It's time for this week's installment of the Bits N' Bricks podcast, still discussing the still popular and well-regarded LEGO Universe. Go listen to Episode 13 - LEGO Universe: Death of a Dream on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform to hear more behind-the-scenes of the launch of the game and the events that led to its closure less than two years later. Journalist Brian Crecente and documentarian Ethan Vincent pull back the curtain with their usual interviews and insight. And if you're still looking for a LEGO Universe fix, don't forget about Darkflame Universe, the fan-made remake of the game!

Tonight we'll be switching gears in our LEGO videogame streams and heading back to LEGO Dimensions to check out the Back to the Future area. Come on by the BZPower Twitch channel starting at 7:30 PM Eastern to watch us head to Hill Valley in our DeLorean to save time or something - who knows! I'm looking forward to seeing what adventures we have and chatting with the people who join us!

Yesterday The LEGO House announced that a new set would be joining their 'The LEGO House Limited Editions' collection: 40502 The Brick Moulding Machine. The 1205-piece set will be available starting on March 4th only at the 'home of the brick' in Billund, Denmark for 599 DKK (about $100 USD) and replicates the machine found in the building as well as in LEGO factories around the world. The set certainly looks like a unique and interesting build that would be a great souvenir if you can manage a visit to the birthplace of the company. If you're interested in learning more, you can head to The LEGO House website to read the full press release!

Yesterday another cool creation joined the ranks of the LEGO Ideas 10k Club. Take a look at the Steampunk Airship by BrickHammer, which captures the Victorian Era alternate history style in our favorite plastic bricks. The airship is the fourth project this builder has had reach the goal, after Terry Pratchett's Discworld, Viking Village, and The King's Castle. I absolutely love all the details in this creation, from the golden decorative elements to the fully-furnished interior. It would certainly be something different to come out of the Ideas process, and we wish it good luck during the review phase!

Welcome to March - spring is almost here! Since it's a new month, it means we have a new giveaway for BZPower members to enter. Head over to 2021 Member Raffle #3 to count yourself interested in getting a free 75114 First Order Stormtrooper set from the Star Wars buildable figure series. All members are welcome to enter, and if you're lucky, you'll be like Mistah_Grammaticul, the winner of last month's raffle, and walk away with a new addition to your LEGO collection!

Somehow more than two days have passed without a project on LEGO Ideas achieving ten thousand votes of support. So I thought instead of talking about a creation that already met its goal, let's look at one that's still on the rise! Bionicle: Toa Head Statue is a great tribute to the early years of the theme and instantly recognizable to anyone who built the original Toa Mata or Nuva. It looks like it would be the perfect size to display on a desk or a bookshelf next to all of your Bionicle books. I also love the little details on the base: a Hau, an Ussal crab, some gears to show the Technic roots, and the Mata Nui and Makuta stones. We wish yannickbuildsthings, aka ToM Dracone, the best of luck and encourage you all to vote if it's the kind of thing you'd like to buy and build!

It's February 28th, and it's not a leap year, so that means there's only a few hours (sixteen or so) left to enter the 2021 Member Raffle #2! You could be the lucky winner of 75535 Han Solo just by being a BZPower member. If you miss out though, no worries, we'll have a new giveaway for March tomorrow. Best of luck to all!

If you've been around BZPower for a while you might have bumped into Ray, who goes by InnerRayg and Funny Figs around the web. Yes, he's the one who made the sprite kit. Recently though, he and collaborator Jake Cohen are setting their sights elsewhere: comic books. Yesterday they launched their Kickstarter campaign for Astounding Tales, a Golden Age Adventure for the Modern Age, and if it strikes your fancy you can help them make their dream a reality that you can hold in your hands and flip through. No, this isn't really LEGO related, but Ray has been my friend and a part of this community for a long time, and I'm excited to see where this journey takes him! Excelsior!

So we've got a little LEGO set that we're going to build. By little I mean the largest set of all time: 10276 Colosseum. Want to watch? How about tomorrow, February 27th starting at 1 PM Eastern on the BZPower Twitch channel? There's no way we'll finish, but we will definitely chat and give out some prizes. See you there!

Today we have a review of another Star Wars set for you all, kindly provided to us by LEGO. We're taking a look at 75302 Imperial Shuttle, which allows us to recreate Luke Skywalker turning himself in to Darth Vader on the forest moon of Endor. Containing 660 pieces and retailing for $79.99 when it launches on March 1st, it's smaller than the previous iteration that was released in 2015, but what is the impact of that lower cost and piece count? Is it still a fun build, are there useful elements, and can you play with it? Read on to find out my thoughts!  

Two new projects have achieved ten thousand votes of support on LEGO Ideas over the past couple of days. First up is Marine Life by Brick Dangerous, which features a seahorse, jellyfish, and clownfish in adorable little aquariums. Then we have Via Rail Canada - The Canadian by NickLafreniere1, capturing the rail line from Toronto to Vancouver that has been in operation for over seventy years. The two projects are quite different, showing off the variety that the platform enables. We wish them the best of luck when they enter their upcoming review phase!

Who doesn't love a good meme? Obviously not BZPower member Tattorack, who recently shared IT'S ALL BONKLES!! over in the General Art forum with his take on the 'It's All Ohio' meme. The artist takes it to the next level though, doing away with MS Paint doodles and Photoshops with some lovely artwork that pays tribute to our favorite LEGO theme. And really, it's just reaffirming what we all already knew, it is all Bionicle.

We shared the press release yesterday but didn't get around to sharing the newest episode of the Bits N' Bricks podcast. You can go listen to Episode 12 - LEGO Universe Soundtrack: A Conversation to learn about how the music behind the game came into being. Richard Dekkard and Brian Tyler get interviewed by journalist Brian Crecente and documentarian Ethan Vincent about how they both became involved in the project and what it was like working with the team and Sir Patrick Stewart. There's even some audio clips from the original behind-the-scenes recording about the game where we get to hear Sir Stewart talk about his experience with LEGO bricks! This is probably one of my favorite episodes yet, so give it a listen!

After some electrical issues yesterday, we are good to go with streaming tonight! Join us starting at 7:30 PM Eastern on the BZPower Twitch channel as we continue our revisit of The LEGO Movie: The Videogame and try to reach the lofty goal of 100% completion. Since next week will be the first Tuesday of March, meaning we'll be heading back to LEGO Dimensions, tonight we'll also be asking what you'd like to see us play in that title, as we have many different characters we can explore. See you all there!

It's Wednesday, which means as per usual that a new episode of the Bits N' Bricks podcast is coming out, but that's not all! In celebration of 25 years of LEGO Games and to coincide with the episodes about LEGO Universe, Brian Tyler and The LEGO Group have remastered and released the soundtrack from the beloved MMO game! It's available to purchase and stream right now! Read on for more details and to find out where you can listen.  

Unfortunately, some electrical work going on at my house is taking longer than planned, so we'll be postponing tonight's Twitch Tuesday stream. Once everything is up and operational we'll let you all know what night this week we'll be moving the stream to. Hopefully it will be tomorrow, but we'll play it by ear for now. I'm looking forward to playing some more The LEGO Movie: The Videogame with you all!

It's no secret that I'm a lover of all things Tolkien-related, so the latest LEGO Ideas news is something I'm happy to see. A new project has reached ten thousand votes of support on the platform: A Map of Middle-Earth by Artem Biziaev, yet another 10k Club veteran. The map is the third project this builder has had reach the goal, after the Hyrule Castle (The Legend of Zelda) and Baba Yaga. While I absolutely love all the details in this creation, from the place names to the micro-figs of the Fellowship, I will keep my expectations tempered for when it enters the review phase. Perhaps we'll get lucky, but until we know for sure I'll just enjoy the beautiful MOC!

Happy Monday! If you're dealing with depressing winter weather like many in the US right now and need a pick-me-up, look no further than LEGO Ideas! A new project has achieved ten thousand votes of support: My LEGO Totoro ( feat. Cat Bus ) by legotruman, who is no stranger to the 10k Club. This is their fourth time getting a project this far, and if they're lucky, it will become a LEGO set just like the upcoming Vincent van Gogh: The Starry Night! Anyway, this project captures the look and feel of the classic Miyazaki film by Studio Ghibli and I'm sure would make a great addition to many people's collections. We'll keep our fingers crossed for a favorable review result!

If you've ever been to a LEGO fan convention, chances are you've seen a Great Ball Contraption. A staple of events everywhere, these are always a huge hit with visitors and exhibitors alike. About a year ago, at LEGO World Copenhagen in February 2020, the world record for the longest LEGO GBC was set! In the video on the LEGO YouTube channel, you can see some of the 299 modules made up of over 200,000 LEGO elements, with each one intricately placed to help get a LEGO soccer ball from point A to point B. Congratulations to Maico Arts, Ben Jonkman, Klaus Hansen, Vibeke Brogard, Brian Soholm Larsen, [email protected], and Andreas Engelmartin, who assembled this awesome layout. If we ever get to go to conventions again, when you see the GBC running, go up and ask, 'is that all it does?' They love it when you do that! (Don't really do that.)

Recently another pair of cool creations have entered the hallowed halls of the LEGO Ideas 10k Club. First up is The Trulli of Alberobello by Renato Lovicario RennaWSL, which captures the looks of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in our favorite plastic bricks. Next up is the Jazz Quartet by Hsinwei Chi, which is an updated version of the builder's entry to the Music to Our Ears contest. Both models feature superb attention to detail and could be great additions to the Ideas theme. We wish them both the best of luck when they enter their upcoming review phase!

Earlier this week, The LEGO Group and Universal Music Group shared more details on VIDIYO and teased the release of an upcoming single from L.L.A.M.A, "the first ever human version of a LEGO minifigure." The single dropped today and you can listen to Shake by L.L.A.M.A, with Ne-Yo and Carmen DeLeon on a variety of platforms, including a music video on YouTube. That video sure is something. Given the collaboration between TLG and UMG on this project, I was expecting at least some LEGO content or references, personally, but I didn't spot any in the 2:42 track. Give it a listen and see what you think, then share your thoughts in the Talkback!

The dragon is an iconic creature of fantasy and lore. And we can expect at least one dragon set in every Ninjago wave, including this latest Legacy line. Reviewed today is the Overlord Dragon, a monster from Season 2 of the longest running Cartoon Network show and its first time appearing as a set. Watch and read the review of Lloyd vs the Overlord and his dragon.  

We've still got over a week left in Hero February and there have been some great MOCs popping up around the Internet in celebration. One such creation is Nex: The Tech-Head by BrickPharaoh, which takes inspiration from the first two iterations of the character and combines them into a rad robot. I love the little drone flying over his shoulder, which includes a printed 2x2 curved slope from the Darth Vader Buildable Figure. The chest also has a nice homage to the hero cores of the original, and the feet have a ton of interesting details and really make the character stand out as not-quite-human. Go check it out and keep using #letsbuildheroes in your creations!

Let's see what's been going on over on LEGO Ideas recently. First up, a new project has joined the 10k Club, The Polar Express by Minibrick Productions, based on the classic children's book and animated film. I like the clean exterior lines and detailed interior they managed to incorporate into the build. If you clicked that link and thought that LEGO Ideas looked a little different, that's because it recently got a visual refresh which Hasan has detailed. In addition to some welcome navigational changes, they have also updated the rule about main project images to prohibit titles and other text to allow for a more consistent appearance across the platform. What do you think of the changes? Let us know in the Talkback!

It's Wednesday, which means a new episode of the Bits N' Bricks podcast is here! The subject for this week's chapter is the much-loved LEGO Universe MMO, and there's so much to discuss that this installment is only part one! Listen to journalist Brian Crecente and documentarian Ethan Vincent talk about the origins of NetDevil, how they came to work on LEGO Universe, and some of the early problems that cropped up during its development. It's a pretty fascinating look behind the scenes at a game that, in some ways, was doomed to fail from the beginning. You can check out Episode 11 - LEGO Universe: Birth of an Idea on your preferred podcast platform or on the LEGO Games YouTube channel. I'm looking forward to next week's episode already!

Today The LEGO Group is revealing the two latest BrickHeadz sets which are part of the new Pets subtheme that began at the beginning of the year. Joining 40441 Shorthair Cats and 40440 German Shepards are 40442 Goldfish and 40443 Budgie, helping to round out some of the most common animals people keep in their homes. Specific information wasn't given to us, but I expect these will release on March 1st for around $15 each. To see these adorable little creations and learn more about them, read on!