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Sorry for the delay but it took some time taking the pictures and sorting them.
The set is a real beauty and was lots of fun to build. But check for yourself. As with the Heavy Loader review I've split it in two. Enjoy :-)
The box again is the same crappy "design" as all new bigger boxes. That means you have to tear it on the sides to open it. It does have a flip top but that's for a diorama of the set. The back side again shows almost all the sets of the same theme, in this case "Construction". And I must say, this sub-theme really has evolved nicely.
On the left half of back side you also see the bags for the different modules and what pieces they hold. This is not entirely accurate, though. Some bags are numbered and hold pieces for the respective modules, but there are also unnumbered bags that hold pieces that are needed almost anywhere during building. It's not a problem since there are very distinguishable pieces in that set.
The DSS (© xwingyoda) with this set isn't all that dreaded, although I can't have enough of those yellow-black stickers ;-)
This set comes with 3 minifigs, all of them of the new construction worker sort. I guess you can safely say that the guy with the blue torso is the crane operator. Maybe one or two more wouldn't have been amiss, but these days you have to be happy with what you get - and the mobile crane was a set of similar size and came with two minifigs.
The set has two instruction manuals, one for the "accessories" and one for the crane. The front picture of the accessories manual must be one of the funniest product pictures LEGO has produced: I'm talking about the guy with the toilet paper in his hand. The first time I saw it I was literally ROFL - and it still cracks me up when I see it :-)
The first thing you assemble are the barriers and lanterns. Easy, yet effective - I like that kinda stuff ;-)
Then comes the part I anticipated most: the mobile toilet. Since I first saw pictures of it I wondered how they designed it. And I must say, it's a fun and "smart" mini set. The toilet is made of a back-pack and a life-saver. Pretty neat idea. The door is a train door, the walls hold 3x4 panels which give it the "plastic-box"-like look. The sticker's also a nice add-on.
Next comes the foreman container (at least I think that's what it is). Also a pretty easy, yet effective build, with a nice interior. It, too, uses a train door and panels which make for the container look.
Here's a panorama shot of what a construction site could look like. Now, all that's missing is the crane.
Now for the most important part of this set: the crane. Not hard to notice it's a tower crane. It's made of 4 modules, all of which are in one manual. On the last page of the manual there's an inventory again.
First comes the base. It uses a few Technic bricks and very few pins, and is a straight-forward, yet fun and easy build. It's not too much Technic and enough basics so you actually see the module "grow". One thing you already notice without having built anything from the actual tower yet: this set's gonna be big...
After the base comes the tower. It's not really spectacular to build but again uses a few special bricks put together so they look cool. It consists of 4 tower modules, one sort of stabilizer boom that connets to the tower structure with Technic axles, and 4 ladders. The tower connects dead center with the base.
Next comes the cabin. Here I noticed that the seat doesn't have the "dent" in the middle like those from the Heavy Loader. Weird... The cabin sits on a platform which connects to the tower with a Technic axle. It also houses the cable winch on the back side. The turntable is the big one that we also see in the mobile crane and a few Technic sets. You have to turn it with your hands, though, there is no mechanism to do it by a winch or something. What I found odd was that the cable actually goes "through" the cabin (right underneath the ceiling). It's no big deal but I think that would look strange in reality ;-)
All that's left now is the boom. The boom itself is a pretty straight-forward build. It uses tiles on the top side on which the sliding carriage runs back and forth (again you have to do this by hand, no winch mechanism here, either). The sliding carriage is completely made of Technic pieces. The top piece that slides on the tiles is actually a rubber piece which I haven't seen before. It can hold standard Technic axles but can be "twisted". That makes for the triangular form. The crane hook is all Technic, too. The hook itself turns 360 degrees thanks to its ball-shaped head that's held between two small Technic pins.
On the short arm side of the boom there's an extension that holds the counterweight. This is actually really a weight, a 12V train weight to be precise!
So they still produce those...
Connect the boom to the cabin and - voila - you have a tower crane! For comparison I've made a picture with the Heavy Loader.
Summary: this thing is HUGE! But it's one of the best City sets that LEGO has produced lately. I couldn't wait to get it as soon as I saw the first pic and I wasn't disappointed. It's fun to build, it looks terrific, and it has MOCing possibilities (oil rig anyone?). Maybe a few more winch mechanisms for the cabin and the sliding carriage would have been nice but that's something you can add yourself (even I could manage that, I think). The accessories could make a nice seperate set, though. I picture a single construction set containing one or maybe two minifigs, one barrier and one container (toilet or foreman). That would make a nice "Construction Army" builder set ;-)
