The official BIONICLE™ webpage has been updated, with a downloadable Desktop TOA program for your PC. (Sorry, Mac users, it won’t work for you) The program gives you TAHU and his HAU to start with. Entering codes will unlock the other five MASKS, and each MASK will give TAHU different powers, just like in the story. Codes are entered in at the SUVA shrine. (It looks sorta like the TOA can-tops.) There are a bunch of symbols around the SUVA which spell K-A-N-O-H-I, starting at the top and working clockwise. Codes are all four-letters long. Technically, you’re supposed to wait for LEGO to tell you what the codes are, but that’s no fun. I figured out five of them on my own, and two MoD readers (Poorpip and Chris Viloria) wrote in with full lists, so now I have the full set. As I don’t think LEGO would appreciate me posting them before they do, the only one I’ll tell you is O-H-I-K, which will get you HAU. You start with that, so it shouldn’t be a problem to tell it to you as an example.

HAU: He appears in a blueish ball of energy when you activate him, and if you click-and-drag and then release him, you can fling him around, causing him to bounce off the edges of your screen. Don’t worry, you won’t hurt him. His HAU will protect him from injury. If you leave him alone, he’ll walk back and forth at the bottom of your screen, floating over whatever windows you have open so you can always see him. If you double-click on him, he’ll revert back to the SUVA shrine, and you’ll be able pick a different MASK. If you single click on his energy bubble, he’ll shoot a ball of energy out of his sword. If you can manage to single click on his feet, he’ll bounce around on his own, just like he does when you throw him. This form is a bit obnoxious if you plan to just let him roam around while you do stuff. If they only had the blue energy bubble show up when he’s bouncing around or shooting energy out of his sword, he’d be a lot less obtrusive.

PAKARI: Again, if you leave him alone, he’ll walk back and forth at the bottom of your screen, but this time there’s no bubble. If you click-and-drag him, he uses his extra strength to resist your pull. If you click on his arm, he’ll punch your screen. If you click on his legs, he’ll stomp on your screen. If he stops and looks at you, you can click on his chest and he’ll climb right up the glass of your screen. Whenever he stomps, punches, or climbs, little spider-web shaped cracks will appear around his hands and feet as if he was cracking the glass on your screen. This is probably the best form to use if you just want to let him walk around and you have to keep distraction levels down. (Like when you’re at work…)

KAKAMA: If you leave him alone, he’ll run laps around your screen. The whole screen. Up the side, across the top (upside-down, of course) and down the other side. I saw a parrot do that in its cage in the lobby of a Holiday Inn when I was a little kid. If you chase him around with your mouse cursor, he’ll switch directions to avoid it. Every now and then he’ll stop at the bottom of your screen. Clicking on his chest will make him do some pretty freaky fencing manouvers. Click-and-drag him, and he’ll flail his legs trying to run away from you. You can grab him on the run, anywhere on the screen, and when you let go he’ll drop back down to the bottom of the screen. Oh yeah, and there’s lots of car noises with this one. If you don’t mind the car noises (or you just turn off the sound on your computer) this one is kind of amusing to just let run.

KAUKAU: He swims across the center of the screen, doing flip-kicks when he hits the other side. You can click-and-drag him to any part of the screen, but he’ll eventually settle back into the center again. Click his legs and he’ll change to a different stroke. Click his arms and he’ll do a barrel roll. Don’t try to do anything important while this one is going, because it will always be in the way.

MIRU: He doesn’t walk anywhere. He’ll float up a bit, and then down a bit, and then up a bit, and then down a bit. You can click-and-drag him to move him to other parts of the screen. Toss him like when he’s wearing the HAU and he’ll do acrobats off the edges of the screen. Click on his chest and he’ll do the same thing, but it’s a lot harder to do it this way. This one is almost as annoying as the KAUKAU if you plan to do other things, but it’s more of a periodic problem, as he’ll just hover in one general area. Unlike the KAUKAU, you can always pull him over to the side and he’ll stay out of the way, so it’s also a solvable problem.

AKAKU: This one is the most different. For starters, he’s done in photonegative colors, so his arms and legs are blue, his feet, torso, hand, sword, and MASK are cyan, the hips, shoulders, and chest-ball are white, and they grey gears are, well, still grey. If you leave him alone he’ll walk across the bottom of the screen until he reaches the edge, then climb up the side, and then go back and forth across the top of the screen like monkey-bars until you do something to him. If you click on his shoulder, he’ll turn invisible, but you’ll see a white outline of him walking around. Click his legs and he’ll pose and then teleport. Click his head and he’ll use x-ray vision on your desktop to see the circuitry underneath. (Cause there is just a ton of circuitry in a picture tube… Not that I can think of anything better to use for that effect though, so I’ll shut up now.) Again, this one stays out of the way while you’re doing other things, but that blue look is just freaky. Especially if you realize (as I do) that TAHU is the coolest TOA of the bunch. And you’re not a big fan of the color blue. If you like KOPAKA best, this form looks sorta close to the original.

All in all, it’s a pretty cool little distraction. It certainly distracted me, or you’d be looking at pictures of GALI KINO by now. Anyways, if you read the README file that is included, it looks like this is just a trial version and will end up published on CD-ROM at some point, but they want to have lots of kids try it out first. And I’m sure they don’t mind a bit if us adults drool over it as well…