Legoist

So far these previews are a small disappointment for me. It seems to me that City houses/buildings are losing some quality in the last couple of years: I'm also thinking about City Corner, Farm, Construction Site... the buildings seem to be too empty, and the pieces too large. The notable exception is the latest Police Station which seems instead a high-quality design, but the Garage also is probably not bad. I don't know if there is a differentiation strategy behind: - simpler buildings in the City theme, less pieces + bigger pieces = easy to build - good buildings in Creator, more pieces + smaller/simple pieces = highly customizable - fantastic Exclusive/S@H buildings, huge with unique pieces and colours But on the other hand, it may be just that at the moment the City designers aren't getting their best results with buildings... because when I look at City vehicles, they are nowadays the best design ever, and not over-simplified at all. My best would be City buildings equivalent in quality to vehicles: as rich in details, parts and colours as the exclusives, but as small as City sets have always been.

This really deserves a 5 - outstanding. Usually I don't like boats, but this one has a brick-built hull isn't it? And the crane system is just superb.

I think this is a very nice city set. It doesn't get 5 from me only because the build is really too simple and there are many empty spaces that could have been used better.

No problems in MOCs. Anyway, MOCs are more the province of AFOL than KFOL. I would be against it in sets on sale. But Star Wars, Pirates, Castle and Indy still have an acceptable level of it.

For me it's a solid 4. The bus is brilliant, as already pointed out. If we compare the buildings with the modular houses on a strictly design basis, they obviously lose. But I think Legoland town needs smaller and simple buildings too like it had in the past. It's cheaper and easier to build, and I like the minimalistic look of a traditional Legoland town. The only things which I don't like about this set are the excessive number of large panels for walls instead of bricks (perhaps to make it cheaper) and the look of the current dark grey bricks.

I voted 4, although I'm not very interested in this set. Everything is done quite nicely, perhaps only the trailer gives me some doubts by having only a set of wheels... would it realistically hold all the weight of the turbine shaft? I think I'd feel safer if it had a second set of wheels on the front. I also think the set would be slightly better with a truck engine the same shape as the helicopter transport, which looks more powerful for a heavy cargo. In any case, the model overall is certainly very original!

Ditto. But the job done is great. And I think that the metroliner actually seems better as a monorail than a regular train.

50-60e range.

I think the wind turbine on the box is printed not-in-scale with the minifig beside it. If you look at the picture, you can see that the base of the turbine is not standing on the same ground as the rest of the set, and in the small picture on the bottom-right the real length of the pole of the turbine is shown when it is transported by the truck. To me it looks it will be taller than the main picture on the box.

Yes, but it was still better for me when Lego minifigs looked all dumb & happy. It's a toy, it doesn't have to be historically accurate, and it's a little better if it delivers a more positive message to kids.

The only thing which got worst in the pirate line for my own tastes is the minifigs' faces. I think the simpler faces were better, now too many of the minifigs look like nasty people.

Yes, but creating multiple loops is not exactly a solution but rather a trick to make it look like they are on the same track layout, when instead you have separated them. Also, with 12v and 9v you cannot run trains on a dead-end track, for example if you want to create a train station of the type like Milan's central station (all tracks arriving "perpendicularly" to the station and stopping there instead of "passing by" parallel to it), an engines' sheds roundabout or any other terminal piece of layout. This because 12v and 9v tracks need to be closed to deliver the electric power. A by-product of this is the fact that you must avoid closing loops with wrong polarities (creating a circling loop with one only entrance track to it for example), but this is usually less likely. The problem of controlling trains indipendently was typical in old non-Lego model trains too. Usually fans had a great challenge (but then also great fun) in designing huge layouts where all trains were running automatically thanks to a series of semaphores and automated switches. But controlling trains individually would be much more fun for kids, since designing such automated layout is a huge task even for adults. I remember that some model trains companies of the 80s like Arnold and Fleischmann solved the problems by creating individually-controlled engines with a remote digital control system. However this made each single engine cost something between 100-300$, and in the 90s the hobby had become pretty much an upper-class adult hobby only. The majority of those train models companies are nowadays bankrupted and defunct For these reasons, and for the facts that there are less cable around and no electric parts exposed (safety!), I would certainly prefer a battery-based system rather than a wired one. But clearly the battery-based systems so far have too little power, take up more space inside the engines, and need to be recharged too often. The fact that they can't power other electrical devices such as lights, switches, semaphores etc is another shortcoming of the RC and PF, however you can imagine to have battery-powered trains together with a wired system that controls only "everything else" (and you can actually use the old 12v system for that, if you just don't plug it into the train track itself). I think the "perfect system" can be achieved only the day that technology gives us miniaturized batteries that can deliver more power than today and still last a few days before recharging. Or even better... when technology manages to deliver a reliable WIRELESS system for transferring power, which you may have heard it's one big topic in electric engineering research activity nowadays, but still many years before it becomes commercially viable.

You can't control different trains on the same track layout indipendently.

It's an unsolvable problem. Each system has its own bugs. A "perfect system" could exist indeed, but apparently it would be too expensive, if the current imperfect system is considered already quite expensive itself.

I think the sea display is really great, with the idea of designing models both above the water and the seabed!

How could I forget? Raw minced horse meat "cold-cooked" in lemon juice with garlic and parsley, I often ask for it when dining at my parents' place :) I guess that raw meat is a kind of food that most people would find disgusting at the thought, but we all used to eat raw meat a long time ago And as long as it's horse you're safe - it's the healthiest meat and the only truly safe one to eat uncooked.

That's true, and was true also for any other type of rechargeable battery made in last 20 years. Incidentally, I use rechargeable batteries in the RC equipment, and they're much cheaper than the PF battery. The problem is that they need to be recharged quite often and they're so many they take up a lot of space. The problems discussed here are whether the Lego PF battery could be cheaper and smaller than what it is now, still being rechargeable. I think it could, and hopefully the price (and maybe size too) would go down if Lego sticks with the PF power system for many years and invests in improving the technology. BTW, rechargeable batteries usually do have a finite life, based on how many times you can recharge them proficiently. Usually it's not a short time, it's at least hundreds of times, but it's not that "you don't have to buy any battery again".

It's also very hard for someone who has a huge collection of trains with a certain power system, to see it replaced with a new standard. 12v and 9v lasted long enough for people to build collections of each. RC lasted too short to ever gain a fanbase.

It's not a trick, it's the most reasonable idea... If you create a small collection of trains (3-5 trains) you need a battery box + engine for each, but you may get away with just 1 charger. A bigger collection may find multiple chargers useful, but still you ain't really going to need 1 charger for each battery! Anyway, I think the battery's biggest problem is the size. It should be smaller. Battery and motor take up too much space.

Absolutely perfect, outside and inside!

Many of those are not on sale anymore. I think you'll have a much easier time if you pick up a 2009 catalog from the shop or visit www.lego.com for currently available sets (plus consider that retail shops sometimes have sets from the previous year). You can buy older sets from www.bricklink.com if you're willing to be robbed (bricklink is good for parts, but has insane prices for sets) or watch eBay to see if an old set you like pops up (it's not hard for popular sets, but technic sets might take a long time). Generally speaking, buying NEW Lego is cheaper than buying OLD Lego!

I'm Italian and my favourite food is of course that from my country, among which I could try to pick some traditional favourites from my local area. For example I really love the "Casoncelli della Valcamonica", a type of pasta dumplings served in molten butter, vaguely similar to ravioli but gigantic and with potatoes added to the fillings. I love the traditional "Spiedo Bresciano" which is a selection of meat (whole chicken, pork ribs and steaks plus birds if you can get them*) cooked on open fire on a rotating spikes and served with polenta. And I love a nameless dish which is basically a square pot of pieces of rabbit, lamb and young goat oven-baked with rosemary and potatoes, again served with polenta during Easter times. *illegal But there's lots of foreign dishes I really like as well. I love Japanese sushi, French bourguignonne (tiny pieces of different meat and sausages cooked in boiling oil in the middle of the dinner table in a fondue set), German schitzel, and Finnish mustamakkara (blood sausages). And a traditional English breakfast set Unfortunately, I married a vegetarian

I have no idea, all I know is that I never liked this set. I really think the van has an ugly shape. More square or more round would have been ok, but a van with an aerodynamic sporty front is ridiculous IMHO. OTOH I liked the mail plane, I think that there is still room for tiny aircraft (Cessna-sized) even alongside the new big ones.

Excellent review. I also agree with the vinal grades and verdict. This set has some great details and minifigs, and truly top playability with its many small moving parts and machines. Where it really lacks is in the build: the structure is really minimal, with some big rock pieces making up the bulk of it with tiny decorative pieces slapped on. I think the pieces in this set are particularly unvaluable: they have a "wow factor" because of the rare colours (dark green, navy blue, gold) but then you notice they are too few and many of them are "cheese-pieces" or top-roof pieces that work only as decorations, so you can't actually build anything with these pieces. The only part of this set which for my taste is really great design is the mine carts.

Hey I understand the concept behind this titles I was just poking at the fact that many of them look like a joke made by the staff to the member, but it's not a bad thing.