My first review, so be easy. The pictures were taken with my iPhone. They're blurry, out of focus and the lighting sucks. Make it all the way to the end & you can see some other newly released sets. This set is really cool. Here goes, hope the format suits you.
First, the pieces laid out. Thirteen different colors including 3 greens! And that's not even counting the translucents! There were several interesting pieces I didn't previously own. If you look closely, you can see the CCNA book I'm supposed to be reading instead of building Lego.
Here is the sticker sheet. Minimal, but the red curved slope stickers are the same as previous Atlantean sets. I didn't apply them, I kind of like the Atlantis line without them.
Instruction book page:
The pieces unique to my collection at this point. A camera, a cool rubber coupling, & some of the fish body pieces.
The Totally Awesome FishMan and gold helmet/treasure. Ol' FishFace has a mouth on his torso that shows through the hole in the outer torso covering, which BTW is a Kit Fisto-y rubber.
Assembled minifigs. I'm sure our protagonist has a name, but I've no clue what it is. He looks like Ned Flanders and has a double sided head featuring serious Ned & scared Ned.
The lovely scenery. Note the nice textured round 2x2s, which I assume are the same as what we'll get in the largest 2011 set. There are some jewels in there under the helmet.
Here is the angler in mid-build.
Fin. I call the big one Gulpy.
And finally here's your bonus pic with some other new goodies I put together this week: PQ Golden Staff Guardians, Creator Log Cabin, and Creator Rescue Robot:
This set's great. I'm very much looking forward to the rest of this wave. Atlantis is better than some of the licensed themes in my book (PoP & TS3, I'm looking at you). I wasn't out of my dark ages when Aqua Raiders was around, but from the pictures this angler looks way cooler. Here are some ratings whose criteria I just made up:
Difficulty of build: 3/5 - The only thing special is the mouth. The aforementioned rubber coupling allows the lower jaw to move and stay closed if you're not moving it. A little bit of SNOTwork for the body.
Uniqueness of build: 4/5 - I know Aqua Raiders had one before, but from what I can see the Atlantis Angler is amped up a bit. Same concept but more of everything with some pieces you don't see every day. Also: FishFace.
Swooshability: 5/5 - If you can't play with this, your player is broken.
Minifigs: 5/5 - Go get 'em, FishFace! And Flanders has yellow arms/fins!
Overall: 4.5/5 - Great variety of pieces & colors make this one to get, especially if it's on sale. I picked mine up at TRU before they raised the price and I feel it was worth it. $.10/piece isn't the best but it's not a ripoff with this set IMO.
I feel they've really stepped the Atlantis line up a notch (if, as I hope, the rest of the 2011 sets follow suit) since the first year. I like that they're continuing to improve the line and not letting it get stale. Gulpy goes great with my other Atlantis creatures Stingy & Crawly.
