Today we bring you another Hero Factory summer wave set review. This time, Gatanui looks at 6283 Voltix, an electric and multi-colored villain. Should you add him to your collection or just buy the purple parts elsewhere? You'll have to read on to find out!

And here goes the next HERO Factory summer set review. Get ready because this review is going to be literally shocking!

Calling all heroes! VOLTIX is on the loose from the Hero Factory and is trying to disrupt the power supply at the Tansari VI energy collection array. With a ball shooting volt blaster, dangerous lightning whip, electricity spark elements and a voltage booster switch, he's got the tools to do some real damage. Stop him before it's too late!

Presentation
From the design of the box to the instruction manual, these are the first things you see before building the set.

I hope you forgive me if I skip this part, but enough text and thoughts have been spent on the bags, which, although innovative, are not all too spectacular either.

Building
Half the fun is had building the set. How fun is it to build and how easy or challenging is it?

There have been many complaints about Hero Factory sets being too easy to build and it seems TLG has decided to come up with a solution to at least partly silence this kind of complaints. 'What does that solution look like?' you ask? Very simple. Take a normal hero or villain, grab a couple of random Technic pieces from a bin, attach them in a halfway plausible way and... voila: You have not only managed to justify a higher price for the set, but have also increased complexity. Sort of...

Like the other medium-sized sets of this summer wave, Voltix is way more interesting as far as building is concerned than his small-sized pals, which is no wonder taking a look at that mess of tubes, tentacles and whatnot. For customers of LEGO Technic sets, however, the building is plainly disappointing. But let us keep in mind that the set was designed for a young target group of seven- to fourteen-year-olds, after all. Nevertheless, I can't help but thinking that LEGO is underestimating children's mental capacity.

Set Design
Now that the set is complete, we can critique how it looks from every angle. New or interesting pieces can also be examined here.

This is where Voltix actually arouses interest. Once built, you are confronted with a cheeringly colorful villain. Some of you may dislike the clash of so many colors: red, some blue, purple, gunmetal, black, yellow. I, for my part, can live with it, since the colors were not arranged in a totally random way, but instead show up a certain structure: There is a layering of gunmetal and red, the use of purple is only limited to a specific area of the upper body, etc. But I can totally understand if you cannot overcome your sense of harmony and get to like this anarchic mess of colors. Because that's what Voltix looks like: anarchic.

Before I continue my contemplations about Voltix as a finished set, let us have a look at the elementary units every LEGO set consists of. I am not talking about atoms, I am referring to the pieces. Voltix comes with a total of 61 pieces and thus happens to be the medium-sized set with most pieces of this summer wave, along with Bulk. Out of those, eight are new (if you count the Captain America armor as a new piece) and three recolored ones, totaling eleven absolutely gorgeous new pieces (I included the remolded old hand piece in the photo with the recolored pieces as it is quite rare, having appeared only with Jawblade so far). The yellow tentacle, for instance, looks beautiful and may come in handy for MOCing. So do the purple pieces. However, the excellent part of this set is without any doubt the electric spark piece, which does not only look beautiful, but it will be most useful for electricity-themed MOCs. I am sure the first Toa of Lightning MOCs featuring this part will show up fairly soon. Sorry to disappoint all those who were expecting a Glatorian head remold: TLG does not seem to see the need to replace the old Glatorian head for now.

That said, let me point out a couple of things that caught my attention on this set and which I utterly dislike. Number one: The neck is too long. When vertically positioning the neck piece, you get the impression that Voltix has been hanging for several weeks before miraculously reviving. However, you can easily fix this by replacing the skeleton piece used as neck by a shorter one like seen on Core Hunter.

Number two: The lower arms leave much to be desired. All medium-sized summer sets suffer from a short-arm-syndrome and this set is no exception in this respect. On Voltix, this does not turn out to be a dramatic flaw, but I would have preferred two slightly longer lower arms with purple cladding on them. However, I am very disappointed about the fact that Voltix does not have Hero Factory hands, but red ball sockets. Of course, the red tubes coming from his head had to be attached somewhere, but I am sure there are more creative ways of dealing with this problem.

Then, there is the so-called 'voltage booster switch.' A great name for a rather unspectacular construct which can be pulled up and down (like a switch!). At least it prevents Voltix from having an empty back.

Playability
The other half of the fun is in playing with the set. How well does the set function and is it enjoyable to play with?

Despite all the tubing, Voltix' movement range is absolutely not limited, giving him maximum poseability in a fight against your heroes. While the 'voltage booster switch' is nothing extraordinarily fun to play with it is an additional, although simple, play feature, possibly enjoyable for the younger buyers who will push the switch up whenever they want to grill their heroes with direct current and down when they wish to do so with alternating current... or something like that. I can also imagine kids having fun with the tentacle-turn-function. Wobbling, conductive yellow tentacles are a terrible weapon, in case you haven't heard, and who doesn't want his villain to turn every gameplay into a shocking experience?

Final Thoughts
Once it's all said and done, how does the set stack up? Should I get it?

Pros What's to like? Decent, original look Purple pieces! Seriously, who doesn't love those electricity pieces? Cons What's not to like? Great variety of colors may not appeal to everybody Short-arm syndrome Reused helmet

All in all, Voltix is a decent villain set, with pros and cons mostly balanced. Still, I would recommend you to buy Core Hunter instead, unless you are looking for fancy pieces to expand your collection with or a second summer villain to fight against your Heroes.

And now that Bulk finally figured out how to unplug this villain, let us close this review of one of the most current Hero Factory villains. ...That was a rather lame pun, now wasn't it?

And that brings us one set closer to reviewing all of this year's Hero Factory line. Be sure to thank Gatanui in the Talkback and ask any questions you may have. We're not done yet though, so keep checking back for more Hero Factory and LEGO reviews!

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