LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean Confirmed

LEGO Group and Disney Consumer Products Announce Building Sets Inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean Films

BILLUND, Denmark, Nov. 18, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — The LEGO Group and Disney Consumer Products today announced an upcoming collection of LEGO® brand Pirates of the Caribbean construction toys that will set children’s imaginations sailing on thousands of build-and-play adventures. Scheduled to launch in spring 2011, eight new building sets will bring the action, stories and characters of the entire series of Pirates of the Caribbean films to life in LEGO form, including the spring 2011 premiere of the fourth installment, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.” “The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is a classic favorite among families and children around the world,” said Jill Wilfert, vice president licensing & entertainment at The LEGO Group. ”The pirate theme is always a strong player in the LEGO portfolio, and the Pirates of the Caribbean brand offers the quintessential pirate experience with familiar characters, stories and scenes, allowing us to develop even more authentic and exciting models for children and collectors.” “Collaborating with The LEGO Group on the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is sure to be another great example of how together, we merge timeless characters and stories with a versatile play pattern to create exciting ways to play for children and fans of all ages,” said Vince Klaseus, senior vice president of global toys, Disney Consumer Products. ”We look forward to giving children a chance to recreate the adventures from the big screen, while adding their own creative twists and ideas through LEGO building.” In a companion release today, Disney Interactive Studios, TT Games and the LEGO Group announced that LEGO Pirates of Caribbean: The Video Game is scheduled for release on multiple video game platforms in May 2011.

Source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lego-group-and-disney-consumer-products-announce-building-sets-inspired-by-pirates-of-the-caribbean-films-108925804.html

These photos below are from a locked display case at Comic-Con, could these be the actual Jack Sparrow minifig, put there as a type of teaser? The quality of the minifig would suggest that it's legit, but then again, we've seen some high quality custom minifigs in the past. We will have to wait and see when the Sets are announced.

LEGO Universe Review by Dan Key from PlatformOnline

Lego Universe Impressions

Posted on Thursday, November 11th, 2010 in Gaming & Tech, Gaming Feature.

We explore Lego Universe to find out what the brick builders can bring to the MMO genre.

Attendees of GameCity 5 were given the opportunity to play a demo of the new, eagerly awaited Lego Universe title for the PC and Mac. The title is the newest in the long-running Lego franchise, this time scrapping the film tie-ins in to take on the world of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games.

The game’s mechanics and layouts will be instantly familiar to those who have played popular MMO World of Warcraft. At first glance, Lego Universe will seem little more than a game to tap into a younger audience with a WOW clone. However, after playing for a brief period, it’s easy to see that the game has a lot more to offer than you might expect.

The game controls use a standard MMO format. You control your character by using WASD keys and select enemies to attack by using the mouse. You’re given a wide array of moves and items to obtain along your quest, giving a lot of variety in the way you can fight enemies, though we were only able to play long enough to use the standard sword available. The game incorporates two main gameplay elements that feel very unique to Lego and help to distinguish it from its MMO counterparts – imagination and construction. Imagination acts as a magic power bar and allows you to easily create things like Lego gun turrets by using blocks on the ground. While construction allows you to make more elaborate things like bridges or springboards.

As you’d expect from a Lego title, the game offers a huge amount of customisation options ranging from character appearances and attributes to the Lego block building tool allowing you to create your own private properties out of any parts available and assign behaviours like making them move. While it’s possible to create any shape with the custom build tool, your creations are sent off to moderation before being introduced to the general public (a feature used to discourage those with more active imaginations we’re sure).

Though the game is widely imaginative, the game’s clear target is a far younger audience than the average MMO player. The game’s staff maintained that it has been thoroughly designed with children’s safety online as the number one priority. Things like very strict word filters in the chat function are incorporated for any sceptical parents who may feel like the game is too open for young gamers.

Lego titles have shined amongst video games in recent times, largely due to the heart and imagination poured into every nook and cranny. Lego Universe certainly lives up to the franchise’s good name with a truly unique and (more importantly) fun take on the MMO genre. However, only time will tell if younger gamers latch onto its creative features long enough to convince their parents to fork out the monthly subscription fee and create a vast online community of new Lego lovers.

Dan Key

Snowy Castle

A very nice Castle scene with snow, I like the merchant. This creation has some nice detail. We can thank Classic Castle member Legolord for creating this and sharing with us.

Vampire Real Estate

This castle creation by Nathan Proudlove won “Best in Castle” at BrickCon, it's simply awesome. I love the colour scheme used, it give the entire scene an eerie feel to it, which is probably what you want from a Vampire's castle. Perfect setting for a horror movie or even better a horror theme RPG game....

I think someone found a new home...

War(LEGO)hammer 40K

I saw this on the Brother Brick blog. Jerac went and made some awesome WH40K Space Marines, Dreadnaught and Landspeeder out of lego. He went a step further and made his own Space Marine Minifigs out of LEGO bricks, he didn't use normal minifigs. The result... Very Awesome.

Incredible Europe Map made with LEGO

This REALLY impressed me, some people went and created a huge map of Europe with LEGO.

• Number of bricks: 53 500

• Area: 480 studs x 480 studs (3,84 m x 3,84 m)

• Number of studs: 230 400 studs in the base area plus 453.026 studs additional

Thanks to "A Modular Life" for sharing this.

Many more photos here:

http://www.t-reichling.de/en/mocs_euromap.shtml

A Tribute to the Battle of Fort McHenry

I came accross this awesome diorama by Blake Baer on Brothers Brick and just had to share, the scene has some awesome detail, like cannon balls in mid air, explosions, slashes, etc. The diorama is a "Tribute to America" of the battle of For McHenry in the War of 1812.

LEGO DVD Movie - The Adventures of Clutch Powers

I watched the Lego Movie "The Adventures of Clutch Powers" last night, if it's the bar for Lego movies to come, I'm looking forward to many more.

The 4 main Characters are as follows along with their voice actors;

• Clutch Powers voiced by Ryan McPartlin
• Peg Mooring voiced by Yvonne Strahovski
• Brick Masterson voiced by Roger Rose
• Bernie von Beam voiced by Jeff Bennett

Links

• Lego Shop
• Official Website
• Internation Movie Database
• Lego Wiki
  

Going Green...

This post on Brothers Brick really impressed me, a very nice Mech by Andrew Lee’s (onosendai2600) called Poison Arrow, made with mostly green bricks, instead of the usual grey people would expect for mechs. The mech was made as an entry for the Clunker and Alien Mecha Contest.

The Empire Strikes Back Lego chess set

I Came accross this Custom Lego Chess set by Brandong Griffith (icgetaway) on the Brothers Brick blog. I must say, it's quite impressive. Instead of single figures, he used scenes from the movie for each of the chess pieces in the back row of each side. The chess board was made to resemble a Hoth type setting, and when opened has space to store each of the chess pieces. All in all a VERY nice custom build.