Mega Bloks: bricks meet video games

A few years ago, we saw the LEGO take away the exclusivity of its system of building blocks. How was this possible? The reason is that these bricks are considered the patents and not of trademarks and patents, after a number of years, becoming lapse in the public domain. This has meant the proliferation, within a short time, a large number of other companies that are available to produce "LEGO compatible," that is essentially identical to those of the bricks LEGO. The Danish company is not overly worried at the beginning, since the vast majority of these bricks are compatible was not even remotely the same level of quality as the originals. However, it was only a matter of time before he got someone to change the rules of the game. As in China have come home as the Star Diamond and Enlighten, which have a production level comparable with the original bricks, so to get busy in England was the Airfix - historic home of model kits - while Canada has dictated reads the Mega Bloks - leading line of the company Mega Brands, Inc.

LEGO has tried to curb this terrible hemorrhage of profits possible causes throwing right and left and lost them all. The Supreme Court of Canada, November 17, 2005, stated that Mega Bloks had every right to continue to produce and sell their own LEGO-compatible on Canadian territory, closely followed by the Court of the European Union, which, in the first instance, November 12, 2008, ratified the decision of the Trademarks in favor of Mega Bloks LEGO not to grant the ability to record its system of construction, stating that " the bricks with holes and bumps interlocking have only a technical function and cannot be registered as a trademark. " In a nutshell, friends AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego), we now live in a world in which an unknown number of companies worldwide producing products that are compatible with classic LEGO bricks, colors, shapes and different functions. In even fewer words: we live in times quite interesting.

Canadians to the rescue*

The war, then, has moved on licenses. After the historic licensed LEGO Star Wars (and later, from Spongebob to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, from Back to the Future the recent Simpson), all the other companies, with Mega Bloks in the foreground, they tried to grab a few License famous for giving luster to its lines of bricks compatible. Thus, the Kre-O - line of LEGO-compatible Hasbro, has managed to win the Star Trek license, producing (with not very exciting) an Enterprise, one Hawk War and other small Klingon September Mega Bloks, in addition to acquiring licenses for Barbie, Power Rangers, Hot Wheels and Hello Kitty, had another great idea, and that is the union of two "demographic" highly overlapping: that of the AFOL and that of gamers. So he put into his rich carnet also the possibility of creating "reductions in bricks" of characters, vehicles and environments officially traits from Halo, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Skylanders. In the next lines, I will give my personal opinion on the first two lines.

Quality of cuts or joints

One of the main problems of almost all the LEGO compatible is that they are such in name only. In fact, at the level of quality of the compound plastic molds and strength of the joints between the pieces, there is nothing in the world that is comparable to LEGO perfection. Mega Bloks, however, there must be damn close. The pieces are molded with a plastic apparently very similar to the original LEGO (a secret recipe of components based on acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, commonly known as ABS - no, it has nothing to do with the braking system of your car), which almost always fit together perfectly - the exceptions are very rare and insignificant - allowing a good seal and the ability to detach reattach many times without the slightest problem. The compatibility with actual LEGO pieces was tested in various combinations and is always found absolutely perfect. "A skin", this plastic seems to me a slightly softer compound, but it is very subtle and personal feelings and very difficult to quantify. In any case, it is without a doubt one of the best LEGO-compatible products on which I happened to get my hands. The components are sometimes extremely small (as in the personalization system of Minifig of the Call of Duty series, which will be discussed later) but the print is always of excellent quality, with no obvious signs of injection or sprue. Kudos to Mega Bloks, then, in this aspect of production.