Today we are very quickly interested in one of the many LEGO Super Mario expansions that will be available from August 1 to accompany the basic set. 71360 Adventures with Mario (231 pieces - 59.99 €): the reference 71367 Mario's House & Yoshi Expansion Set (231 pieces - 29.99 €).

You already know if you have read my presentation of the concept, to really try to have fun with this new range of products, you will not only have to buy the starter set which is the only one to contain the interactive Mario figure but possibly also invest in the wake in one or more of the planned extensions which allow to assemble a game board a little more substantial.

I'm not going to give you a whole presentation on what I think of the playful interest of this vaguely interactive board game, you probably already know that I'm not really convinced by the concept:

I tested for you: LEGO Super Mario

The box in question here will allow you to assemble Mario's house with his piece of garden and his hammock. LEGO does not provide instructions in paper format, you will have to go through the dedicated application to assemble the model. Fortunately, it is not necessary to have the Mario figure on hand to access the application and instructions for the various expansion packs.

This set can then be connected to the rest of the game board via the different green platforms to be placed at the end of the circuit. As in the other sets in the range, the three stickers to be scanned with the sensor placed between the legs of the Mario figure free up parts or make you temporarily invincible. We will also remember that if you put Mario in the hammock and rock him by turning the dial, he falls asleep snoring ...

If the interactivity and the lifespan of this concept are in my opinion all relative, on the other hand there are still many boxes in many boxes to please collectors, no doubt a little disappointed not to have a few minifigs to put under the tooth, who might want to try and collect all the iconic locations and other characters delivered in these boxes.

This box is the only one that allows us to obtain a Yoshi figurine, so it will be difficult to ignore it. The house could possibly be separated from the game board to brighten up a thematic exhibition diorama even if the construction proposed here is not on the level of the more opulent house seen in the game Paper Mario. The tree that supports one end of the fabric hammock can also be reused in a staging, just to make the investment a little more profitable.

You know, in this new range, everything is pad printed. This will therefore be an opportunity to obtain some pretty pieces such as the nameplate fixed above the door of the house, the Super star hidden under the roof of the house or the directional sign.

Those who want to keep only the characters present in the different boxes of the range will have here at their disposal Yoshi and a Goomba with a facial expression different from that seen in other sets of the range. The most complete collectors are warned.

Yoshi is a rather successful buildable figure. It was either that or a molded figure and I'm more and more convinced that most of the buildable figures that come in these boxes can make a nice collection. There is really only the figurine of Mario which denotes with his head too cubic to seduce me.

In the end, spending € 29.99 for Yoshi, a Goomba and a few pad-printed pieces is not necessarily the idea of ​​the century.

If you intend to try creating custom levels and playing around with the purchase of the € 59.99 starter set as well, this expansion won't add much in terms of interactivity but it will help flesh out the very minimalist decor of the set 71360 Adventures with Mario.

I remind for all intents and purposes that the interactive Mario figurine is not provided in this box, it is only an extension of the game board that does not contain the starting sticker to be scanned to start a game nor that of arrival allowing to validate the progression within the time limit.

Note: The set presented here, supplied by LEGO, is as usual in play. Deadline fixed at July 20, 2020 next at 23pm. 

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.

Today we are quickly interested in the LEGO Marvel set 76152 Avengers: Wrath of Loki (223 pieces - 69.99 €), a box whose construction process is designed to be accessible to very young fans of the Avengers universe. To each their version of the headquarters of the fine team of super heroes this year, here it's 4+ and we will therefore be satisfied with an ultra-simplified "experience" and a few very large parts to assemble.

As usual in the 4+ sub-range, we quickly realize that everything has been thought out so that those who do not yet know how to do much without the assistance of an adult can learn without waiting for clashes between Super hero. The fact remains that this box is very expensive for what it has to offer. A bit like the products in the DUPLO range which capitalize on the wishes of parents "to offer the best to their children"especially when they are still young.

Young parents who would blame themselves for not spending crazy sums on their offspring will find in LEGO something to avoid feeling too guilty. I have two children and I covered the subject a few years ago between high-end baby bottles from space technology, overpriced clothes, branded mini-shoes for babies whose soles do not fit. will never wear out since they do not work, etc ...

The different constructions offered are, as usual in this range which targets the youngest, all based on very large pieces that define their final appearance and on which you have to hang some decorative elements. Aesthetically, all that will remain very approximate but the playability will be maximum and almost immediate.

The Avengers tower is assembled in a few minutes and it offers various playable spaces that are very accessible: a control center on the ground floor with a lab area to analyze Loki's scepter and a space to store the Tesseract, a cell for Loki on the first floor and a pod on the roof for Iron Man. There is even a section of wall on which the Hulk can let off steam, everything is there.

Everything is pad printed in this box and the big sign or the control screen will perhaps interest MOCeurs who want to DIY a real diorama on the theme of the Avengers.

The Avenjet provided here is a simplified version of the ship already seen in the set 76049 Avenjet Space Mission based on the animated series Avengers Assemble (Avengers Gathering on France 4 or Disney XD) and marketed in 2016. Captain Marvel can lie down in the cockpit and the wings can be folded up to transform the plane into a spacecraft. Nothing crazy, but that's always what it takes. The nose of the device is obviously pad printed, it's up to you to build a more accomplished version of the vessel around this part.

Loki has a flying machine that allows him to throw a few coins at his enemies, who will not be able to really retaliate: this big, rather coarse hoverboard is the only element of the set to be equipped with coin throwers.

LEGO is rather generous in minifigs in this box with as often the new and recycling. All the pad prints are impeccable, I just regret that LEGO has not yet found a way to print its parts to the brim so that the continuity of the patterns is better assured, especially here on the Captain Marvel minifigure.

The Captain Marvel minifig provided in this set is also delivered in the set 76153 Helicarrier and here she takes the features of Princess Leia seen in 2019 in the sets 75244 Tantive IV et 75229 Death Star Escape. The character comes with a helmet and hair. Handy for varying situations.

Note that the helmet is a molded part in two colors which reveals the character's white eyes and that the crest can be removed. We should find this helmet on the heads of other characters very quickly, I doubt that LEGO embarked on its design just to equip Captain Marvel.

Iron Man's torso, legs and helmet are in many sets released this year: 76140 Iron Man Mech, 76153 Helicarrier, 76164 Iron Man Hulkbuster Versus AIM Agent et 76166 Avengers Tower Battle. The head with the blue HUD on one side is the one that LEGO has been providing us in a slew of boxes since 2018.

Loki's never-before-seen torso is inspired by the animated series Avengers Assemblee, the head is also that of Lex Luthor or of several officers of the First Order and the character's headdress has not changed, it is the version marketed since 2012. This new torso is currently only delivered in this box.

Thor's torso is also delivered in sets 76142 Avengers Speeder Bike Attack, 76153 Helicarrier, the head is the one provided in many sets since 2017. I am not a fan of the resumption of the folds of the cape on the back of the torso: if the character is wearing his cape, we no longer see this detail and if he do not wear it, this motive has nothing to do there.

New version for Hulk, this time again in Olive Green rather than flashy green and that's good. I find the tear on the bottom of the pant legs a bit too regular to be really believable, but the effect remains interesting. The character is currently only delivered in this box, but I'm not sure that this variant, whose exclusivity is probably only temporary, deserves to spend the 70 € requested by LEGO.

In short, this set only reinforces in me the impression that parents who have LEGO fans at a young age are prime targets for LEGO, as if they had to be charged a high price for the transition from the DUPLO universe. towards classic products.

Collectors will find Iron Man, Captain Marvel and Thor in the set 76153 Helicarrier which also offers more consistent content and they will have to decide if Loki's torso and Hulk's bigfig are worth spending € 70 in this box. As I often say: it's you who sees.

Note: The set presented here, supplied by LEGO, is as usual in play. Deadline fixed at July 19, 2020 next at 23pm. 

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.

Today we quickly tour the LEGO set 75939 Dr. Wu's Lab Baby Dinosaurs Breakout (164 pieces - € 19.99), the smallest box of the new wave of licensed Jurassic World sets.

We're not going to lie to each other, at the point where we are in the LEGO Jurassic World range, the interest of the new sets loosely based on the animated series LEGO Jurassic World: Legend of Isla Nublar responsible for furnishing while waiting for the next installment of the cinematographic saga scheduled for 2021 lies mainly in the presence of new species of dinosaurs.

As is often the case with LEGO, the marketers have done their job of putting together a very pretty staging of Dr. Wu's lab on the box. But we all know here that the reality is sometimes disappointing at LEGO and this mini lab all to its advantage on the packaging of the product will not impress many people when it is placed on the living room table.

We can always gargle with the incubator, its eggs and its robotic gripper or on the "functionality" which allows "to break" the large blue window via a black lever that no one has made the effort to really integrate into the construction, there is frankly nothing "... play to create new species of dinosaurs and help Owen Grady stop the dinosaur escape ..."as the official description of the product pompously indicates.

The escape of the dinosaurs is also purely theoretical since LEGO does not provide an enclosure, cage or closed space from which the two creatures could possibly escape. Looking more closely, we see that the designer has chosen to put the lab on one side of the building and the enclosure on the other. The triceratops therefore have access to a bowl of water and a little food. Nothing prevents him from also having fun with the joysticks and other buttons placed on the console visible to the right ...

On the lab side, Dr. Wu has at his disposal a slew of control screens all based on stickers graphically very successful but whose installation is laborious and the rendering very average. It should be noted above all that the designer did not even bother to complete the construction, for example leaving the tenons visible on the central control screen.

When the content of a set is a little too simplistic to really convince, all that remains are the micro-things or the good ideas that the design of the product can conceal even if the microscope with its Tile used upside down to make a Petri dish, the "robotic" arm of the incubator and the pad-printed amber block will not really save the furniture. Especially for 20 €.

Let's face it, LEGO charges us two baby dinosaurs for € 20 and adds a few handfuls of parts so as not to tarnish its reputation as a manufacturer of construction toys. If you collect the different molded species offered by LEGO, here you will get a baby ankylosaurus and a baby triceratops.

The ankylosaurus could have found its way into a Kinder egg and it is hardly the post on its back that reminds us that it is indeed a LEGO product. I predict the confusion among many parents who will one day want to get rid of their kids' LEGOs on Le Bon Coin and who will put the minifigure in the bin for "cute stuff but probably not worth much".

The triceratops is a little more consistent and there is no doubt that it belongs to the LEGO universe: it has a notch on the back in which you have to install two pieces to give it its final shape, or a minifigure "because it fits".

If the ankylosaur is composed of a single injection molded element of two colors, the triceratops is the result of the assembly of two elements with a somewhat rough fit in places. Purists will see a minifigure in the LEGO spirit, others will regret the spaces visible on the side of the animal while the minifigure is not removable. For the rest, the pad prints of these two baby dinosaurs are very correct and the injection in two colors on the head of the triceratops is perfectly carried out without burrs.

The two minifigs provided are made up of reused parts and a few new elements: Dr. Wu's torso was already in the set 75927 Stygimoloch Breakout (2018), the character's head is unpublished. We could find the character's outfit a bit simplistic, but it is perfectly in line with the one worn by BD actor Wong on screen. A head in Light Flesh would have been sufficient.

Owen Grady's torso is a novelty based on the character's look in the animated series and also featured in sets 75940 Gallimimus and Pteranodon Breakout et 75942 Velociraptor Biplane Rescue Mission. As often, the official visuals are a little too optimistic and the flesh-colored area of ​​the neck here turns pink because of the color of the torso.

The character's head is the one already seen in several boxes marketed since 2018 with here a misalignment of the whites of the eyes on one of the faces, the legs are a slew of sets marketed from then 2018 and are even reused in the set Lego city 60266 Ocean Exploration Ship for the helicopter pilot.

In short, LEGO applies here the recipe well known to fans of other licensed ranges with something to attract collectors and a few pieces to coat it all. The two baby dinos will therefore easily find their audience and the laboratory will probably end up in the toy box unless the one who obtains it has some of the other boxes in the range to compose a diorama a little plush.

Note: The set presented here, supplied by LEGO, is as usual in play. Deadline fixed at July 16, 2020 next at 23pm. 

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.

Today we take a quick detour through the world of the Minecraft video game with the set 21163 The Redstone Battle (504 pieces - 54.99 €), a product derived from the variation of the classic game in Dungeon crawler : the aptly named Minecraft Dungeons launched last May.

I did my homework and played Minecraft Dungeons a bit before putting together the game-inspired set. It's fun, you don't have to have an encyclopedia on hand to figure out how to handle it. his character and we have fun with the added bonus of a little ultra-pixelated Diablo side that should appeal to the most nostalgic.

The LEGO set overshadows the thing a bit by offering a very nice presentation on the packaging: it's colorful, immersive and we find the red and black tones of the Redstone mines. Do not get carried away, the contents of the box are much less sexy, no decor is provided. Too bad we'll be satisfied with what LEGO offers us, even if at 55 € the derivative product I think the manufacturer could have provided a piece of wall and a lava flow.
As this set is directly inspired by a video game, it is therefore important to check that its content is faithful to the digital version. With Minecraft, this is generally the case, with biomes, animals, objects, and characters being as cubic as LEGO bricks.

Here we get four heroes of the game with their characteristic outfits and faces: Hex, Hal, Hedwig and Valorie. From a distance, we can consider the LEGO versions to be generally very successful, the torsos reproducing in detail the patterns seen on the screen. But one detail spoils the picture a bit: The legs of the different minifigs are desperately monochrome and do not match the textures seen on the different characters in the game. We could also discuss the interest of pad printing the sides and the upper face of the heads. Seen from the back, the different figurines look a bit like an assortment of Apéricubes.

The bangs of Hedwig would also have deserved to be molded on the head of the minifig, it is a characteristic attribute of the character and its absence simplifies the LEGO figure a little too much. For a derivative product sold at a high price, it is a real shame not to be able to obtain a little more accomplished figurines.

The two creatures that haunt the Redstone Mines, The Redstone Golem and Redstone Monstrosity are however very faithful to the digital versions. We can just regret here too the lack of textures on some pieces while others are very nicely pad printed. It smacks of the savings of a candle light at LEGO and the result is a bit bland in places despite the alternation of gray tones which compensates a little.

It was enough, however, to provide a few additional copies of the play Medium Stone Gray pad printed used on the torso of the Redstone Golem and on the feet of the Redstone Monstrosity and then it would have been possible to dress the Golem's arms and legs a bit. Even with an identical pattern on all copies provided, a simple change in orientation of the piece would suffice to texture the creature a little more.

The two creatures are really only usable from the front, their backs being much more sketchy. The limbs of the two golems are connected to the torso by Ball Seals which allow very dynamic staging without breaking everything. So there is plenty of fun with the different heroes provided and the two creatures to face.

LEGO also provides a Piggy bank, the pig with a chest on the back which contains some green pieces symbolizing the emeralds of the game. Here too, some patterns are missing at the bottom of the pig's legs and LEGO could have made an effort to offer us a new version of the chest more similar to that of the game. As it stands, we once again feel the will not to invest too much time and money on this project.

The base camp table with its map and candle is also provided in this box, it will be difficult to put into context, the set does not even offer a piece of wall. LEGO still provides us with a health potion, that's always taken, and regulars of the range will find here in two copies the Tile 2x4 colored Tan with two studs already seen in other boxes.

As you will have understood, not seeing a sheet of stickers among the photos presented here, the ten or so elements (excluding minifigs) bearing patterns are pad printed.

LEGO is however not stingy with various and varied weapons in this box and there is something to equip everyone with two copies of the crossbow already seen earlier this year in the sets. 21159 The Pillager Outpost et 21160 The Illager Raid and a bag containing swords, a hammer, a flail, a katana, a scythe of the cold and a pair of prongs "last laugh"I find these weapons really successful and although they are all monochrome, they are well in the spirit of the game.

In the end, I think that LEGO offers us a derivative product that is generally successful but which unfortunately overlooks too many aesthetic possibilities. The lack of decor, even basic, and the savings made on the printing of the pieces are felt while the public price of the set is relatively high for what this box really has to offer. The fact remains that this set is in my opinion a nice gift to give to a fan who wants to decorate his office with emblematic characters and creatures of the game.

Note: The set presented here, supplied by LEGO, is as usual in play. Deadline fixed at July 13, 2020 next at 23pm. 

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.

Today we quickly tour the LEGO Hidden Side set 70434 Supernatural Race Car (244 pieces - 29.99 €), an almost affordable box whose content caught my eye when it was announced.

The Hidden Side universe is a mixture inspired more or less frankly by everything that from near or far can affect the ghost hunt at LEGO or elsewhere: Scooby-Doo, Monster Fighters, Ghostbusters, Stranger Things, etc ... and it sometimes seems difficult to me to find an overall coherence to this concept which adds as a bonus an overlay of augmented reality play to construction toys. Despite everything, the range does manage to surprise me from time to time.

If I often remain insensitive to the various and varied constructions offered by LEGO in this range (school, prison, castle, cemetery, etc ...), I am however sometimes attracted by the few vehicles available in some of these boxes. The big 4x4 of the set 70421 El Fuego's Strunt Truck (2019), the school bus of the set 70423 Paranormal Intercept Bus 3000 (2019), the fire truck from the set 70436 Phantom Fire Truck 3000 (2020) and the "supernatural" car to build in this box are in my opinion very successful models.

And it's good because one can wonder what this car comes to do in the range that the vehicle attracted me. The craft could be piloted by Baron Von Barron, take part in stock car races or roam the streets of a Steampunk town, its versatility makes it a product that I think should appeal to a much larger audience than that. from the tote universe of teenage ghost hunters.

Since this is a "supernatural" hot rod, it was necessary to add a functionality to it to match the title. No steering or suspensions, but the car can "fly" having previously positioned its wheels horizontally like Doc Brown's Delorean or more recently Lola, Phil Coulson's convertible. No complex mechanism here, a few parts are enough to produce the desired effect.

We can regret that the LEGO version is not completely faithful to the vehicle seen in the animated series derived from this range: By comparing the model of the set with the hot rod seen on the screen, we quickly realize that the designer is 'is content to "reinterpret" the vehicle by narrowing the machine to go from two places to one. Pity.

Note that this vehicle does not have "transformation" capabilities as is the case in other boxes in the range. The hot rod is already part of the parallel universe of the game, so it is not intended to convert into a "ghost" machine.

The essential and inevitable colored wheel that allows the LEGO Hidden Side game to recognize the content of sets and offer some video game sequences is rather well integrated into the vehicle. Placed at the back, it does not disfigure the machine and vaguely takes the form of the reactor seen in the animated series. The two two-tone blocks based on new 1x2 half-cylinders placed on the sides of the body can be turned so that only the black part is visible, the aesthetics of the car thus maintaining a certain sobriety. The blue piece will be used in the video game.

The cockpit is easily accessible via the vehicle's movable roof and allows the driver to be installed without realizing that our fingers are too big for this child's toy. Once is not customary, the car will gladly do without thematic stickers to stick on the body, it's up to you depending on what you do with the model.

It will also be noted that this is the first appearance of the skull installed at the front in Pearl Dark Gray, the part was until now only available in white in a few boxes of the Ninjago (70593), Nexo Knights (70326), Legends of Chima (70147), The LEGO Batman Movie (70907) or even The Lone Ranger ( 79110).

This small box also allows you to get four characters including three minifigs: Jack Davids the young ghost hunter, Vaughn Geist, a Shadowwalker and the (dead) dog Spencer.

Jack's minifig is an assembly of elements already seen in numbers in the sets of the LEGO Hidden Side range, the head and the cute cap with integrated hair since the beginning of the year, the rest since 2019. The character is here delivered with a new 2020 variant of its smartphone present in three other boxes of the 2020 wave.

Vaughn Geist's minifig, the serving Dum Dum Dugan, is also featured in the sets 70433 JB's Submarine et 70437 Mystery Castle. The figurine is in my opinion visually very successful with an impeccable pad printing, especially on the torso which combines three layers of clothing and a few accessories.

The Shadowwalker with his false airs of a Game of Thrones creature in negative is for his part delivered almost identically in the sets 70436 Phantom Fire Truck et 70437 Mystery Castle but the transparent blue wings are only in this set. The part was already supplied in Neon Green in sets 70421 El Fuego's Strunt Truck et 70425 Newbury Haunted High School marketed in 2019.

The character's helmet is far from unheard of, it is an item in the LEGO catalog since 2004 that the youngest will eventually have discovered with the Nexo Knights range. Purists will undoubtedly find what to do with the character's head, especially in the Marvel universe, the rest is too generic for me even if the pad printing of the torso and legs seems to me overall very successful.

The little dead dog returned to ghost status is the one you already have in several copies if you are a fan of the range. In short, the assortment of minifigs offered in this box is nothing new or exceptional and the purists of the Marvel universe who just want Vaughn for his outfit and his hat in Medium Dark Flesh to convert into Dum Dum Dugan will be able to get it for 10 € less in the set 70433 JB's Submarine.

In the end, I am pleasantly surprised by this little box, and it is not because it is a product that fits perfectly into the world of the LEGO Hidden Side range, on the contrary. The hot rod is original enough to motivate the purchase of the set and it will easily find its place in many themed dioramas. In the end, it's almost a good thing that this range is just a melting pot of various influences, it's up to everyone to find what they like and put it to their taste.

I have not given you the promotion of the augmented reality video game associated with these boxes here, I think that those who wanted to try it have already bored of it and that the others can save their download time. The ghost hunt on offer isn't much fun beyond a few minutes, and adding new scannable sets to the app is nothing new.

Note: I remind the angry service that this site is not the LEGO Wikipedia and that I am only giving my opinion on different products. If you have a different opinion from mine, it is possible and quite normal.

Note: The set presented here, supplied by LEGO, is as usual in play. Deadline fixed at July 9, 2020 next at 23pm. 

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.