REVIEW: 7533 2011 City Advent Calendar

[Pingles]

Will be happily picking this up for my daughter and I to open every day. Very excited about it and am pleased by the selection. More adventures on the way!

Will likely pick up the Star Wars one as well and reward her for each nap she takes in the afternoon with those.

[Lance]

As a side note...

This is how the dog came packaged. I am not making this up.

Its the catapult controversy all over again

We get the City one every year. Don't know why but it just seems to be better than the others. I like the way they're including larger models.

[Legoist]

Thanks for the great review, it was very informative!

Unfortunately, it confirmed my suspicions that this for my tastes is one of the worst advent calendars ever (gets my vote = 1)...

- I don't like at all the idea of "large" builds by combining multiple days. It makes so much more sense that since the children are supposed to open one day by one day, every day contains something standalone.

- The police theme is as common as possible, and not at all themed with the XMas season. I'm sure kids still love police, but as an AFOL I am sick of it, and if you have kids there are very good chances they already have police sets and this calendar will add nothing to your town.

- Horrible minifigures, except maybe for the one with the green winter jacket and hood.

I think last year's advent calendar was pretty good, except that the minifigs were a bit too standard (and the two Santa's were too many), but the micro-builds (toys) were really fun and imaginative, and everything summed up pretty nicely.

[Gryphon Ink]

I actually think the idea of multi-day builds could be really great, but TLG are doing it all wrong. What I'd like would be to get a small build every day, and with each one there are one or two "extra" pieces. At first you don't know what the extra pieces make, but every week or so you get instructions to put together that week's extras. All of them eventually combine into one build, which you get the instructions for on the 24th. So that model can have anywhere from 24-48 pieces in it, which makes a pretty respectable impulse set all by itself. And you're still building complete items on every day of the month.

Of course, I am the guy who believes it wouldn't kill TLG to put a couple of extra bricks - not cheese slopes, not Technic pins or extra feathers but actual BRICKS - in every set, just for us to play around with. You know, for kids!

[Lyichir]

I actually think the idea of multi-day builds could be really great, but TLG are doing it all wrong. What I'd like would be to get a small build every day, and with each one there are one or two "extra" pieces. At first you don't know what the extra pieces make, but every week or so you get instructions to put together that week's extras. All of them eventually combine into one build, which you get the instructions for on the 24th. So that model can have anywhere from 24-48 pieces in it, which makes a pretty respectable impulse set all by itself. And you're still building complete items on every day of the month.

Of course, I am the guy who believes it wouldn't kill TLG to put a couple of extra bricks - not cheese slopes, not Technic pins or extra feathers but actual BRICKS - in every set, just for us to play around with. You know, for kids!

But extra bricks add to the price of a set. The only reason extras of those parts you listed exist is to safeguard against faulty weight checks: since those parts are light, it's possible for the weight checks to miss their absence, so the required weight is raised slightly -- that way even if one of them gets left out, buyers will still have all the parts required to build the model. That's why later collectable minifigs lack extra parts: the weight checks in the Chinese plant were made more accurate, so LEGO no longer needed to provide backups.

[Grimmy]

I was dissapointed when I saw this in the Lego Shop Online. Christmas Holiday isn't about cops and robbers and I don't think anyone who has Legos needs another cop. Even as a kid, we'd play cops and robbers maybe once in a while but the cops were the most boring generic characters and it seemed like too many sets came with them, as if Lego had a surplus they were trying to get rid of.

But after seeing this review, I might get it for me and my niece who is 8 now, to do it with as I started the tradition years ago. The robbers are funny characters reminding me of the ones in A Christmas Story and the cops are the best I've seen Lego release but it's just not Christmassy.

II buy this set it's the OP that made it look not too bad. :D

Edited November 25, 2011 by Grimmy

[Grimmy]

[DELETE] Ooops, page wasn't loading so I clicked again and looks like it multiposted. SOrries.

Edited November 25, 2011 by Grimmy

[prateek]

Great review, but as for the set, it can't really be called that. I think the highlight of this set is the green hooded figure and the dog, but other than that, ones from previous years are better.

[surrideo]

Wonder how well this has sold. Keep finding it now in store marked down half price or so. Whereas in previous years you couldnt find them after the middle of November, last year especially.

To be honest both calendars were disappointing this year compared to last years

[Ogre]

Wonder how well this has sold. Keep finding it now in store marked down half price or so. Whereas in previous years you couldnt find them after the middle of November, last year especially.

To be honest both calendars were disappointing this year compared to last years

The last two years, yes, the calendar has been harder to find later in the year...not HARD but, hardER.

Prior to that though, I used to snag all of my advent calendars on S@H for 50% off on Boxing Day. They always seemed to have lots of them floating around.

I think part of it has to do with LEGO starting to show the contents (at least SOME, anyway) on the covers. They didn't used to reveal what was inside and those years, I never had a problems finding my calendars late in the year, for a very cheap price.

[posades]

Nice review, got this for my 7 year old niece. Seems that the police/robber theme would appeal more to the boys, hopefully she won't mind (I have a feeling the dog will be her favorite piece) .