After a long six weeks the next issue of the LEGO Explorer magazine has arrived. The crooked release cycle is really driving me batty and not something I need in addition to Blue Ocean’s jumble for their magazines. It’s really getting confusing to keep track which magazine comes out when and spontaneous delays don’t help the matter, either. Anyway, on to the content of this mag.
This one is about “monuments”, architecture and building construction in the broadest sense, but of course you can’t expect too much depth on either here. The emphasis is on stuff that is available in some form as a LEGO set, anyway, so you’d be forgiven for seeing it as the shameless promotion that it is.
I still like the comic for its clean colorful look, but the stories are getting weirder and you can see some flubs in the drawings where clearly the artist struggled to make it work.
In keeping with the overly promotional theme the poster depicts the model of the LEGO House in Billund, for which you’d actually have to go there to even be able to obtain the set, since it’s exclusive. More frustrating weirdness.
Aside from the usual small puzzles and quizzes there’s a simple board game which could be interesting for an afternoon if you throw a pile of LEGO pieces on the table and let your kids collect elements to build a house and master the small challenges.
The extra is a small excavator which feels a bit naff, to be honest. Nobody was expecting miracles, but this just looks a bit too out of proportion., especially on the driver/ operator’s cabin. What makes this even more incomprehensible is the fact that they actually emulate the steps to climb up and even the supports, but then did not use more parts for the cockpit. This most definitely should be at least on a 3 x 3 plate and have some bulk at its rear end for counter weight. Really not great.
All in all this is rather disappointing, considering that there have been many better editions of this magazine. Even if they had shortcomings, at least some part was always convincing, but I feel that this time they completely missed the mark.
Mylenium's Brick Corner 