Kre-O

[Dominic]

Ah, yes. You are right. And, the Cyberjets were both factions as well. My mistake.

[138 Scourge]

I've had a lot of spare time this week, since I've been on vacation. So I figured "I could use a little project" and bought one of these damn Kre-O sets. I picked Mirage, because while he and Jazz both look pretty decent in robot mode, Mirage's car mode looks better. And, you know, it's just like the Power Core thing all over again. I've gone from "Eh, pass" to "Aw, hell, why not?" to "Hey, I really enjoy this."

It takes some time to put the robot together, which means serious time-killing play value. And if you don't care for something about the robot or car mode, you can make your own damn modifications. The robot's a damn sight better than the BTR things, even if he's missing hands, but it's the building that's as important as the end result. And the building's a lot of fun. I was on the phone with my girlfriend at one point while building it, and cracked her up when I cackled and said "What a fun thing I'm doing!" Yes, she knows she's dating a manchild, she's okay with it.

The robot you get from going with the instructions is pretty solid, really. It is a little weird seeing a pretty decently detailed robot head on this blocky Lego body, but really, with some of the smaller pieces, you get a feeling of decent detail. And it's just sort of neat looking. I like it.

Well, crap. I could totally see getting more of these things. God dammit, like I needed something else to collect. Also, Hasbro? If you wanted to make a Kre-O Grimlock, I'd probably be okay with that. Just saying.

[Shockwave]

If you want a few more, I have Megs, Prowl and Bumblebee that I could get rid of on the cheap.

[JediTricks]

While I do like the use of rubber joints for some parts, the overall takeaway I keep having when I see these or fiddle with them (from Botcon through Comic-Con and at the store displays) is that they have better intentions than Built to Rule the Garbage Can, ultimately Hasbro hasn't got the breadth of investment to create a quality Transformers experience here - the bricks are ok but not even Mega-bloks quality, and the fact that the robots don't transform is an unacceptable compromise for TF. The Kreon mini-figures are cute to look at, but the Optimus Prime giveaway I have runs into problems with his accessories and helmet spinning around his body to make him look like a LEGO minifigure wearing an OP costume - and not a good one, either. So for TF, they really needed a broader investment in tooling, design, and inspiration to get this off the ground - even the Target displays show how limited the vision for this line is, it's just a talking box with no interactivity, sitting next to interactive Mega-Bloks, LEGO, and even other building toy brands' displays that are more exciting.

Now, with all that said, and the entirety of TF in the Kre-o world shat upon, the news from NYCC that Hasbro will take Kre-o into the G.I. Joe universe is a different matter entirely. Joe Kre-o sounds like a great mix, there's really no other building-brick brand that has the sci-fi-lite military excitement that the Joe:ARAH license offers. The '80s Joe line was a beautiful era of amazing, inspired, numerous vehicles with cool figures and weapons to complement them (the most vehicles for a toy brand EVER, I believe) and Kre-o can offer a similar balance. Whether or not they can find the right vision to get it going, and then grab the kid market with it, is yet to be seen, but I think Kre-o can live or die not on the TF line but on the Joe one, and there the TF line would make a better compliment to the Joe line than a stand-alone where a play-pattern based on vehicles and characters is more forgiving than one based on transformation.

[138 Scourge]

the news from NYCC that Hasbro will take Kre-o into the G.I. Joe universe is a different matter entirely.

Oh shit, no kidding? Yeah, I could get into that.

[Onslaught Six]

I hope it's done better than BTR's Joe line, which was half decent. I got the HISS Tank from it, it was alright. The Cobra Commander was a retool of one of their mainline figures but with big ugly block connectors on his forearms and ankles--I'd rather they stayed away from that this time. Maybe they could make removable forearm armour that had connectors, though.

[Dominic]

Kre-O Jazz:

I have no excuse for this beyond the (rather thin) "he is one of my favourite characters".

This set cost me the same as Mirage, (purchased at Newbury). Oddly, I noticed that it actually went up in price (if I recall correctly) at Target, from closer to $10. In any case, this set was like some kind of horrific brick-based deja-vu. It took me about 2 hours to put the vehicle mode together and find that the result of my purchase and effort was less than I would have hoped. This may as well be "off-road Jazz". I would rate this a bit lower than Mirage, which at least looks like a passable racecar if one assumes a "Lego standard". Mirage is at least scaled to the included Kreon figures. Jazz looks like something of a monster truck. And, (this is a sticking point for me), the doors seing out from *under* a bar that would not be present on a real car, and is only present here to provide stuctural integrity to a (still) bad design.

I cannot speak of the robot mode, as I have not bothered to assemble it...and may never do so.

At the very least, the set is not a total loss. A couple of the stickers may be useful in an upcomign custom project. And, even if ReproLabels made the necessary stickers, they would probably cost about the same as this building set.

Kre-O as a line is still preferable to Lego. It is significantly cheaper and the figures have better articulation. Kreons have single-peg wastes, which allows for them to twist at the waist and the limbs are all ball-jointed. But, it still suffers from the worst problems of Lego, namely that there are better ways to get representations of specific characters and better model kits (general and specific) available for display purposes.


Dom
-tempted to try to make legitimate figures based on Kre-O character models though....

[Onslaught Six]

If the car mode is so bad...can't you just restructure it?

[Dominic]

Only by so much. Some of the vital pieces (such as the wheel-wells) are pretty large to begin with.


Dom
-also should not have to tweak an official design that much.

[Dominic]

I fiddled with Jazz a bit more last night. After about an hour, I managed to put together the robot mode. it is worse than the vehicle mode. Despite having several purpose moulded bits, it still looks like a pile of bricks...and has nothing that even resembles proper hands.

I ordered Megatron from BBTS when I put my order for Windcharger through. That robot mode at least has hands.


Dom
-admits that the Kreons have a certain charm.