8106 Aero Booster Review

[Corvus]

Well, I took these pics a good two weeks ago and it's time to end the procastination !! So now, enough gabbing and onto the review. :-P

I apologise for the location of the pics. I would have done this on my shadowbox, but it's currently underneath a pile of books being flattened. Then, of course, I would have done this outside, but it's been raining nonstop, most unusual for central Oregon.

The box:

The box is fairly eyecatching. In short, the box art is pretty standard to the 07 sets. It's also fairly large, yours truly had to hire a fireman to help him with the box!

The backside shows various features, mostly taken up by the mech getting out of the boosters, with the cannon attached to his hand. I think that's pretty lame, to be honest. Could've given him a small blaster or something.

Of course, the box opens oddly, the cereal box way. It seems every time I get a new set the lid is different.

Inside the box, there's a lot of room. TLC could have made the box a bit smaller, but of course TLC wants the boxes to be as big as possible. :-/

Then, of course, the DSS- the Dreaded Sticker Sheet. Some of these stickers were faily long- it takes a while to attach them properly. |-/

The parts come in three sections. What I thought was funny about this was that section 1 had one bag, section 2 had two bags, and section 3 had three bags. :-D

The character this time is the Golden City Ha Ya To. So, that brings my total up to four of him. :-| Here I make fun of the two sided faces, which I've never liked, except if they're terrified, of course. X-D

Not much to see in the way of new parts. There are two nice recolors, though, here, and here.

The build. I take off my stylish cape and sword, and get down to work.

The body of the mech is just about the same as the Cyclone Defender. There are two small differences, which are that the this has two blue connecting rods for the "controls" and a round 2x2 brick for the booster to connect into.

The body of him is good. I love the blue, but there is one part that makes no sense.

The completed mech is nice. The blue is great, and there's it's a nice sturdy all-around useful mech. You can see Ha Ya To gets a wrestling lesson, the hard way.

The back of the mech is fairly simple. No rear armor, but at least there's not too much bley.

The booster:

The beggining of the body is funky. I don't know why TLC put in the wedges instead of the 4x4 plate, but... And again, more Ha Ya To abuse. ;-)

There's one gotcha in the instruction booklet. It doesn't obstruct the build, but I scratched my head for a minute wondering what it is. For some reason, it spends half a page showing us this:

A bit later, this looks like the start of a tank. I probably could have abandoned the instructions and made one from the parts.

Oops... Oh well, at least you can see a good pic of where it attaches to the mech. If anyone has read Star Wars: Republic Commando: Triple Zero, then they'll know what the quote in the pic is. If you haven't read it, I recommend it.

Then, we add the handle... I hate those things. Fun for kids, maybe, but I hate 'em. There's also a trigger to shoot the cannon. I took it off because I accidentally kept shooting it into the kitchen... G my hand looks so fat in that pic!

Add some of those nice wings, and your second section is done.

If there's one flaw in the design, it's this. Because of the build, the upper wing is off-center. :-X This appears in the two side engines, as well.

In the third section, you build the gun arms and the two side engines. I forgot to take a picture of the engine halfway through the build :-$. Not much to see anyway, though.

The gun arms. I think TLC did a great job with them, very well built. I apologise for my pic- My camera died before I took this picture, so I had to wait an hour to charge it. Of course, due to the rain, it got dark early, so this pic is pretty bad. :-$

The booster, done, and fairly intimidating to poor little me:

Some pics of the mech attached. I have no idea why I included the comment; maybe it was because I had just finished my Spanish homework.

It's easy to hold. Completed, it looks pretty nice. Gah, watch out, Ha Ya To, turbulence!

The underside. Pretty lame. It could do with some modding. Also, the body could be a bit thicker, without the trigger, it looks very skinny.

Well that's it. I realise that there are some pics that I missed, sorry. I think I saw on Sinner's BS that he took some great pics of it. :-)

Comments: I bought this on a whim. I never really played with it, or tried, because there's not much for me to play with. Sure, it has a missile, but I wasn't too entertained. I tied some fishing line to it and hung it up in my Lego area. It looks fairly nice there.

Overall: 7.5/10. Could be better, but the design is different from the constant tide of Mechs....

Gallery here. :-)

EDIT: After just noticing Sinner's review right after I posted this, I'll put a link in, here.

Edited October 11, 2007 by Mr. Mandalorian

[Siegfried]

I quite liked the look of this set. Prior to finding out its name I called it the "Big Ar5e Mech"! I even made my own review! ;-) By the way, the "one part that makes no sense" is so you can move the left gun to the left hand....

...or have I mistook what you were referring to?

EDIT- The swear filter is back. That means I can type wanker easier again!

EDIT 2- Nope. I still have to manually type "Self Servicer". Darn.

[Corvus]

Uh oh! I had just noticed your review, and I was just about to link it. :-$

But yes, that's the part I meant, I thought it was some silly fire extinguisher. :-$

[john cleese]

I bought this set, i would give it atleast an 8.5 myself. The overall set design was good. You get neat parts and its fairly part genrous. One thing that i hate are these ridiculous two face figs :-X . What the hell is lego thinking?! Theres really no good reason for any of these guys to have two faces. Ha-ya-to's second face doesnt even make sense, it looks significantly older than the normal one. The hair in my set didnt stick properly did anyone else have this problem?

[iamded]

Nice , picture packed review, I love the inclusion of your sig-fig. :-D I changed all my E-F guy's heads, now they're normal. :-P Anyway, I like this. I saw it at a Toyworld, but it just didn't seem that appealing. I've moved on form E-F, but this is still cool. *y*

~Peace

Edited October 11, 2007 by iamded

[Siegfried]

Uh oh! I had just noticed your review, and I was just about to link it. :-$

It's OK. I think second reviews and second opinions are great! *sweet* For the most part yours is better than mine anyway. :-|

[Dragonator]

Thanks for the review!

You weren't very nice to that Ha Ya To figure, looks like you didn't take a liking to him... :-P

I have to say those engines look far to big on that little mech, it keeps falling over backwards! :-D

Yeah, I don't think I am likely to get this one..... but still, nice review! *y*

[Lt. Col. Thok]

Wow, it looks nice. I probably won't get this one, seeing as I'm saving for an MTT.

[Starwars4J]

Then, we add the handle... I hate those things. Fun for kids, maybe, but I hate 'em. There's also a trigger to shoot the cannon. I took it off because I accidentally kept shooting it into the kitchen... G my hand looks so fat in that pic!

You know why? Because it makes it look like a gun, a big flying gun >:-( As you may know from my golden tower review, I hate flying guns... :-|

Great review though, very entertaining!

[natelite]

You know why? Because it makes it look like a gun, a big flying gun >:-( As you may know from my golden tower review, I hate flying guns... :-|

Great review though, very entertaining!

well, i like it coz it acts as a nice support for the mech when standing. without it, the mech would just flop with its legs up like a crab or turtle on its back.

[Starwars4J]

well, i like it coz it acts as a nice support for the mech when standing. without it, the mech would just flop with its legs up like a crab or turtle on its back.

Well that's true, but it also isn't realistic for it to stand up straight, as there IS no support. You could get it to stand, you'd just have to get it to hunch over some, which could look cooler (I've always had a thing for hunched mecha)

[Asuka]

Thanks for that nice and funny review, Mr. Mandalorian. *y*

I like this set very much, the design

[Zarkan]

Great review, and funny commentary! ;-) I still don't like the Areo Booster in general, but each picture I see makes me like it just a bit more. It's good to see that a lot of people still like it, even if I don't. :-)

[Wout]

Thank you for this review with funny pics. *y* :-D :-)

I like the figs of Exo-force, even the angry back face. I don't like the most mechs but I bought the little orange thing with Ryo and the white mech with the blue haired guy(I just lost his name) for the figs and the pieces.