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With the beginning of the new year, Lego is giving us reason to celebrate. Today I'm going to be reviewing for you set 8197 Highway Chaos from the Tiny Turbos subtheme of the Racers theme. I'll start off with some set info:
Set Name: Highway Chaos
Set Number: 8197
Theme: Racers
Subtheme: Tiny Turbos
Pieces: 142
Year: 2010 (November 24th 2009 release in some parts of the world)
Price: CAD $19.99/USD $14.99/AUD $24.99/EUR 14.99/GBP 9.99
Resources:
Bricklink
Brickset
Peeron
Lego S@H
flickr
Now for the review!
The Box:
Front:
A very action-oriented scene is presented to us. While there is what appears to be a bridge tress in the background, the set doesn't actually feel well suited for a bridge scene, but rather a highway scene. To each their own, I guess.
Back:
The back shows another slightly different view of the set, as well as the unfolding function of the ramp.
Sides:
Not really anything unusual here.
Opening the Set
Once you cut the plastic handcuffs (
) off the box, you pull out the fold-out-ramp, which holds the contents of the set.Car taken off the box
You can see that if you take the yellow "car" off the other end, the F.O.R. (Fold-out ramp) doesn't actually come down the whole length of the box. And so continues the age-old debate surrounding packaging size.
Contents:
Inside the box you get this: One (1) F.O.R., one (1) instruction booklet, two (2) numbered parts bags with parts, and two (2[!]) sticker sheets.
And since I know you all want to see the contents separately, here we go:
Instruction Booklet:
It has the same picture as on the front of the box, just with more blank space around it. Nice contrast between the darker set and the lighter sky.
Bags:
Bags one and two build the cars and toll booth, respectively.
Sticker Sheets:
I have to admit that I while I don't like putting stickers on official sets, these do seem like they'll be useful for MOCs.
The Build:
Bag One:
Here we have bag one open and emptied. I spy with my little eye some nice parts.
1x2 Cheese
The only relatively new piece; a 1x2 cheese in black. Seems like a rather useful piece if I do say so myself.
Car One: The Muscle:
Car one is starting to take shape. It is a pretty solid car, unlike many in the CITY line-up.
Car One Complete
Car one finished! But wait!? Where are the wheels? Could they be in bag two?
That's right, Lego decided to put the wheels and tires in bag two for us, even though the cars are in bag one.
, to say the least.Car Two: The Copper:
Car two uses more single-use pieces than car one, but I think it has a nicer shape overall.
Car Two Complete
Complete! I think the black looks very nice against the white, though I really wish the light bar were tiled.
Bag Two:
Some interesting parts can be spotted.
Interesting Parts:
And here they are. A 6x6 Light Bluish Gray tile, and three White 2x4 tiles.
The building:
Bag two builds us the bulk of the set, the tollbooth on the base.
The One Dissapointment
The tollbooth isn't bad, but as you can see, the gate can't go fully up, meaning it'd be hard to use immediately with larger, minifig scaled vehicles.
The Set
The set in all of it's glory. It is actually pretty fun to have the police car chase the robbers (?), and smash through the
tollbooth...
WHEWWWwww....
Watch out, here come the cops!
The Verdict
Scoring:
Minifigs: N/A
Parts: 8/10 A nice selection of common and uncommon pieces, including some new ones (2x4 tiles), and some quite old, revived ones (6x6 tiles).
Price: 8.5/10 At 10.6 cents a piece (U.S.), it's almost perfect.
Playability: 7/10 I found this set to be extremely fun to play with, and I think children will too. The downside is, as a standalone set, it seems to have a very set storyline.
Design: 6/10 The racers are your average tiny turbos, and the toll booth is sparsely built. The inclusion of the extra signpost was a plus.
Overall: 29.5/40 Overall, I'd recommend this to a friend. Definitely more of a parts pack, with some new (and old!) parts.
Edited by SmurfFangy, 05 January 2010 - 07:48 AM.
Indexed
, and these sets tend to go on sale if you are patient enough.
