Lego’s Smart Play Pokémon can train and battle, but don’t do the one thing I wish they could

When Lego announced its tech-packed Smart Bricks at CES, we were impressed by the potential — enough to give it our Best in Show award . But when the first Star Wars sets actually launched in March , we were less enamored. All that promise of clever interaction and creative play ultimately boiled down to a few voice barks and flashing lights, with the smartest features we’d seen at CES nowhere to be found. Today, Lego announced the second generation, with 12 new sets launching this summer, promising Pokémon play and some of the smarts we’d been missing. After a few hours training and battling with the new sets this morning, it’s clear the Smart Brick is getting smarter, but Lego is taking the slow road to delivering on the potential promised in January — and is still struggling to implement one of its most obvious selling points: official sound effects. The 12 sets announced today are available to preorder now , but won’t go on sale until August 1st. Only two sets are “all-in-one,” meaning they include at least one Smart Brick and a charger, delivering everything you need to use the smart features: a $69.99 Pikachu set with a treehouse and one Smart Brick, and a $119.99 battle set featuring Charizard and Jolteon which includes two Smart Bricks. …