Best-Lock Stargate SG-1: A review
Posted: Mon Dec 16, 2013 3:44 pm
a few weeks ago, I discovered that everyone's least favorite lego clone, Best-Lock, had somehow gotten their hands on the license to Stargate. Those sets have finally reached my area, and I decided to pick one up and see exactly how badly Best-Lock had screw up. Here are the results.
The set I found was called "Jack on Abydos", and it included Colonel O'Neill, a MALP, a DHD and a Stargate.
Amazingly, Best-lock minifigs have actually gotten worse over the years. This is supposed to be Colonel O'Neill, and the resemblance is striking accurate....provided you look at it with a severe concussion, be completely drunk, and then take several pounds of hallucinogenic drugs.
BL weapons have also gotten worse over time, and the one Colonel O'Neill comes with was clearly given just enough detail to make it clear that it was a gun, and no more. The weird thing is, BL used to make a minifig scale MP5, which is what O'Neill was using when on Abydos, at least in the movie and first few seasons. So BL could have used a more accurate accessory, and decided not to.
The MALP (misidentified by the set as a MALF, only one misprint away from comedy gold), is pretty much completely awful. It looks nothing like either MALP used on the show, and they couldn't even get the color scheme right (which they really have no excuse for, because the rest of the set does have parts in the right color). The instructions are actually wrong, as the camera part of the front (which is almost identical to its lego version), doesn't properly attach to the front of the MALP.
The DHD is not as bad as the MALP, likely because there are fewer parts in it, and thus fewer places for the BL designers to screw up. The little red dot in the center is supposed to attach to another one underneath it, but because the designers have evidentally used a CAD system (with the CAD version of noclip engaged) rather than physical parts, there's a gap between the two parts, so they won't connect, and the top one is constantly falling off. This is as good a time as any to mention that BL has reworked their bricks at some point (read: gotten better at aping Lego), so while their sets aren't as prone to falling apart, new BL parts are not compatible with older ones.
The Stargate, however, is not entirely awful. While it has a paper cutout of the wormhole (which was a bitch to get installed, thanks to how the gate is built), and only 7 chevrons rather than nine (because when designing a toy line that will be in part targeted to fans of the show, half-assing the details is a great idea), it holds together well enough, and the inner dial does actually spin. It's definitely the best part of the set, but that doesn't say much given how awful the rest of the stuff is. All in all, it wasn't the worst thing I've gotten for $5, but it's still pretty bad.
The set I found was called "Jack on Abydos", and it included Colonel O'Neill, a MALP, a DHD and a Stargate.
Amazingly, Best-lock minifigs have actually gotten worse over the years. This is supposed to be Colonel O'Neill, and the resemblance is striking accurate....provided you look at it with a severe concussion, be completely drunk, and then take several pounds of hallucinogenic drugs.
BL weapons have also gotten worse over time, and the one Colonel O'Neill comes with was clearly given just enough detail to make it clear that it was a gun, and no more. The weird thing is, BL used to make a minifig scale MP5, which is what O'Neill was using when on Abydos, at least in the movie and first few seasons. So BL could have used a more accurate accessory, and decided not to.
The MALP (misidentified by the set as a MALF, only one misprint away from comedy gold), is pretty much completely awful. It looks nothing like either MALP used on the show, and they couldn't even get the color scheme right (which they really have no excuse for, because the rest of the set does have parts in the right color). The instructions are actually wrong, as the camera part of the front (which is almost identical to its lego version), doesn't properly attach to the front of the MALP.
The DHD is not as bad as the MALP, likely because there are fewer parts in it, and thus fewer places for the BL designers to screw up. The little red dot in the center is supposed to attach to another one underneath it, but because the designers have evidentally used a CAD system (with the CAD version of noclip engaged) rather than physical parts, there's a gap between the two parts, so they won't connect, and the top one is constantly falling off. This is as good a time as any to mention that BL has reworked their bricks at some point (read: gotten better at aping Lego), so while their sets aren't as prone to falling apart, new BL parts are not compatible with older ones.
The Stargate, however, is not entirely awful. While it has a paper cutout of the wormhole (which was a bitch to get installed, thanks to how the gate is built), and only 7 chevrons rather than nine (because when designing a toy line that will be in part targeted to fans of the show, half-assing the details is a great idea), it holds together well enough, and the inner dial does actually spin. It's definitely the best part of the set, but that doesn't say much given how awful the rest of the stuff is. All in all, it wasn't the worst thing I've gotten for $5, but it's still pretty bad.