18 replies to this topic

[paul_delahaye]

INDEXED

Time for a quick review, as I don't think I have yet seen this great little set reviewed yet!

Picked it up tonight at the Lego Shop in Bluewater in the UK,

Price: £17.99,
Piece count: 267 (apparently)
Build time: 40 minutes, including pictures

(Additionally Bluewater Lego shop also had the new airport 3182 (Priced at £79.99) (Expensive) and the jet plane 3181 (Priced at £29.99)

Front of Box


Back of Box


2 Instruction Manuals, 1 for the Limo, 1 for the helicopter


The DSS, although I think the set looks great without the stickers


3 Bags of Bricks,


Random Instruction Pages


The Minifigs, awesome brown hair on the female minifig


New bricks (although some only in new colours) for 2010


Start of the limo build, 6 white doors ahhhh


Half way through the limo build, love the bling lights under the limo


Nearly done on the limo, quite a tight squeeze in the back, I have a feeling they may be very drunk minifigs soon!


In you get mamme


Start of the helicopter build


Half way through, all going well


Nice tight fit on the cockpit canopy, none of that rubbish we saw on the nose piece of the remote control trains!


All Done,


The leftovers



Conclusion

Design: 9/10 I think the design is spot on with this set, not bad in terms of scale either.

Playability: 9/10  Limo is something Lego have never before produced which is cool.  It has a helicopter which can be wooshed around.

Parts: 8/10 Slightly limited parts selection, after all you can only use the key parts to build a helicopter or maybe a plane. but remember, 4 minifigs!

Minifigures: 10/10 4 minifigs in a sub £20 set, winner, I think that alone makes this a worthwhile set.  

Conclusion: 9/10 All in all a good value for money set, I think this is one of the best 1st half city sets coming up, my only shame is that they did not make a new centre roof piece mold for the limo, bit of a shame they used a 4 x 8 plate.  Nice little features, some internal detail, for £18 possible one of the best value sets of the year, I think I will be getting a second copy at some point, I think there is real potential to make a small propellor plane using the body of the helicopter, and adding wings to the roof.

Paul

[Big Cam]

Nice review, with very clear pictures, but your pics are gigantic, maybe you could resize them with links to the high Res ones?

With that said I m surprised there is no glass for the opening doors, I wish Lego would have thought of something better than just regular doors other no glass.  Still for the price its a cool set.

[gunm]

Very nice!  Can't wait for this set to come over to the other side of the pond!  Well, I hope it does eventually.  :p

Edited by gunm, 11 March 2010 - 10:44 PM.

[birdie100]

Paul, are those new trans pink tiles in the leftover ssection, or is it just the lighting and the wood background making those trans red tiles go that colour? I'm pretty certain trans pink cheese and 1 by 1 plates would be new for 2010 if they really are?

[paul_delahaye]

birdie100, on Mar 12 2010, 01:59 AM, said:

are those new trans pink tiles in the leftover section,

Afraid not, just the lighting, and the wood, I could not go back through the hassel of taking more pictures, attempting to resize on the PC and then loading them from the mac.

Don't ask, I'm no graphic designer!

[TheBrickster]

Thanks for taking the time to share an early review.  It's always nice to see new reviews on EB.  Your pictures are quite a bit larger than our site guidelines of 800x600.  I won't ask that you resize, but please watch your image size in the future.  Much appreciated. -TB

[lightningtiger]

Thanks for the review 'paul_delahaye' of this cool set.
The copter is the best part of this one, I really enjoyed building it a few months ago.
The limo is cute, I'm going to try and make a 6 wide model.
Again thanks again and keep on bricking !

[simonwillems]

Thanks for the review.

I like the limo but not so much the helicopter, did the two vehicles came in seperate bags (e.g. the car in bag one and the chopper in bags two and three)?
That way I can buy the set, take out the limo and sell the rest to helicopterlovers...

[gotoAndLego]

I really dislike the helicopter. The reason I stopped buying Legos was all these massive single pieces, like the front of the cockpit, taking the place of actual bricks. In my case I saw it with the grey castle walls compared to the yellow castle walls. Not only do they make these fell less like Lego sets but they limit the alternative models you can make from all the bricks you get.

[Rapseflaps]

Built this today. I got the set mostly for the limo, but quite frankly, it's a bit disappointing. The design not only suffers from the usual problem that plagues modern 4-wides - the massive wheels protruding from the sides - but the front and back are blocky as well. Also, with no proper solution for putting windows over the doors, I fail to see the point in using all those black pieces to make the back of the limo look like it has tinted windows. It's a nice idea, but fails at becoming a stylish vehicle.

The helicopter is decent. Sure, it's huge, but with that being the scale for air vehicles these days, I suppose it fits in well with the rest of the large aircrafts. The luggage compartments are a nice touch.

Still, it's a nice addition to the airport line. I really like the idea of jetset minifigs.    And with four minifigs included, at least there's plenty of jetset soap opera scenarios to play out.

[Zorbas]

This is a must buy for me.

Okay, the helicopter is not like the Coast Guard one (the best helicopter TLG has ever released in my opinion), but it looks very nice. As far as I can tell from the pictures, there are not too many juniorized pieces (the really big ones are just four if I'm not wrong) and there is a significant amount of "bricked" construction.
The colour scheme looks absolutely beautiful and the shape is also great. Plus, we get two old-skool turbines.

The limo is also a very good addition. The way I see it, the helicopter is the main feature and having also one more vehicle included in the set is more than welcomed.

4 minifigs is one more big plus. My only complaint? The limo driver's head. Probably the   minifig head for me.


P.S
I've bought the new passenger plane and it doesn't look juniorized at all--it's excellent to be honest. Therefore the optimism.

EDIT:
Whoops! I forgot... Thanks for the nice review paul.

Edited by Zorbas, 17 March 2010 - 07:15 PM.

[FilmGirl27]

Thanks for the review!  

I'm not completely sure if I like the set or not. The limo is cool, would make a nice addition to my town. But the helicopter... ...I'm really not sure what to make of it. Perhaps I will buy this set (it's great value) but not for a while.  

[Brick & Mortimer]

Thanks for the nice review    !

If I would buy this set, it would be for the limo. All my airplanes are early 90's (International Jetport, The cargo plane) so I guess the helicopter will look a little out of proportion  .

Edited by Brick & Mortimer, 17 March 2010 - 08:49 PM.

[dr_spock]

Thanks for the review.

I don't think I'll buy this set as the helicopter can't be modified to 4 wide.   The limo is nice but I've already made a yellow one back in January.

[ACCURATEin]

I wonder if there is any chance the US will see this set on the shelves.

Thanks for the review!

[Mr. Elijah Timms]

TRYING to wait as patiently as I can for this one to arrive stateside... anyone give an educated guess when this shows up on American soil??

[Matt Dawson]

I can't wait to get this one...

[MrDarthLord]

The chopper is great, but the limo is really not playable. It's weak, too long for the structure and more over, not so cute. The inside is ok nevertheless.

[Camusdarrach]

Hmm, I got this set a couple of months ago, purchased from a banch of Tesco's in Manchester.

Quite like it myself, although the limo is a little fragile.

Since purchasing it, not seen it on sale anywhere else, indeed Tesco's don't seem to stock it anymore.....