Review: The Nightly News at Nine Chapter 1 DVD

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from David M. Pickett, the creator of the Nightly News at Nine, an award-winning Brickfilm series that I hope you've all heard of. David offered me a copy of the NNN Chapter 1 DVD, and there was no way I was saying no!

There's always going to be a problem with selling DVDs of films that have premiered on the internet. In our modern-day world of full access to videos via YouTube, there's little space for DVDs of anything other than feature films. However, there is still a market for this sort of DVDs (albeit a small one), and NNN: Chapter 1 is certainly something to look into buying.

NNN Chapter One cover

Firstly, the design of the DVD. I first expected the NNN DVD to be a rather simple DVD cover, but when it arrived it was much more professional that I imagined. It was even wrapped in a plastic cover like the proper DVDs you can buy at media shops, so +1 professional points for Pickett there.

NNN Chapter One back cover (with a quote from me, yay - thanks David!)

The actual cover design is nothing special, but it works well and reminds you of all the great characters and stylings that make you love NNN. The back cover is full of all the details and descriptions of what's on the disc, and even the paragraph of thin+tall text that gives you all the info on who made the films.

NNN Chapter One disc printing

There's no doubt that the design of the DVD is accurate and impressive, but what's inside? Well, firstly, it's got a printed disc, and they're hard to do. So good for you, David!

The actual DVD contents are quite simple: whilst it's not packed with extras and bits 'n' bobs, there's still a fair amount of other films.

The Nightly News at Nine films themselves have all been squished into one big movie so that you can watch them all from start to finish, seamlessly. The entire first chapter is 25 minutes long, but it's light viewing and fun to watch. You almost forget that you originally saw the Chapter in several parts - instead, it takes the format of Phil and Sherry's News programme, with ad breaks in between segments.

So, undoubtedly, the main NNN Chapter is the best bit of the DVD. It's great just to have that in a place so you can put the DVD into your TV and enjoy it on the big (-ish) screen. It's certainly something that both adults and children will enjoy: children for the fun and silly aspects of it, and adults for the subtle parody of TV and advert formats, plus the social stereotypes in On the street with Steve Deepsea.

Persephone from the SVELT interview segment

But of course, this DVD would be pointless without extra features. As I said, it's all available free online, so what's going to make you pay the $8 for this DVD? Well, David's chucked in two of his other short animations on the DVD as well - most notably Choose Your Own Storyline: The Fight for Paradise Hills, which is a hilarious mock-movie trailer. There's also a non-Brickfilm, Stuck in the Mud, which is short but sweet and quite well-made. I'd love to see more from David in that style.

There's also the NNN trailers, which I don't care much for, but they're on there in case you want them. There's a short deleted scene which shows the NNN studio whilst the SVELT trailer is happening. It's nothing important, but it's funny and a welcome addition to the extra features.

Now onto the most important extra feature: the Director's Commentary! It's obvious that David Pickett is new to the commentary format - he even explains that himself - so it takes a while for him to get warmed up. Don't get put off by the start, it ends up as thoroughly interesting and David gives a lot of hints as to what to expect in NNN: Chapter 2. Pickett shows a lot of humility and sincerity in the commentary, which you don't get in professional commentaries. He seems like a really nice guy; makes me hope he does well with Chapter 2.

So, whilst buying DVDs of Brickfilms is not something that you do very often, perhaps just consider NNN: Chapter 1? It's great simply for Chapter 1 in its entirety, plus some of Pickett's other short films and that interesting commentary. I hope to see a lot more other films from you on the Chapter 2 DVD, David (Metamorphosis, please?)!

~John

BrickArms Prototypes in Review

Some of you may have noticed the recent number of posts I have been making with my new BrickArms on my Flickr photostream. Anyway those photos were the 'play test' where I can get a feel and even though the prototypes are always different (plastic used, modifications, etc.) I hope I can give everyone an idea of the new BrickArms products that will soon be released.

First up we have the GOW2 and it also sport the new rust color Will has been working on.

Next we have the new Photon Pistols from everyones favorite (or second favorite, depending on how much you like StarWars) science-fiction movie.

From left to right you see the Retro Raygun, the combat shotgun with glaive, and the GOW2 again. Other custom elements seen in the photo are the military helmet by BrickForge and custom black hair accessory by Arealight.

BrickArms put to their original and primary use.

Even the new Space Police can use the new trans-green color BrickArms is working on and the new Longslide pistol prototype.

And lastly for the photos, but certainly not the last of prototypes we have the heavy blaster pistol from Star Wars.

These prototype feature softer plastic than the final molds will have, but the quality and detail of these are perfect. They may not look like LEGO designs, but they have a style all there own.

You can also see many more photos of prototypes taken by BrickArms spokesperson theenigmathatisbadger's photostream.

REVIEW: Lego Games

"Two reviews in a row? You must be crazy, John!" I hear you scream in horror.

"I am!" I reply, with a smug grin on my face and a look of insanity in my eyes. I then walk backwards through the doorway, never breaking eye contact. "I'll be back" I whisper. A spooky chill runs down your spine. "I'll be back..."

Er... OK, enough theatrics. I managed to get hold of a copy of Robo Champ, one of the new Lego Games. There's been some debate over whether they will be released in America or not (they are currently in Europe and the UK), but hopefully they won't turn out to be like the Pirates Advent Calender.

Let me break the news to you: I only bought Robo Champ for the pieces. Yeah, I admit it. There's some great pieces in it for a £7 set, including the new 1x1 with a hole in it. "What blasphemy!" I shouted when I first saw the pieces (only available in white) in the smart CG graphics for Lego Games, but I must say these pieces, six of which are in Robo Champ (plus one spare), are darn useful. Gone are the days when you had to use a 1x1x1 cylinder... you can fill your needs with a little plate-height guy instead! I must say however, despite the usefulness of the pieces, there is no real reason that they should be in the Games sets at all. From what I can see, the holes are only used to make the pieces look more like eyes. Did Lego think that its new audience could not imagine eyes from a simple plain 1x1? More to the point, robots don't even have pupils, so why have a hole in the 1x1? Hmmm...

Also in the picture above, you can see one of five (including a spare) dark green cheese slopes included in the set. They're new to me, but they were probably already in the Emerald Night. Think about it this way - either pay £7 for 5, or £70 for 36. Oh, wait, that logic doesn't really work out. Darn it, just buy the Emerald Night!

Here's one of my favourite new pieces: the Lego die (I'll call it dice from now on because it doesn't sound as scary). I remember I saw on Brickshelf a while ago that one guy managed to take the red 'super-travis' out of the little rubber casing it's in, but on closer inspection, it seems you'd have to cut the rubber casing off to do this. The dice is a really great part, and I'm sure if you get a couple of them you could make some sort of framework. The rubber casing is also very useful for when you're playing the game, as it stops nasty Lego-shaped dents in your lovely soft wood table, or stops nasty table-shaped dents in your lovely 2x2 tile.

Another thing to mention before we get onto the gameplay is the packaging of Robo Champ: it comes in a two-part box, with one part slipping into the other like a classic board game box. I even wish normal Lego sets had boxes like that - but there's probably a cost of making it like that. Also, nothing beats popping out those thumb-shaped tabs on usual boxes. Besides, who keeps their Lego in the boxes it comes in?

That's enough tomfoolery: it's time to play. That's right, my family managed to find Robo Champ (from where I had carefully hidden it), and started playing. I thought "heck, it's better than playing it on my own then writing a review about how I both lost and won each game simultaneously". The rules to Robo Champ are pretty easy, but there are a couple of confusing aspects to them because there are, to put it simply, too many sides to the dice - each side means something in the game, but two of these actions are virtually identical.

The gameplay is quick and fairly satisfying. I don't really play board games, so excuse me for leaving out all the details about how many players you should have and what should be changed. A clever thing to note, though, is that Robo Champ's instructions contain a few ideas about how to change the game - like introducing a fourth robot, or alternate actions for the colours on the dice. The game is customisable just like Lego, which is a clever idea.

The game, like all the others, comes with a little spanner piece which the instructions reveal is not just for show: it 'helps' to remove tiles from the dice. It works with some, but to be brutally honest, I prefer using these.

The Lego Games series is a very good idea. However 'a very good idea' does not automatically mean 'will sell very well' - the concept is novel, but most of today's children will not sit around and play a board game like Robo Champ, Lego or not. It's a shame, for sure, but the series is offering some great new pieces: the dice and super-travis, the 1x1 with a hole in, a 2x2 jumper plate (with a single stud in the centre), werewolf heads and, for the last time, the inclusion of the old skeleton (with the hanging arms). My advice: screw the gameplay, get the games as soon as possible - Lego Games are an opportunity you can't miss.

~John

LDD 3.0 Review

That's right, kiddies, after almost a month had elapsed since the should-have-been release date, Lego Digital Deisgner 3.0 is finally here! I've cast my critical eye over some of its new features...

PRICE

I must admit I was shocked to see that my 'brick packs' - LDD files with assortments of bricks that I wanted to buy - had dramatically increased in price. Luckily, after further investigation, it seems there's just an extra £5.00 fine for buying off LDD. If you buy your bricks from Pick-a-Brick online, you can get them for the same old price, sometimes even less. I was comparing the price of a collection of 1x1 plates that was previously £2.95, and it seems to have reduced in price now to £2.17 or around there. Well, unless you want to get sucked into the marketing of LDD 3.0, go ahead and pay the extra £5.

INTERFACE

The LDD interface has changed quite a bit since last time. On the left we have a 'docked' brick palette, with access to the new groups and templates features. On the right we have the extremely annoying 'guide to LDD' pane, reminiscent of the Office pane in MS Word that comes up asking if you need help and whether you would like to open a new document. Sure, this is useful, but the text in the help pane on LDD is extremely short - only one paragraph for each section. They obviously don't expect much reading expertise from their users.

Around your central building section there now lives a selection of transparent directional buttons, including zoom controls and the ever-helpful 'centralise' button. The new layout of those is not the best, but you can easily get rid of them by going into the View menu. The grid has now changed into a lattice of small circles, to show the studs. Unfortunately the half-stud markers are gone, so measuring out 'offsetted' portions of MOC will be harder. The new grid is also much darker and bolder, which is distracting.

One thing I noticed when I first had a go at building on LDD 3 is a clever little trick: you can now, with help from the software, place bricks in between studs, like in the middle of a 2x2 brick of plate. Of course, that raises certain false connection problems (see picture), but ultimately it stops you messing around, trying to beat the software like I did with LDD 2.

HINGE ALIGN

This is a snazzy new feature that pretty much fails at anything you ask it to do. Whilst the usual hinge tool has been improved, and has a static control in the top-left to help you align bricks at 90˚- or 45˚-angles, its new friend, the hinge align tool, was no doubt made for friendly purposes, but ends up being extremely annoying.

If you do the slightest thing wrong, try the slightest false connection, it starts going a little crazy. Put it this way: if you enjoy watching bricks twitching against each other trying to align almost ad infinitum, go ahead and use the tool. It even fails at aligning tracks, too.

GROUPS AND TEMPLATES

Now these I do like. You can quickly select bricks and group them into easily manageable...er... groups, then delete them or even create sub-groups. Though I haven't had a chance to try it out on a larger MOC yet, I'm sure it will be useful.

You can also use the 'hide' tool to invisible-ise a section of your creation and concentrate on an intricate detail inside other bricks. It too proves to be really helpful with large MOCs, and I just love the little hiding minifig graphics.

The templates feature, which can be found next to the groups feature in the same dock as the brick palette, is pretty much groups, but inter-creation. That is, templates are little models that can be dragged-'n'-dropped into any creation you have open. Very useful and better than the crap template models LDD used to have.

INSTRUCTIONS

To finish this review off, the good ol' instructions feature has had a reboot. It's much clearer, larger and had a lovely blue background, but the different types of instructions buttons (building, car, etc) have disappeared. Damn.

LDD 3.0 is certainly better than its predecessors. It's got some great new ease-of-use features, and is much more fun to use, and less frustrating (providing you stay away from the hinge align tool). It's completely free of charge (unless you buy something and get that ghastly £5 "you've used LDD now you pay for your good thinking" fee), so I strongly suggest you go and download it, or open up your dusty LDD 2 application file and let the automatic update do its work. LDD is certainly coming much closer to being as clever and flexible as LDraw or other fan apps. Now all it needs is an unlimited brick palette.

~John

Minifig Stands.

I thought Brickspace readers might like to read my thoughts on the new Minifig Stands - so this is a repeat of an entry from my own personal Blog over at Tabletown.

According to the UK distributor, I'm the first person in the country (aside from him) to get my hands on a set of these. Dunno if that's correct, but there you go. Produced by Minifig World, available from Minifig For Life in the UK and featured on The Brothers Brick.

Here's the packaging.

Ten of these for £6.00. Here's the top and bottom.



As you can see, they do stack.

The packet suggests that with these stands you can get your Minifigs to:

1) Stand on one leg. Check.
2) Bend over. Check.
3) Hold items. Check - although as you will see with this alien meteorite held by the middle Doctor Sinister clone, he has to bend backwards or the whole lot tips over, stand and all. But then I did choose a deliberately ridiculous item to hold.

I think these will be really handy for display purposes, but what would be even handier would be if they were transparent and/or thinner with perhaps a single stud so they could be posed in a diorama unobtrusively. Now THAT would be handy!

Dr. S.