I remember building these as a child. VCRs and DVDs and channel 3 and home phones have all come and gone, but this is the first time something has made me feel older.
I also remember building these as a child, and as disturbing as it may sound, I distinctively remember the taste of the rubber-wheels as they were a favorite to chew.
It blows my mind how bad Lego is at licensing good video games. The few attempts they've done have been atrociously bad, and the entire Lego system is perfectly suited to being a game. Just make Minecraft with Lego blocks, throw in multiplayer, and you'd have one of the biggest games out there. Instead we get these weird story games with very little of what makes Lego so great (building, creativity, etc), or licensed superhero games where the graphics are based on Lego and the building is basically "press a button and your character builds a predefined thing".
Lego is the best at their core business, creating building blocks and toys. Maybe it is due to a fact that I'm not a kid anymore but I'm not a fan of Lego movies/cartoons.
well the Lego movies are pretty well received, objectively, so id say more than a "maybe." i was personally really impressed with the movies, and i wasnt in their target demo
i dont know much about the cartoons but anecdotally they seem to be popular with their intended audience. after all their ninjago line has been running for ages. certainly their core business is the bread and butter, but i think Lego actually does a pretty good job with their side ventures (missing a minecraft-type opportunity aside)
I've read an article making that exact point. I've tried finding it but no luck.
Essentially point was that Lego was scared of building/allowing a game that allowed "free blocks" as their whole business was selling blocks for money. It seems very short sighted but as any legacy business they tend to fall into that trap.
This is why they allowed various games that utilize block as a art style, but there were not many building games.
I think something like the Games Workshop/Warhammer 40k approach would work well here [1]. Lego has enough settings/worlds to hand off to different studios, and you have all the high-profile partnerships (like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel) that you can hand to the successful teams.
Lego Star Wars is fun, but is exactly the same game as all the other Lego tie-in games.
It exists, it's called Lego Worlds [1] but honestly, it's pretty complex to play with and with a lot of caveats (water management is terrible).
However, I must acknowledge that the game is impressively fluid when you know that every brick in the world is a real (modifiable, breakable ...) brick.
I have a 3 year old, who has a 101-year old great grandmother from my wife’s side. Had 4 generations simultaneously playing with classic Lego a month ago. This toy just sparks creativity with no measures of wrongness. I’m going to put off buying new sets as long as I can. New Lego, get off my lawn.
Indeed. My grandson has a ton of lego, and the "old" stuff (you know, brick-shaped bricks) is all used in his various creations. So when we go to play together, he has a bin of "available" parts, except they're all weird one-offs that don't have studs on top. Once you use one on something, well, that's it, no building above that. Really frustrating, and amazingly hard to put even something really basic together.
It's a weird balance between variety and uniformity. The whole key to Lego is that you can connect just about every piece to every other piece, either directly or indirectly. It's a system, not just a toy. But at the same time Lego tries very hard to put something unique in their new sets so that you can't make the design unless you buy the official set (or the one unique part at some ridiculous mark-up through set breakers).
The trick then lies in being able to simulate the unique pieces with assemblies of ordinary pieces or pieces that you already have (not always possible), and to use those unique pieces that you do have in new and creative ways to start treating them as ordinary Lego. Some builders have taken this to an entirely new level, for instance in this castle there are all kinds of bits that have been used in ways that they were definitely not intended to achieve a novel effect:
Good points. I’m not entirely bothered with the current state of affairs re: lego variety and uniformity. I think both people who enjoy building from scratch and those who enjoy sets can be satisfied with the current Lego offerings.
What I intensely dislike is people putting down other people just because they enjoy a _toy_ (something meant to elicit sharing and enjoyment) in a different way than theirs.
Why do you intensely dislike words on a website? I have an opinion about a toy, I’m not intensely disliking people who use it differently. I said nothing about those people. When she’s older, we might be those people. Play the Lego blocks, not the man.
Good question. It’s because it relates to previous, real life experiences when people have tried to gatekeep things from me, or passed judgement on me for doing something “different” when the subject at hand was completely inconsequential, like whether I play with lego sets or not.
Sorry, didn’t mean to do that. I was honestly self-mocking in how it needs to be done how I did it, obviously the innovation allows so many more ways to play.
Another friend’s wife buys the more complicated sets and admits they’re actually for her, not for her kids. All good, they’ll grow into it :)
Hey, this was a very good conversation by Internet standards :) Thanks for trying to understand where I was coming from. I should have done the same perhaps, I totally missed the self deprecation in your original comment.
Text is such a poor substitute for real life conversations... but on the other hand we never would have interacted if it wasn't for this "text". Sometimes I feel so ambivalent about the Internet...
Yeah that’s why I’m being partly tongue in cheek. As a kid I enjoyed both models and Lego. Now they’re combined. I’m very sure it’s a killer profit driver, you need tons of sets and enthusiasts want the Death Star. Go wild. It’s just less creative, more exacting, can’t as easily have the experience we all had together. Get a set of blocks and you almost can’t stop yourself from clicking stuff together.
A friend got sets for her 4 year old. She builds them, kid breaks them. She builds them, kid breaks them. She is bored with building them, but it’s a jet (or whatever) and kid wants the jet, so…she builds them. She now wants the classic sets so the kid can play with the toy instead of the built model.
Friend’s kid just put lights on his millennium falcon. Awesome! I’m not trying to be the Lego police. It’s just a different toy.
Sorry, but I'm going to have to report the great grandmother on the wife's side to the Lego police. The boxes clearly state ages 4-99. wee ooo weee ooo
I used to have cars like this back in 80s.:) We didn't have many set but they were so, fun. Memories... I have some new sets but I don't play so much with Lego this days. I've even bought few books to get ideas what could I do with them but I don't have time to, try things out:(
The first birthday present I remember was a Lego fire truck. I was three at the time.
I wish current Lego sets were as simple and “blocky” as the ones from the 80s. Some of it is nostalgia, but some is the worry that Lego keeps steering away from the Classic and basic mindset that made it so iconic.
Nowadays looks more like you buy a set to follow the instructions and build it to stay on the shelf while the old sets were more like build what you can and want and play with it but it might be just our age.
I think it's probably just our age. My 6 year old is into Lego and he likes both: making an elaborate set, then after he's bored with it adding the parts to his box of bits and making baroque flying vehicles and rickety 'rescue stations'.
The modern sets are a little less blocky (more curved parts made these days?) but seem to have just as much replay value as when I was a child. Perhaps that's not true of all of them - but then I remember my brother keeping his pirate ship built on his desk for a year or so...
Yes I know , but nowadays looks like everything is a themed set, and I understand that is the market, We see what is has more demand and sells better and secondly I'm not the child that used to play with lego, which is probably the main reason. :-(
Thats why I (uhm my kids) really enjoy the Creator 3 in 1 sets. All shiny and new but still the build it up, tear it down and build it up again mindset. Showcasing 3 sometimes very different models.
Lego moved from this 4 stud wide design to a 6 stud wide and in the last 2 years they seem to make cars that are 8 studs wide (this allows for apace for both driver and a passanger).
There is something incredibly nostalgic in those simplistic 4 stud wide models though
Going in the other direction, there are also two stud wide vehicles, for instance in the Tower Bridge set there is a very neat little London City double decker bus. Those really bring out the creativity especially when they use nothing but existing parts.
46 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 89.2 ms ] threadThe Xbox Series X and PS5 both play DVDs. If physical media players still exist in 2032, I wouldn't be surprised if they still play DVDs.
*good times
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Racers_(video_game)
You could build your own car brick by brick and then race it, which was pretty dang neat in 1999.
i dont know much about the cartoons but anecdotally they seem to be popular with their intended audience. after all their ninjago line has been running for ages. certainly their core business is the bread and butter, but i think Lego actually does a pretty good job with their side ventures (missing a minecraft-type opportunity aside)
I have not played these but I have heard nothing but praise for the lego star wars games. Do you think they are bad or do you assume they are?
Essentially point was that Lego was scared of building/allowing a game that allowed "free blocks" as their whole business was selling blocks for money. It seems very short sighted but as any legacy business they tend to fall into that trap.
This is why they allowed various games that utilize block as a art style, but there were not many building games.
Lego Star Wars is fun, but is exactly the same game as all the other Lego tie-in games.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtY3Lto_lR4
However, I must acknowledge that the game is impressively fluid when you know that every brick in the world is a real (modifiable, breakable ...) brick.
[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/332310/LEGO_Worlds/
Indeed. My grandson has a ton of lego, and the "old" stuff (you know, brick-shaped bricks) is all used in his various creations. So when we go to play together, he has a bin of "available" parts, except they're all weird one-offs that don't have studs on top. Once you use one on something, well, that's it, no building above that. Really frustrating, and amazingly hard to put even something really basic together.
No need to gatekeep fun. People tend to overestimate how attractive their own lawns are.
The trick then lies in being able to simulate the unique pieces with assemblies of ordinary pieces or pieces that you already have (not always possible), and to use those unique pieces that you do have in new and creative ways to start treating them as ordinary Lego. Some builders have taken this to an entirely new level, for instance in this castle there are all kinds of bits that have been used in ways that they were definitely not intended to achieve a novel effect:
https://twitter.com/jmattheij/status/1016382615417389057
What I intensely dislike is people putting down other people just because they enjoy a _toy_ (something meant to elicit sharing and enjoyment) in a different way than theirs.
Another friend’s wife buys the more complicated sets and admits they’re actually for her, not for her kids. All good, they’ll grow into it :)
Text is such a poor substitute for real life conversations... but on the other hand we never would have interacted if it wasn't for this "text". Sometimes I feel so ambivalent about the Internet...
A friend got sets for her 4 year old. She builds them, kid breaks them. She builds them, kid breaks them. She is bored with building them, but it’s a jet (or whatever) and kid wants the jet, so…she builds them. She now wants the classic sets so the kid can play with the toy instead of the built model.
Friend’s kid just put lights on his millennium falcon. Awesome! I’m not trying to be the Lego police. It’s just a different toy.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=lego+box&iax=images&ia=images
:)
I wish current Lego sets were as simple and “blocky” as the ones from the 80s. Some of it is nostalgia, but some is the worry that Lego keeps steering away from the Classic and basic mindset that made it so iconic.
The modern sets are a little less blocky (more curved parts made these days?) but seem to have just as much replay value as when I was a child. Perhaps that's not true of all of them - but then I remember my brother keeping his pirate ship built on his desk for a year or so...
You can buy basic sets still, they are fairly cheap version of lego.
There is something incredibly nostalgic in those simplistic 4 stud wide models though