Night City Dream

I liked both very much. I believe they are not worse than LEGO's official modular buildings.

I think the tow truck is no way oversized. Some will say it is even small, especially compared to Range Rover from 7635... The blue car from 7642 doesn't appeal to me much as it has very low clearance and it is not even able to run onto the hoist.

Well, I think TLG won't expand the subtheme in the nearest future and that's a pity. Lego doesn't offer much these days as it used to do in the 1990s. Now everything is subject to market realities.

Yes, agree, I like the fact the city is very dense though there are not so many roads and streets but it's still impressive. Just one objection: such beauty merely REQUIRES a better quality of images.

OK, I agree that this particular set might have 1 minifig, that may be enough. But still. I am well aware of the fatc minifigs are costly to make, but why wasn't it the case 10 years ago? What are the factors, like you said, that are making LEGO sets more expensive and as a result, putting less and less minifigs into sets? You see, the example with trains is awesome. Why only 3 minifigs as transport suggests making scenes with way more "people"? And, a recent example - the new police station has 1 minifig less than the previous one, the Police truck has 1 minifig less than 7743. And it continues to happen. The prices by the way are not getting lower: either they put less minifigs into the replacing set or they just put the price higher (ex.: 7945 and 7208, Beach House and Apple tree house)...

Within City series, to me is the van at the Space port so far. The police station is nice but for me it is a step back to some extent in comparison with 7744. The Launch pad is interesting, too. What I really dislike about the whole City-2011 is that TLG is getting more and more greedy, year by year in offering us minifigs per set. The van I've mentioned has just ONE minifigure. The passenger train of this year has got only 3 people! Does anyone remember Metroliner or Cargo Railway (also known in Russia as "Shuttle Express" train) - they had 11 and 7 minifigs correspondently. And the last train set full of minifigs was 4560/4561 - 10. Small town sets in the 90s sometimes had up to 7 minifigs. Now we get only 1 - 2, even many huges sets offer just 1 driver or so...

I won't either but I fond it more to scale than 7743, I mean the length. The new truck seems well shorter and this works to its advantage. As for the Police Headquarters, I see some steps back: no moto, fewer minifigs, vehicles are identical, not that different. However, there are some trade-offs...

If you can see more pictures, I made a review for the Russian Lego forum. But as you don't understand a word, you can simply watch the pictures in my album on Yandex; http://fotki.yandex.ru/users/night-city-dream/album/114181/ All my Lego photo albums so far: http://fotki.yandex.ru/users/night-city-dream/album/96913/

I like it. Is is not so complex as the GE but I like still. And I like the fact that it is that tall.

I am sorry to be a bit off-topic but if this thread is in TOWN forum, may I ask moderators to move my review of the Ultimate NBA Arena, which is here: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=45354 down to TOWN forum as well? Thank you.

I will review the Public transportation set, is it already available in Russian. To me, the yellow car's frontal part looks very much Audi-like.

Perhaps, the police boat will be a special edition set.

First of all for the city-dwellers who haven't seen my review yet, welcome here: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=45354 Now, a little bonus to it. As I am a fan of CITY, I definitely used the Arena to make a City scene. On the first day the Arena was finished and opened, it was full of people though not all the seats were occupied. There were people who managed to get to the Arena from the City. The match was rather hot, and the spectators were fascinated: They were applauding... The second match made a day. Lots of people came to see it, only 3 seats were not taken. The match lasted far into the night. The spectators were discussing the game, and the girls were talking about beautiful players. The Ultimate NBA Arena was packed with spectators and was abuzz with the event: There came firemen, builders, even coast guard people and workers, one of which came from the railway cargo station. Some representatives of the Beau monde were equally noticed... On the opposite tribune it was all even more fantastic as there came one pirate (!) and one astronaut (cosmonaut? Taikonaut?) who came to see the match before take off… The spectators were delighted as there was no sport building of such a level in the city. There even came one of The Indianas Joneses with his father. The other were not able to come as they were on missions. It was getting dark but people didn't notice it. The red sunshine was covering the field and the tribunes: The tension was so high that cameras were not so fast to record everything: Finally, it got completely dark, but the spectators were still watching the game: The journalists were standing at the main entrance where they had a good view of the field. Everyone was happy with the results. .

To me^ this calendar is way worse than the previous one. Too few minifigs, too much simple and useless staff...

I've no idea either... Now, if you want, I'll continue. Technic elements are used to build the supporting structure. The structure is very steady. Let;s pass now to the stickers. I must say they are too many stickers and you are given a choice. You can choose for example what sponsor ads to put. I decided to use those shown in the book. These stickers were not used: Extra-parts and 3 extra balls: The Arena is built. Let's look at it more in detail: Conclusion. In my opinion, the set is excellent, just as almost any old LEGO set. Everything is well thought out, the Arena is steady you can carry it with one hand only and it will not break apart. The minifigs are marvellous and very realistic. I can also notice the high playability of the set, so it will be popular for the whole family. The tribunes allow us to use the Arena in the city layout and make there city-dwellers sit. The players can take and handle the balls as well as to throw it. Sometimes however, a player can take and hold the ball quite strongly, and you can't throw it. Sometimes also, the ball flies out of the arena. The minifigs can't sit down and can't be widely used in the city layout. By the way, the Arena is larger than the box, is measures 64x56 studs, which is a bit less than 4 road plates put together. The box offers us some other thing to build but these are merely variations of the Ultimate NBA Arena. Strong points. 1. 10 minifigs. 2. Minifigs' design, originality. 3. The structure is very solid. 4. The Arena is well scaled to Lego City System. 5. Tribunes. 6. high playability if the set. 7. Very well designed box. 8. Lots of useful parts and pieces. 9. Other models to build. 10. Lots of stickers giving us freedom of choice. Disadvantages. 1. Very hard to find. 2. Large stickers are very difficult to put. As for the price, I bought it for nearly 110 euros but I think is it not that costly. The biggest City sets have often the same price tag but they are smaller. And the minifigs is the Arena sport some metal parts, which is always very expensive at Lego (just remember the 9V rails). To be continued... There will be a small BONUS ;)

There are two tribunes and they are not identical. One of them has got the main entrance, so it has got less seats. Some pics of the tribune that is above the entrance. There are lights above the entrance: The second tribune has got more seats. 3 rows are available on each tribune. You can seat 20 + 29 minifigs, with a potential up to 30 minifigs fot the larger tribune. It means that the Arena can hold as many as 50 spectators. It think for a LEGO city it is not that little. Every basketball player except those who stand near the baskets, are mounted using these elements: Then, we put 5 blue and 5 red flags. Later stickers are used to show the points (1-2-3-4-5). I also find interesting the way the baskets are fixed. The shields are probably unique pieces, they are transparent 6x5 piecex with printed images: Some pics of the building process: To be continued.

OK, sure, I'll carry on my review. Can anyone tell me if there are any limits per post and per thread? I had to withdraw some of my pics from the first post as they appeared as links, not as images. The minifigs are probably the most interesting about the set. Apart from what was said above, the minifigs have different arms, their hands can't turn. The arms can be fixed in several positions, they don't turn the way you turn arms of a typical minifigure. 10 basketball players are represented in the set. Mind that almost each face is different. The only player – Dirk Nowitzki – was given hair. A bit off-topic but just not long before reviewing this set I had watched «Rush Hour» with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, where one of the protagonists is James Carter. View from the bottom: Some pics of the system operating central basketball players. Pins are used to connect the mechanism to the field. The steering wheel turns the handle that touches the second axis, which, in its turn gets the player up.

The present set was purchased in Kindermix store, which is probably the best LEGO store in Russia, and I got the last one. The box was a bit damaged but I didn't pay much attention to it as the set was one I’d been searching for for a long time. Some official info: 3433 – The Ultimate NBA Arena Year: 2003. Pieces (officially): 491. Minifigs: 10. This review has been written with an account to some following factors: the Sports series was available when I was far away from LEGO (1998 – 2008) and didn't pursue much interest in the development of LEGO SYSTEM, just herd some names and that was all. So, I am viewing this set as a person who is trying to catch the past. The second factor to be mentioned is that I was a fan of LEGO in 1994 – 1998, very keen especially on TOWN series, so all my considerations are strongly influenced by the «best years» of LEGO. That is why to me even the box is important. It is DIFFERENT. The box is large but not the largest. We can see it is also quite thick as the set contains huge parts of the Arena. The most important thing about the box to me is that it is designed in the way they used to design boxes and probably not long after this design was changed. Modern boxes are not very good: after opening you can't store anything in as they almost don't close at all. Age brackets. No module principle building resulted in the fact that building used to take longer as you had to search for pieces in the whole bulk of parts. The downside to it is that we used to have less extra parts – we'll see it later. On the upper part we see minifigs. It is completely different from traditional LEGO System minifigs: On the other sides we see some sketches with famous real basketball players, and there's a list of players represented by minfigs of the set: The old set reference when Denmark was the only country mentioned: At the back side there are variants you can build out of this set, you can't see it on the boxes of modern sets: Here we stop reviewing the box saying once again it is much more convenient than modern boxes that open sidewards and that can't close normally... Here you can see how it used to work at those times: As I said, the box was a bit damaged. When I open it I had a little impression the set was used. Some stickers were damaged, too, and a large piece of Arena was a bit dirty. However, I checked all pieces (that's my strange hobby as well), everything was ok. The book is also interesting as you can find there some info on the sets of Basketball subtheme. According to the book, it takes 20 steps to build the Arena: Some random pics of pages: The other set of the subtheme. There was a number of minifig sets. So, the subtheme was highly developed, not in the way nowadays series are developed under the strict laws of marketing. There'a a small poster in the box that shows us other sets of the year: The set comes with 10 minifigs, which is quite an exception to what is now put in sets. Many interesting pieces, rare or unique. Large pieces are not packed: There are 10 bags with pieces. The whole opened set looks like this: Some bags are traditionally perforated, they are much more solid than modern bags. Bricksets indicates 491 pieces in this set, I counted 494. I have also to say the peculiarity of this set is that it contains lots of similar parts. The first bags give us torsos and heads of the players. The second bag: In bag 3 we see baskets and 4 balls! The baskets are just stunning. I can't understand why they were not used in the Apple tree house – there's something similar to toilet saddle instead. The bag contains also players' legs. As you can see, the minifigs are totally different from the figs we got used to. They have springs inside the legs that allow them to return to standing position. So, you can't make them sit down because of that. They didn't have traditional holes for studs at the back either. The minifigs are fixed on the Arena owing to these elements: Bag 4: This bag is interested as it contains tyres, like those of 7731, but they are transparent: There are also «steering wheels» to operate central players and basket handles: The fifth bag contains lots of small parts. Bag # 6: Other 4 bags. Bags 8 and 9 are identical. To be continued. I'm not going to show all building process but some moments have to be covered.

Thanks for the review, it is quite exhaustive. Now I see that he best thing about the set is the truck. It's absolutely stunning and looking very real. But when seeing all the set assembled, I don't actually have the impression that it is a CENTER. To me, it's more kind a set of vehicles, no more.

INDEXED This review Is dedicated To my Grandmother Who died in March 2010. She was still able to see me taking pictures of this set. The present review covers a special edition set that is to day a set that is available for a limited period in the market. Taking into account that the set was issued it the second half of the year, its availability was shortened to 4 – 5 months only. I'm going to show you all the trade-offs about the set and to compare it with the others if I can. I'd also like to prove that this set is the best Limited Edition set through the CITY series (2005 – 2010). Saying that I mean not only the set as such but I also consider the opinion of collectors, of those who will play it (children) and those who prefer MOCs.. Some official info. 7686 – Helicopter transport) Timing release – 2009, second half. Pieces (officially) – 377. Minifigs – 3. MRSP in Russia 1299 rubles. The present set is part of a bit strange subtheme that is hard to name as we can see there a Tow truck 7638 and the big Garage 7642, so, it doesn't deal only with car mending. All the three sets have common livery both for sets (orange, grey, black and white) and and for minifigs. In Russia the set is a bit more expensive that the other limited edition sets but it was due to rising MRSP in summer 2009. This fact, however, doesn't make the set less attractive. The box is very big, it could have been much smaller. I guess the pieces occupy some 60 – 65 % of it. At the front part of the box there is the set itself: a powerful and cool truck, a long but not less interesting trailer, a high-tech helicopter which looks quite small or compact, and an orange bike – just like to be added to the collection of bikes. So, all in all, the set is well thought out. There are two books inside, the first is dedicated to assembling the bike and the helicopter while the second one is for the truck and trailer.. Numerous stickers are located on a small sheet, which I like: The set contains 4 bags; the sticker sheet and the trailer hull are put like that. The trailer hull is a single piece and this fact is widely criticized by LEGO fans. I, however, do not share this criticism. And I'll show why. As you can see, each bag contains few pieces. So the box could have been twice as little. The first two bags contain pieces to construct the bike and the helicopter. The bags 3 and 4 go fo the truck & trailer. I should also notice that the set has got 3 (!!!) minifigures. For a special edition this is quite much. Moreover, this fact is very positive as we get such minifigs only in 7638 (1) , in Garage 7642 (3) and in this set, which totals only 7. As far as I know, TLG is not going to develop this subtheme in the nearest future. Pieces from bags 1 & 2: Getting the stickers ready: Two minifigs from the first bags. I really like the torso they have, and I also like that they’ve got dark grey trousers – to make them different from their colleagues in the Garage.. The advantages of the set are not described all yet. The set offers a very nice colour scheme. Collectors will definitely like the orange bike, such colour brings joy and happiness. Now, we pass to the helicopter. Before, I used to think it was a small and plain machine, but when assembling it I changed my mind as I was fascinated by designer solutions applied. The structure of the helicopter is a bit different from all the other helicopters offered by LEGO. And I was surprised by the size of the machine, I didn't think it would be that big and that it would be sort of 6515 set from 1995 in terms of size. Some pictures of assembling process: I'd like to highlight the tail of the helicopter as it is made in a special way. Usually, tails were made of bricks or plates whilst here we have a technic axle put inside technic pipes and pins. The tail is made like this: Blue holders are mounted to hold the windscreen. There's only one gearstick here: Well, the building is complete. I think, it is nicely designed. The helicopter is compact and large at the same time. Due to the way of making the tail, the helicopter came out more realistic.. Well, all I have to do now is to wait for the truck... This bulk of pieces will make my truck. The truck is mounted like that on several plates, it doesn;t have a large single piece as most LEGO CITY trucks do. Side parts: When we attach the side parts, the truck soon gets more solid and even imposant, I'd say: Driver's cab, one of the most interesting things about the truck. The roof and deflectors. Its position can be adjusted. Usually, I show the structure of the front part. It is even more important here as the truck is more typical of USA than Europe as it has the engine part at the front.. American trucks usually have beautiful vertical chrome pipes just at the back of the cab. Here we get grey ones, and I think chrome would have been much better. Now we put a number plate, and the truck is ready. One of the best LEGO CITY trucks, looks marvellous from any standpoint. Its proportions are well made, the hood is not long or short. I thought the truck would be higher. Its height, however, is optimum. Now let's pass to the trailer.. 7686 offers us a set of classical instruments that make me think of old TOWN... At the beginning of the trailer we ca see boxes for instruments and they can also line the small wall. There is also a petrol vessel but I can hardly imagine for whom it may be needed. Many people have been still criticizing the set for this single large bed-type piece. TO me, this is not a disadvantage. The set does contain a decent number of pieces. The structure of the bogie may be interrsting here as it may turn. U guess why the put here transparent red round pieces (1st photo) as they are then completely covered by othere non-transparent pieces, which you can see on the 2nd photo: Well, now the building is complete.. it is stunning, isn't it? The transport is a mixed-use one. It is hard to meet such kind of trailer every day, but still it is nice. The truck & trailer may work as a rescue rig, as a transporter, as a repair truck, and the biker – as a insurance agent. The whole system truck + trailer is just gorgeous regardless of from where we look at it.... Some more pictures: CONCLUSION. Advantages: - design, colour scheme; - 4 vehicles; - 3 interesting minifigs; - affordable price; - heli's tail design; - orange bike; - front-engine type truct with adjustable deflectors; - good number of useful pieces to build MOCs. Disadvantages: - Special Edition – available only for several months than sold out; - large box. In total, I would recommend this set yet ut might be very difficult now. If we compare Special Edition CITY sets, this one is definitely the best. It is well developed, well made and much more to scale than most of the others. The set would be useful for CITY builders and for those who prefer MOCs.

Any pics so far?

Sorry, I forgot about 6542 but it seems to me this maybe the only set with over 1000 pieces? The set is marvelous but pity that boats can't float. As for 84046 I'm quite sure it will contain over 900 pieces as most of them are tiny. Just remember Garage 7642. Before its release I couldn't imagine it would contain so many pieces - 953 officially (I counted 982 in total). I think the piece situation with 8404 is pretty much the same. I am sorry, can you tell me what 10216 are you talking about?

How do you think, how many pieces will 8404 contain? Will it be the biggest CITY set by pieces? Now it's 7744 (973) and 7642 (953), and I don't actually remember any TOWN / WORLD CITY / CITY set that would contain 1000+ pieces.

Veri nice, indeed. I like the way you made the layout and the fact that trains are running at various speeds. 4511 looks cool, even very cool, even better than Metroliner. I guess why the 4560 that I like so much is not running? And why isn't there 4559?

It would be much better if you put videos right here.