Pet: I once had a cyberdog named Magnus. He was great. KREON: BUMBLEBEE 'Sup? I'm Bumblebee, and I'm just about the coolest KREON character you'll ever meet. When I'm not punking the other AUTOBOTS, I like to spend my time cruising the freeway at top speed, with frequent breaks to pound on the DECEPTICONS. Hobbies: Pranking PROWL and speeding! Favorite Hangout: Anywhere there are lots of humans and loud music! Big Plan: To form a block-rockin' band. And also learn how to brick- surf. Packaging: Reclosable boxes made from fairly thin cardstock with no windows. At this Basic size, they're structurally adequate, but even though the larger boxes move to corrugated cardboard they're a little wobbly. The biggest of the boxes have handles. Unlike Lego boxes that are glued closed at this size, they're held shut by a circular clear sticker. Slitting that lets you open the box, and it holds shut okay without the sticker. Basic boxes are 6" (15cm) wide, 5" (12.5cm) tall and 1.75" (4cm) deep. The front shows photos of both modes, with the Kre-O logo and motto "Create it." A gold foil sticker on the front proclaims that the set "Works with leading brands!" In other words, Lego. The top panel has the logo, the left has an "actual size" brick picture and the legalese. The right side has the character name, the bottom has UPC and co-sells. The back has essentially the same picture as the front, but with the background image faded almost all the way to white Inside, the instructions are loose and a bit too big to lie flat in the box. The pieces are in two or more baggies, and the sticker sheet is loose. Instructions: Like Lego instructions (no "colored studs" trick like Mega Bloks use), but very verbose. Each step involves only a couple of pieces at a time, where Lego tends to be a little more info-dense. This means you may actually be significantly slowed down by the need to turn pages! Also, all the instructions are currently available online, which is nice (Lego does this too, but often doesn't have them up in a timely manner). The online versions include parts checklists, which are missing from the print editions. AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME Pieces: 90 Modes: Robot (89 pieces), Truck (86 pieces) Influences: Classics Vehicle Mode: When constructing it, there's some fairly clever use of the robot mode pieces, such as putting the single-axle pieces inside the core of the truck as structural bricks. The end result looks kind of like it *should* transform, while still being fairly tightly put together. The only leftover parts are the head/neck pieces and two of the hinges. And the hinges can easily go on the underside, although there's no real way to hide the head. Still, pretty efficient. 4.5" (11.5cm) long, 1.75" (4.5cm) wide and 3" (7cm) tall when assembled, it will fit inside the box along with the instructions. This is probably closest to the Classics Prime vehicle mode, with the cabover style and the aerodynamic cowling on the roof. The cab is mostly red bricks, with opaque black for the main windshield. The blue bricks are almost entirely confined to the chunk on the back made up of the boot pieces, with a little on the flanks. Light gray is used on the bumper/grille, some stripes on the side (made by layering) and the headache rack/smokestacks. The wheels are black with gunmetal hubs, and a little black piece holds the headache rack together. An oval 2x1 clear red brick acts as the combined taillights. A lone white stud-less piece is used for the license plate on front, with an Optimus Prime name sticker. Additional stickers are lights on the aerodynamic cowling on the roof, black side windows, black on gray Autobot symbols on the fuel tanks, headlights, and some vents on the toe pieces. It rolls well, at least during early assemblies. Dunno if the axles will start to get damaged from repeated removal/reattachment. It looks a bit narrow, especially sitting next to Bumblebee. "Transformation": Well, you take it apart and put it back together, although a few pieces (the ball joint connections, for instance) can stay connected to each other. One really worrisome point, though, is that four of the wheels have to come off the dual-axle pieces and go onto the single-axle pieces for mounting on the legs. Given how hard it is to get the wheels on the axles in the first place, this is a problem even if you don't also have the worry that the axles will snap. And it takes a LOT of force to get them back off the axles. The dual-axle pieces hide in the small of the back, and there's only one piece not used for the robot mode: the 10x2 plank that's the spine of vehicle mode. I suppose robot mode can hold it as a beat-down stick. It can also just be stock on the back using the smokestack pieces as connectors. Robot Mode: Well, this mode won't fit in the box in one piece, you'll have to pop off the legs at the hips. It's kind of lanky, and the position of the ball joints for the hips makes his proportions look wonky. If you accept that his license plate is a belt buckle, though, the proportions are generally okay but his hip joints are then almost down at mid-thigh. 6.25" (16cm) tall and in the fairly standard Optimus Prime colors, although his chest is a single black window rather than a divided blue one. He ends up with two wheels on each boot and a pair on his butt, and short smokestacks over his shoulders. There's no real hands, but gray pieces from his front bumper make acceptable substitutes at this scale. The head is molded from rubbery blue plastic with silver paint on the faceplate and forehead, plus light blue eyes. The head is on a ball joint, mostly for turning but able to wiggle up and down a little. The shoulder hinges lift to the sides, but don't rotate. The elbows will bend double. The hips are ball joints that mostly move forward and back, but the placement of the joints reminds me of some of the Super SCF figures...yeah, the legs can move, but they look bad in anything but straight down poses. The ankles are also ball joints. Overall: Well, he's skinny in both modes, but the set does a good job of using most of the pieces in each form. Numerous clever building tricks are used rather than relying on specialized pieces made for the line (the head is really the only thing not present in existing Oxford sets). The articulation isn't a lot better than G1 Optimus Prime, but this is a "proper" brick building kit rather than a Bionicle-clone so I'm okay with that. Really, my only serious problem with this kit is how you have to pop the wheels off their axles to switch modes. And you could probably just make a wider- wheelbase vehicle mode leaving the wheels on their robot mode axles and replacing a couple of the single-axle pieces with borrowed 2x2 flats from some other set (although it won't fit in the box if you do that). AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE Pieces: 75 Modes: Robot (74 pieces), Car (60 pieces) Influences: Classics, Movie Vehicle Mode: Unlike Prime, this one leaves a LOT of pieces out. It doesn't even try to find a place for the robot legs, or the sideways hinge pieces. You could almost build a "head on legs" bot from the leftovers. In fact...yes, you can. It's even fairly stable. 4" (10cm) long, 2" (5cm) wide and 1.75" (4.5cm) tall, it will also fit into the box along with the instructions (and the leftover bits). The movie-style stripes combine with a front two thirds that are pretty Classics Bumblebee and a rear window and spoiler that don't really go with any version before this (movie-style if you're being VERY generous). The underside and bumpers are black bricks, the windows are smoky clear bricks, and most of the rest of the bricks are yellow. The wheels are black with yellow hubs of a style I've seen on a few dollar store sets that are actually KNOCKOFFS of Oxford Bricks, and that's like meta-knockoffy. The word "OXFORD" is molded into the hub pieces. The taillights are more of those oval clear red pieces, and the rear license plate is another white stud-less piece. There's an odd 1x4 thin piece made of red plastic that's not visible in this mode unless you look through the window really carefully, and it's not really visible in robot mode either, so I'm not sure why it's red and not black or yellow. The stripe stickers are too small. They don't match up with the instructions, or cover enough space, at least for the stripes. You might want to make your own out of electrical tape or something. On the plus side, they provided four of the smaller stripe pieces for the spoiler, you only need two, but I screwed one up the first time and tore it when trying to move it, so the spares were appreciated. The other stickers are a red on yellow Autobot symbol for the roof, and the Bumblebee license plate. Pretty stable, rolls as well as one could hope from non-rubber tires. "Transformation": Bumblebee does have one leg up on Prime here, in that you don't need to remove the wheels from their axles. But despite leaving out SO many pieces in vehicle mode, it doesn't manage to use all of the parts in robot mode either. One of the bumper cores is left over, although it's easy enough to just stick it on his butt. I'm kind of surprised the instructions didn't find a spot for it, really. Robot Mode: Like Prime, a little too big to fit in the box, but in this case it's not height but thickness. Popping the wheels off his back will narrow the robot mode enough to fit in the box, though. Since they set out to make this figure shorter than Prime, the proportions don't look as odd as on Prime. Still a bit of a "longtorso" issue, but it's not as bad here. 5" (13cm) tall with pretty much the same articulation as Optimus, but the shoulder hinges are placed a little differently and it looks worse than Prime when lifting the arms above horizontal. The forearms are much less substantial, really just being 2x4 flats with bumper pieces stuck on them. I found that using the angled pieces on the backpack to make fists (and using the leftover bumper piece to hold the wheels on back) looks better. See, that's one of the benefits of a brick-built toy...you don't need special tools to tweak the design. Just move the bricks. http://www.dvandom.com/images/kreobeemod.JPG for my version. Overall: I am disappointed by the large number of unused pieces in vehicle mode, especially compared to how Prime can hold everything but the robot head. But the robot mode is pretty nice, especially with the modifications I figured out. Dave Van Domelen, doesn't plan to get the really big sets, unless they hit deep clearance, but he rarely gets big Lego sets either.