In LEGO's new Star Wars Smart Play sets, the designers merged their traditional brick builds with interactive media. These new sets are motion sensitive and color sensitive, and they respond to a kid's movements to make contextual, corresponding sounds. We built Luke's Red Five X-Wing (Set #75423) and Darth Vader's TIE Fighter (Set #75421) – two of the core sets in the Smart Play series – to experience them firsthand.
In the end, this is more a neat oddity than a new way to play. LEGO prides itself on its worksmanship, and it has successfully persuaded the general public that quality and consistency justify expense. But these sets, unfortunately, do not serve that reputation.
The key innovation behind Smart Play (worth keeping, once this current trend runs its course) is the new Smart Brick, a 4x2 piece that glows when it's running. You charge it on a provided dock, and you insert it into the build. And once you do that, the build becomes sensitive to your movement and touch.
Pushing a button will create laser sounds. An alien creature laying on its side will yawn and then make snoring noises. Two sets that shoot lasers can communicate. Shoot at another ship for long enough, and it will trigger an explosion sound.
There are eight Star Wars Smart Play sets, but only three of those sets come with the aforementioned Smart Brick. These are the 'starter' sets.
Smart Brick Included
- Throne Room Duel & A-Wing - $159.99
- Luke’s Red Five X-Wing - $89.99
- Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter - $69.99
The other five sets, while not including Smart Brick, are compatible with the Smart Brick.
Smart Brick Compatible, but Smart Brick NOT Included
- Millennium Falcon - $99.99
- Mos Eisley Cantina - $79.99
- Yoda’s Hut and Jedi Training - $69.99
- AT-ST Attack on Endor - $49.99
- Luke’s Landspeeder - $39.99
So let's say, for example, I want the Smart Play Millennium Falcon. Buying it alone would get me the Falcon model with no extra bells and whistles. I would have to get one of the starter sets – say, Darth Vader's TIE Fighter – to enjoy the full interactive benefit.
The reasoning for this, no doubt, is to keep the price down. But buying a compatible set and a starter set together is also costly. And although the Throne Room comes with two Smart Bricks, Luke's X-Wing and Vader's TIE Fighter each come with only one Smart Brick, which means you might have to share one LEGO Smart Brick between multiple sets. The LEGO Smart Brick is not sold separately, which means there is no cost-efficient way to have multiple compatible sets and starter sets working at the same time.
The LEGO Smart Brick is not sold separately.“
There is also no reason why you get, say, a LEGO Smart Play Falcon minus the sound effects over a regular LEGO Falcon. A regular Falcon looks better visually, because it does not have to account for Smart Brick placement. Arguing the Smart Play brick is 'optional' is a rhetorical dodge. The Smart Play usage is the only reason why you might buy a Smart Play Falcon in the first place.
The idea of a 'starter set' worked a lot better with the LEGO Super Mario playsets. There was one rudimentary set containing the LED Mario – which you bought first – and then everything else was an expansion. But that system only worked because Mario is the sole, interactive commonality in his franchise. In a Star Wars roleplay, the numerous sound-making droids and ships require numerous expensive add-ons, which makes the entire Smart Play system cost-prohibitive for many people.
The builds for both the X-Wing and TIE Fighter are straightforward and low-stress; the age recommendation for the former is 6+ and the age recommendation for the latter is 7+. It is important, as a reviewer, to remember this; I am not the target audience for these sets. And the Smart Brick is definitely a cool bit of technology. It has a sound for when you bank and drop; a sound for when you refuel; a sound when you're making repairs. It even plays music on occasion. There's a cool feature on the X-Wing where pushing a trigger causes both the X-Wing and a Smart-tagged R2-D2 to make collaborative noise together.
But is it enough for an adult, with money, to purchase these sets for his or her kids? Perhaps, if it wasn't for one final, deal-breaking caveat; the laser sounds are generic laser sounds, not the trademark lasers from the films. The Darth Vader breathing is also not the trademark breathing we know and fear. Star Wars sounds are iconic; why go through the trouble of creating these sets if you're not going to use the proper sounds to pair with them? And why charge such high prices if you're going to use cheap generic replacements instead? These sets, in a limited run, could have been a boutique curiosity for people with the means to afford them. But the inauthentic sounds make this possibility a non-starter.
Ironically, playing with these sets reminded me of why I fell in love with LEGO in the first place. I've always viewed LEGO as an alternative to digital media, not an accompaniment to it. And when I think back to when I played with Star Wars toys as a kid, I made sounds the old fashioned way: by yelling, "PEW-PEW-PEW!" and chasing after my friends. Roleplay required a vivid imagination to hear, in our heads, what our toys could not produce on their own. And as a parent? That seems a more worthwhile trait to cultivate in my son than the alternative.
LEGO Star Wars Smart Play: Luke’s Red Five X-Wing, Set #75423, retails for $89.99, and it is composed of 581 pieces. It is available now.
LEGO Star Wars Smart Play: Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter, Set #75421, retails for $69.99, and it is composed of 473 pieces. It is also available now.
Looking for more gift ideas? Take a look at our guides to the best LEGO sets for adults and the best LEGO sets for kids.
Kevin Wong is a contributing freelancer for IGN, specializing in LEGO. He's also been published in Complex, Engadget, Gamespot, Kotaku, and more. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinjameswong.
