But first, let’s take a glance at the Doctor Who sets. They’re mostly based on the 11th Doctor (Matt Smith), his companions Amy Pond & her husband Rory and Dr. River Song, but also Daleks, Weeping Angels, and even those creepy vampire chicks from Venice. There’s also the Silence, the Cybermen, and all the Roman Centurions you want. And you can get some great playsets including the exterior and interior of the TARDIS (and yes, the interior set is larger) and a Cyberman conversion set. And what’s really cool is that they offer multipacks of Daleks, Weeping Angels, and Cybermen so you can have a legion of bad guys chasing the Doctor! But the absolute best is the The Eleven Doctors micro-figure Set that has a minifig (they call them microfigs) of every Doctor from the entire 50 years of Who. I want that.

Other playsets Character Building offers include a set devoted to Her Majesty’s Armed Forces – where kids can get microfigs of members of the Royal Navy, Air Force, Parachute Commandos, and even those awesome guards that protect Buckingham Palace with those large fur hats and never flinch! 12 to collect, plus playsets that include boats, helicopters, jets and tanks. And multi packs also for a squad of commandos.

There’s also Deadly 60, which looks like a collection of Steve Irwin (Crocodile Hunter) types who study various wild animals, with multipacks of whales, walruses, eagles, wolves, and many other great animals from the wild. And playsets including both underwater and jungle habitats.

Lastly, Character Building offers a collectible line of microfigs that have waves of collectibles with astronauts, knights, aliens, ninjas and much more. And you can even get a soccer team and Wembly stadium.

Man, what a cool line of toys!

Guests at Star Wars Weekends this year will be given the opportunity to step into a “Carbon Freezing Chamber,” located near The American Idol Experience in the theme park, and have their faces 3-D scanned using multiple cameras to create a 8-inch figurine depicting themselves frozen in carbonite. It also comes with a light-up wristband.

Here are the details …

It takes about 30 minutes for them to scan your face (but they want you to arrive 10 minutes before your reserved time) with an array of multiple cameras that will capture your image and likeness in 3D. Then, they will use that data to create an 8-inch action figure of yourself frozen in Carbonite (it’s actually your face over Hans frozen body), presumably with a 3D printer/rapid prototyper. The cost for the priviledge is about $100 plus tax and shipping, and it should take the standard 4-6 weeks to receive it.

The Carbon Freeze Me experience will be available at Disney Hollywood Studios during Star Wars Weekends only starting this Saturday. Separate theme park admission to Disney’s Hollywood Studios is required and no discounts apply toward the “Carbon-Freeze Me” purchase.

All too easy.

It’s called Wolfenstein 3-D, and I can’t tell you how many hours I wiled away on my 386 and 486 computers, shooting Nazi’s and their mean German shepherds while searching Hitler’s underground bunker for treasure. That’s the basic concept of the game which is celebrating it’s twentieth anniversary.

Course, it’s a far cry from the realistic FPS games of today, where you can put on a force feedback vest to simulate a bullet hit and use your wireless controller, embedded into a rifle stock to amp up the realism. And then there’s the HD Graphics, and THX Sound, and 70″ HD screens. That’s modern warfare (quite literally). But in 1992, the state of the art was a 16 color XGA screen graphics and midi sound effects which gave an 8 bit experience that we only today with such games as Minecraft.

Boy was it fun. And it still is, as to celebrate it’s 20th birthday, the publishers of Bethesda Software have put a flash version of the game online that you can play for free and get that 3D Wolfenstein experience for yourself! So what are you waiting for? Go kill some Nazi’s!

The problem is a design flaw in these slide designs, that are primarily created to work side by side with an in ground pool. You set it up, inflate it, and point it towards the deep end of the pool. However, this flaw causes the bottom half of the pool to deflate, leading kids to slide down to the ground below and certain injury, or worse. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is so adamant that these slides are dangerous they’ve even played the “death card,” saying that kids could end up with a potential fatal injury in certain conditions. One 29 year old woman died from a neck fracture as a result, while another 24 year old man ended up a quadriplegic. Both, who’s lives were destroyed too early in life.

The CPSC wants users to immediately stop using the Banzai slides, which were made in China (where else) by Manley Toys, Ltd. They were sold at both Walmart and Toys R Us stores in the US from January 2005 through June 2009, and have the words Banzai Splash in a circular blue, orange and white logo, shaped like a wave on either side of the slide.

And even though the product may be as old as 7 years old, consumers can take the product and return it to the nearest Walmart or Toys R Us for a full refund. You can also cut the two safety warning notices out of the slide and just return that portion for the same credit.

For additional information, contact Toys R Us at 800-869-7787 or through their website. Walmart users can call 800-925-6278
or visit www.walmartstores.com

And for further information on pool toy safety, check out the CPSC website, Pool Safely.

Hat Tip – Consumer Reports

The set comes up with a huge wall poster that acts as the scenic backdrop of an Extreme Sports arena that’s standing room only. Once you pin that up to the wall, you then insert the 3M adhesive strips that will serve as the attachment points for the Wall Tracks.

The set also comes with a battery powered power unit that keeps the cars going around the track non stop until something causes it to knock off to the floor below. Once you’ve got everything in place, you attach the tracks and you’re ready to run your cars through the air. Check out the video of it in action:

The set comes with one Hot Wheels car, but since there’s a “crash zone” where cars can slam into each other in mid air, the more cars you add to the track, the more the likelihood you’ll see some racing carnage! One word of warning though, the review at ToyBuzz say that the adhesive strips may pull paint off of poorly painted wall surfaces.

Available at Amazon for under $80.

Hat Tip – Toy Buzz

It’s always fun to see what’s going to pop out of your advent calendar. And this year, we at least have a hint as to what the 2012 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar has in store … and it looks like it’s revenge …

At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge. – Darth Maul, Star Wars, Episode 1: The Phantom Menace

Darth Maul as Santa Claus?! That’s right, this year’s right jolly old elf is none other than Darth Maul, and that means he’s going to use the dark side to get his revenge on all those kids who were naughty, not nice! Seriously though, this looks to be a fun looking set, which looks to have an Episode 1 theme since this year was the reissue of Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace in 3D. Check out the minisets that they’ve got on the box set … a Republic Cruiser, a Naboo fighter, a set of Trade Federation fighters, and Battle Droids!

There also looks to be a rebel minifig, a Jar Jar Binks minifig, an ATAT, an A Wing fighter, and what looks to be a wrapped surprise in red and green. The set is LEGO 9509 Star Wars Advent Calendar 2012 and has a total of 234 pieces.

Hat Tip – Toys n Bricks

The toys that are included in the “Motherload of Avengers Toys Giveaway” include:

- Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America and Thor 3.75-inch action figures
- 10-inch electronic Iron Man Mark VII
- Iron Man Tri-Power Repulsor Blaster
- Hulk Hands Gamma Green Smash Fists
- Hulk Mask

That’s a pretty slick collection of toys for your little Avenger. And all you need to do to enter for a shot at winning this cache is head over to Nerd Approved here and log in to their Rafflecopter widget with either a Facebook account or email address. Once signed in you can earn extra entries by sharing and liking on their Facebook page and posting onto your wall about it. The more you share, the more entries, the great chance of winning. The winner will be chosen at random, so the more entries you have, the better.

Open to US residents only. But you better hurry if you want a chance, it’ll be gone in less than a week.

Hasbro Toy Shop is having a 20% off all Star Wars Merch today only! Check out the details:

Happy Star Wars Day!
We wanted to let you know that as part of Lucasfilm’s official May the 4th celebration, Hasbro is proud to offer 20% off on all Star Wars products on HasbroToyShop.com* for today only! This is a great chance to save on items like Star Wars Fighter Pods, Star Wars action figures, and more! For more information on how to save 20% on all Star Wars items today only on HasbroToyShop.com, click: http://www.hasbrotoyshop.com/star-wars-may-the-fourth
Thanks, and May the 4th Be With You!

Now the rules. In order to qualify for the 20% off discount, you have to enter Promo Code SWFAN20
And it’s important to know that the 20% Off STAR WARS Fan Day discount is One Day Only-May 4th. The discount is only good on STAR WARS products currently available on the Hasbro Toy Store site and will apply to pre-tax and pre-shipping amounts. The offer cannot be combined with any other coupon or offer and is valid only while supplies last.

The offer expires at midnight, so take advantage while you can!

Meanwhile, LEGO is having their own May the 4th celebration (along with Revenge of the 5th), with a FREE Limited-Edition TC-14TM Minifigure with a $75 LEGO® Star Wars Purchase. Valid May 4-5, 2012 only or while supplies last.

Enjoy!

The subsidized model is very similar to what cellphone carriers do to lure new and existing customers to stay with their wireless service and get the latest hot handset. Only the difference here is that while a new iPhone 4S would set you back about $2000 or more over the course of the contract (you an buy an unlocked iPhone for about $700), a 4GB XBox with Kinect and a two year membership in XBox Live will only set you back about $40 more than if you bought the Kinect Bundle separately and then added the XBox Live membership. That ain’t bad. And even better, if you bought them all piecemeal, you’d end up spending $10 more.

Clearly, Microsoft is going after improving their market share. And this may just suck me in. We have a PS3, which we bought because it gave us a Blu-ray player and free online gaming. I wanted an XBox for Halo, but didn’t really want to pay for XBox Live when Sony’s online offerings were free. Then SONY got hacked and handled it really badly. Couple that with that now we’re looking to cut the cord and we can do a lot more with XBox Media Center and stream TV online.

The deal is reported to be only available at the Microsoft Store with no word on if it’ll be available online or through retailers. So I’ll be paying close attention to this to see how well it does. And if it’s successful, who knows, maybe we’ll see subsidized Wii’s or PS4s (if that ever comes out).

Hat Tip – D’Vice

“If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. “Your future is whatever you make it.” – Doc Brown, Back to the Future III

OK, that may be a bit too much tooting of the proverbial horn, but we’ve been reporting for awhile now that LEGO should be looking at releasing a series with Marty, Doc and the gang. And with the film, starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, celebrating it’s 35th anniversary, the timing is ripe for it.

Mattel is getting into it, having released a custom, collector’s version of Marty’s alternate 1985 Hover Board. And then there’s a very popular LEGO CUUSOO submission by Brick fan “Sakuretsu,” who’s covered his bases with a trio of Deloreans:

- The DeLorean Time Machine, featuring Marty McFly and Doc Brown. Alternate costumes for 1955 & 1985 for both (BTTF1: 1985 to 1955)
- The DeLorean Time Machine with Hover Modification, Hoverboard, featuring Marty McFly (Impersonating his future son) and Future Doc Brown (BTTF2: 1985 to 2015)
- The DeLorean Time Machine on Train Wheels (and White-walls) with Steam Train to push it, featuring Western Marty McFly (as Clint Eastwood) and Sniper-Rifle toting Doc Brown (BTTF3: 1955 to 1885)

And it’s very popular as well, having garnered the required 10,000 votes in about 9 months. And that means it goes to the next level, with LEGO deciding if they’ll release sets based on the pitch. Here’s hoping so. And I’d also like to see a Hill Valley set and a set including Doc’s Time Traveling Train. Great Scott that would be heavy.

Hat Tip – D’Vice