Amongst the play sets this year (and please note I haven’t received PIRAKA OUTPOST and RACE FOR THE MASK OF LIFE yet) LAVA CHAMBER GATE has to be my favorite. It does feel a little pricey at about $40.00 USD but considering oil and gas prices we as the customer are getting the break. Remember to click the thumbnails o get the full image! You don’t see everything in these shrunken versions.

Front Back

Front Back Top Sides

This set has it’s ups and it’s downs, the first you will notice is you get four out of the six characters from each side, unlike how every BIONICLE® play set had at least the full set of six, plus a couple extra on the VISORAK side. For the set we receive HEWKII, HAHLI, MATORO, and NUPARU, amongst the PIRAKA we have HAKANN, VEZOK, ZAKTAN, and ol’ hamster cheeks, (better known as AVAK). I don’t know if it’s a storyline reason that there are only the four, but I would have loved the idea of a complete set, thus allowing us to not buy the biggest one to get the full set. With any luck some of the other smaller sets have the others needed for a complete set.

Going in order of the directions, first you would have built the INIKA and PIRAKA, then, it’s time to make the lava boards complete with zamor launchers…First thing that came to my mind after I finished them; “What were they thinking!” Sure a couple of zamors with ammunition clips are okay, but even without the clip and two/three more rounds it’s already so heavy that the boards’ nose dive into the ground. The INIKA figures are just enough to keep it upright without the additional clip and ammo, but the full thing? You pretty much are forced to tilt the cannon to the opposite direction to get enough leverage to hold itself up, but that leaves you with no room for the toa to stand! The advantage could be though, this would give you an excuse to use the spare zamor parts for a MoC, or use it to replace the almost useless catapult on the right side of the bridge with the useless cannons. But then again you might enjoy holding them upright in order to play with them, but displaying the heavily armed boards will prove tricky.

The bridge itself comes in two main pieces, the left side and the right, with each side’s bridge being detachable per it’s collapsing mechanism. Not counting the catapult on the right and the zamor turret on the left bridge, the only other mechanism is the falling bars on both sides. The middle of the three floors on each bridge’s half has a base plate with three exposed holes, allowing three long plus rods to drop when the pin is pulled out from under them, allowing you to open up the top floor and seal off the lower. A PIRAKA on the top behind the bars lose some shielding while anyone under would have gained it, if they weren’t knocked over by the bars instead. I wish that instead of a pin a target being shot (like the collapsing bridge) would make the bars fall, also allwing a more smooth reset along with adding another target. The rods drop one at a time as you pull the same pin, a slow tug will make them go one at a time or a fast pull to drop them all at about the same time. The pun you pull stays nicely hidden, which makes it that much more displayable. See those chronicler’s staff ends decorating the sides? Pulling up on staff pulls a bar with it that lifts all three of the plus rods for you so you can slide the trigger pin back in with no problem, though it doesn’t lift up, nor drop too smoothly. Once set you are free to return the staff and lift bar to its original position. The downside of the lift bar and plus rods would be that they make that middle floor less usable, however the middle floor does have the bridge extending across from it.

Bars uo, And down

As I mentioned before, one tower has a catapult and the other has a zamor turret. While the variety is welcomed too many LEGO sets as it is have catapults, not to mention last year’s BIONICLE sets each had some form of catapult! Plus this catapult, simply comprising of AXONN’s mask on a hinge is hard to aim. They could at least have given it a swivel to aim at other directions, though I admit it does fire pretty well and maybe the swivel would reduce firing range? However, compared to the zamor turret on the other side, the PIRAKA might as well chuck it in the lava… You may consider using some parts of your own collection and the annoying zamor lava boards to fit a zamor turret in it’s place if you don’t mind modifying the set. I would think having two turrets would have been the best decision, the bride is already two separate pieces, you could have a friend take one side and you take the other and start shooting it out. But if your like me you hate modifying the set…So one person would have a sever disadvantage. You could simply just unplug the catapult and set it to the side and replace it when done, assuming you have the parts.

Now, this paragraph pulls the last one together with it, you see, each side of the bridge has a BOHROK shield that acts as a target, hitting that pushes/pulls a pin that releases the chain holding up the bridge, sending those on it (or under…CRUNCH!) to their doom. It’s not difficult to reset though sometimes the bridge might set a little uneven. I unfortunately can’t fire my zamors off without losing them but it’s really a lot of fun to collapse the bridge with others on it on top of and/or with other victims underneath it. This brings me to the last part of mention, the bridge itself. I do wish the bridge could draw up, or even inside of it’s self (like BATTLE FOR METRU NUI last year) and still have the collapsible function. This would be possible for clever MoCers with the right parts, but unfortunately it lacks the feature but it isn’t without good fun. I also wish the bridge’s sides were more balanced, as in to say that I wish both sides had the BRUTAKA tools for guardrails, with each side having it’s own AXONN mask. I will say though a couple times the mask actually kept the bridge from collapsing by landing on the end of the other bridge, and didn’t collapse until both targets where hit (well, the whole bridge going at once WAS cool..) but both sides having the mask in the middle would likely keep the bridge supported when it needed to fall, and removing that mask in the back would be the solution, but that would look cruddy having the mask and the tools on the front with just the tools in the back, so I can see why the designers made it like that.

Pushing that Bohrok plate Allows the support chains to fall out

Overall, despite some minor issues (and you can alter the set if you don’t mind doing so, eliminating those issues as you see fit) this is a great and fun set. I would recommend this one before buying the others, if you plan to buy them anyway. If not however I can’t say I recommend you do buy them, as in some aspects you’re probably happier just with the basic BIONICLE series.