Tag Archives: lego city

Apr 11 2023

LEGO City: Lunar Research Base (#60350) by LEGO

This year, I’ve been dabbling with a lot of LEGO, and so far I’ve checked out two of the LEGO City Space sets. Today I’m going BIG with the Lunar Research Base, which is not only a damn cool set on its own, but also has some compatibility with one of those other sets, which we’ll check out at the end of the review! There’s a ton of stuff to look at here, so strap in tight and watch out for those G-Forces!

I got a nice deal on this set through Amazon, but the downside was they shipped it in the “Hassle Free” packaging, which means they just slap 1000 shipping labels on the box and kick it out the door. As a result, mine arrived in dire condition, so I’m using LEGO’s official picture for the box shot. Clocking in at 786 pieces, it’s not the biggest set out there, but it’s a lot bigger than anything I’ve built recently. And the piece count feels a little deceptive, because it feels like you get a lot of bang with for your buck when this one is built. When all is done, this set builds two ground vehicles, a drone, the research base itself, a rocket ship, a mineral deposit, and six Minifigs! It’s a whole world of fun in one box. Let’s start with the Minifigs!

The six Minifigs include three astronauts, a rocket pilot, and two scientists. It’s a satisfying number of Minifigs, and despite the rather high level of reuse between them, it feels appropriate and not like a cost-saving cop-out.

The astronauts all use the same bodies, helmets, and backpack harness, but one of the backpacks is built differently having clips on the sides to store tools. These are essentially the same astronauts that we saw with the Lunar Roving Vehicle set, and that’s appropriate, since we’ll see later that the two sets are very compatible. The gold helmet visors are removable to reveal that you get one man and two women. You also get hair pieces for all of them for when you remove the helmets entirely, and each head only has one face print. You get a metal detector for one of the astronauts, and I gave the other a drill taken from the large inventory of tools that comes with this set. The printing is crisp and colorful, and the backpacks each get stickers.

The scientists also share the same body, which consists of blue jumpsuits and that makes the rocket pilot the only totally unique Minifig in the set. He has an orange pressure suit and a helmet with a removable blue face shield. The pilot comes with a hair piece for when you take off his helmet and all three only have single face prints. The printing on these figures is simple, but it still looks great.

With the Minifigs out of the way, let’s check out some of the smaller builds! First up is this little solar powered robot rover. This four-wheeled little guy is a simple but fun little build. He’s got some solar panel stickers on the side to keep him powered up. There’s a light, or perhaps a camera on the front, a tail hitch on the back, and a sensor dome up top. I love the use of the translucent blue pieces for the body as you can see some of the basic mechanisms inside him. Very cool!

Next up is the Lunar dozer, which seats one Minifig. It’s a sporty little work vehicle with four big wheels, a dozer blade on the front, a little blue lightbar, red tail lights, and some lever controls for the driver. The blade is on front is hinged to angle it up and down. The dozer comes in handy for pushing around rocks or cleaning up the dig site! I love the look of this little crater-hopper and it looks like it would be fun to go off-roading around the Kepler Crater with it.

Speaking of dig sites, we get another mineral deposit, which is very similar to the one included with the Lunar Roving Vehicle. The big rock opens up to reveal blue crystals inside, one of which can be removed and taken back to the Research Base where it infects the crew with a bizarre alien radiation that turns them into violent rage zombies. Nah, just kidding. I’m sure they’re perfectly safe.

And how do you transport that big boulder of alien goodness? With a crane drone of course! This quad-thrusting workhorse has a massive claw that can capture the boulder and carry it off to be poked and prodded by the Geological Team! The big claw uses a rubber band to keep it closed, and you also get a simpler hook in case it needs to rescue the rover robot from a bad tumble.

The rocket is a neat build all to itself, and an awesome bonus for this set. It has a one man cockpit, a ladder for getting in and out, two gold dishes, which I assume are for communications. Maybe it can be used to relay messages from the Research Base back to Earth. When you pick up the Rocket to blast off, a transparent flame piece emerges from the thruster cone and the landing legs fold up, which is pretty clever. The sides of the rocket have four gold foil solar panel stickers.

The cockpit module is attached by two technic pieces, so you can detach it. I’m not sure if it’s intentional since it has no propulsion of its own, but I guess it can be used for emergencies if the engine overloads and is about to explode. The cockpit is both roomy and sparse. There’s a place for the pilot to take his helmet off and stow it and there are a couple of control panels on each side.

And then we get to the Research Base itself, which can be broken down into four basic areas: Garage, Research Dome, Lab Pylon and Airlock Pylon. The main body of the base houses the garage, which can be accessed by lifting off the Dome Section. The garage has a little work bay and lots of places for tools. And that’s convenient, because this set comes with a whole bag full of tools! The robot rover can recharge in his little alcove in the back and there’s still room for the rover dozer to come in for repairs. There are hatches to the left and right that lead off to the Pylons.

The transparent dome on the top of the Research Base opens up to allow you access. But only pretend access, because if the dome actually opened, the Minifigs would did of asphyxiation. Inside are sleeping quarters with two beds, a work station, and a hydroponics area. These scientists seem to be focused on growing vegetable life in space, and it looks like they’ve produced some sort of giant mutant carrot. It was fun building all of the plant life, and if you don’t want to follow the instructions, you can just go wild and come with all sorts of fun combinations. The central column has a circular table for coffee mugs, with additional space on thet wo end tables by the beds. There’s a smart-phone accessory, which I think is probably intended as a work tablet.

The pylons contain opening compartments. The shorter pylon has a little laboratory with room for one scientist. On top there are articulated solar panels with foil stickers and a communications dish that can rotate and angle up and down. Open up the pylon and you gain access to the lab. There’s an electron microscope and a containment jar with some microscopic organisms in it. I like to think this lab is isolated because it’s where the real dangerous stuff happens. If any of that deadly alien bacteria escapes, they can just lock it down and vent it into space, doing the infected scientist a kindness by not allowing him to be taken over and consumed from the inside out. Nah, just kidding. I’m sure it’s perfectly safe.

The middle of the longer pylon has the same articulated solar panels on top and opens to reveal an airlock. Here there are some clips to store tools and places for the returning Astronauts to place their helmets when embarking back onto the base.

Beyond the airlock is a corridor that can actually angle upward to allow it to dock with the Lunar Rover vehicle from the previous set. The engineering in the walkway is really cool in that it angles upward while keeping the two end ports perpendicular to the ground. Both the rover and the airlock use the same ports, so you just have to flip up the hatches and the two ports will line up perfectly. If you have some spare technic connectors you can even lock them together.

Wow, what a set! The Lunar Research Base has a lot going on and it took me about two nights to build. It wasn’t a difficult build at all, but there’s just a lot to it. Once it’s done this is a wonderful playset in a box with a bunch of different play patterns and lots of compatibility with the other LEGO City Space sets. It retails for $129.99, but I was able to get a little bit off of it when Amazon was having a LEGO sale. This is just the kind of thing that I would have loved to find under the Christmas Tree when I was a wee lad! I’ve got two more sizeable sets from the LEGO City Space series to build, but next time we look at a LEGO set, it’ll be time to bust out out trusty whips and fedoras!

Mar 8 2023

LEGO City: Lunar Roving Vehicle (#60348) by LEGO

I’m heading back into LEGO City today, or should I say out into LEGO City Space, with a look at another one of these NASA themed sets. LEGO’s goal here is to take some real concept vehicles from NASA and make them a little more toyetic and fun. Last time I checked out the Mars Research Shuttle, and now it’s time to go to the Moon with the Lunar Roving Vehicle… Let’s Go!

As the box claims, the Rover is based on the Artemis concept vehicle, but takes a lot of liberties with that design. This set is about the same size as the Shuttle, give or take a few pieces, but unlike the Shuttle set this one really just focuses on one vehicle. You get 275 bricks, which builds the Rover, a Mineral Deposit, and three Minifigs. As always, let’s start with the Minifigs!

You get two Astronauts and one Rover Pilot, and straightaway I like these better than what we got in the previous set. The Rover Pilot is great, with a blue jumpsuit and printed leather jacket. He has a ballcap and a cocky smirk on his face. There’s no hair piece, so the hat stays on, and none of these Minifigs have second face printings. The printing on the Astronaut suits is quite nice and both have shoulder harness pieces to attach their backpacks The backpacks are actual builds, which I like more than the one-piece on the EVA Suit from the last set. These are male and female figures, with the mail having a backpack with articulated spotlights and the female has a tool pack with a circular saw and as shovel, although you can switch them if you like.

The gold solar screen visors lift off to reveal their faces and, unlike the Pilot, these figures have hairpieces so you can take their helmets off completely. I dig all three of these Minifigs a lot!

The Rover is a fun build, but I’m a little iffy on the final model. It’s super clunky and looks absolutely nothing like the concept design that it’s based on. In fact, this thing is just plain ugly. The Rover rolls along on six sets of dual wheels, each of which can rotate 360-degrees, which makes for a spectacle of chaos when this thing is in motion, but it is interesting to see it roll. The cab has an upper and lower windshield, which looks good, there’s a blue lightbar on top, as well as an articulated radar dish. The back has a platform that drops down like a tailgate, which I guess can be used to haul cargo or samples, and it also has clips for tool storage. There are five stickers visible on the outside of the Rover, four are gold solar-panel type stickers on the side hatches, and the fifth is the space agency logo on the top.

The front of the vehicle has two articulated arms, one with a build in drill and the other with a clip that holds a metal detector-type device. The detector can be swapped out to be used by one of the Astronauts, and you can put the circular saw in this arm so the Rover can dig. I’m not a big fan of the way these arms are built, as they just look kind of awkward.

The vehicle opens on both sides, with the large circular ports leading into the cabin and the blue solar-panel-type hatches leading to an airlock compartment. It’s pretty tight quarters in the vehicle, but if you put on Astronaut in the airlock and one in the back of the cabin, you can load everyone onto the Rover. There’s no access from the airlock to the cabin, so that whole thing has to work with the power of your imagination! It also seems kind of odd that the side pieces with the solar panel stickers drop down rather than rise up to collect those rays!

The cabin has room for the Pilot to sit, with consoles on either side of him and joysticks to either steer the Rover or control the arms.

You get a Mineral Deposit, which is basically a big rock on a pedestal, along with a space agency flag to show those filthy Commies that it belongs to us! I really dig how they did this, with the rock opening to reveal translucent blue crystals inside, as well as a single crystal that can be removed as a sample. It’s a lot more interesting than the paltry little samples that came with the Shuttle set.

The Lunar Rover set is a fun and satisfying build with some excellent Minifigs and some promising play value, but it falls short of the Research Shuttle set, at least in my opinion. The Rover is pretty ugly, and that’s all you get, whereas the Research Shuttle looked awesome and came with a Rover and two Drones. I certainly don’t regret picking up this set, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to find it. It’s solid just not exceptional. It does, however, interact with the Lunar Base set, and I’ll be taking a look at that set in the not too distant fugure!

Feb 20 2023

LEGO City: Mars Research Shuttle (#60266) by LEGO

I went through a long dry spell without looking at any LEGO sets here for a while, and that’s probably because I’ve been digging out old sets and rebuilding them to get my LEGO fix. Last year, I checked out one or two Star Wars sets, but that’s been it. Now some of the NASA inspired LEGO City sets that I’ve seen in the toy aisles have caught my interest and even reminded me that I had a couple of these put away, waiting to be built. I also bought some newer ones to build while I was on vacation. I’m starting today by building the Mars Research Shuttle!

This one is actually from a few years back and features a brick count of 273 pieces with three numbered bags and three instruction booklets. It’s not really a big set, but one that seemed to offer a fair amount of extras. The Research Shuttle is the main draw of the set, but it also comes with a Surface Rover, a Mineral Deposit, a Heli-drone, and a second Drone to transport samples, plus two Minifigs! Let’s start with those Minifigs!

You get two astronauts, consisting of a male in an orange space suit and a female in a white EVA suit. The male is a simple build with a set of oxygen tanks on his back and a helmet with a tinted blue visor. The female’s EVA suit has a one piece rig, which includes the helmet and backpack and has a gold painted visor to protect from solar exposure. The printed bodies are nice, but there’s no detail on the packs, which is a bit disappointing. You also only get one printed face on each head and no hair pieces, so you’re going to have to keep this pair’s helmets on.

The Research Shuttle takes up most of the build, and it is a really cool design, borrowing heavily from the traditional NASA Space shuttles. The spacecraft is mostly white and black, with stickers used on the tail fins and the thruster pods at the ends of the wings. The body is smooth, while the wings have studs on top, but it still looks great. You also get a number of tiny wheels on the bottom for it to rest on when it’s waiting for the next mission. The cockpit is one large translucent piece with white paint that doesn’t quite match the white bricks, but it’s close enough for me. All in all, this is a solid and decent sized model that was fun and simple to build and looks great.

The cockpit opens by removing the clear canopy piece and it reveals the one-man operators seat. It’s kind of deceptive, since the canopy piece makes the cockpit look like it’s going to be big and roomy, but there’s just the one seat.

The cargo bay doors open up to reveal another one-person station in the back along with space for the sample drone. Yeah, it’s pretty tight back there too, but considering the size of the shuttle, I think the designers made pretty good use of what space they had. The operating station here is presumably to control the Drones and the Robot Rover on the planet surface. The consoles consist of two printed bricks and one screen and it looks pretty good.

The sample drone is very simple, and really just a box with a clear hatch and four small thrusters to propel it from the shuttle to the planet surface. I kind of dig how simple and utilitarian this little guy is.

One last play feature on the shuttle involves the engines opening to reveal what looks like a power coil or some other inner workings of the drive system. So at least if the engines fail, the EVA suited Minifig can open these up and poke around in there to get it up and running again!

Moving down to the planet surface, we have the Heli-drone and the Rover. The Rover is a fun build and a cool vehicle considering it’s not the main draw of the set. It rolls on six wheels, has a turret that can rotate 360-degrees, an articulated solar panel with a sticker detailing the panels, an articulated claw, and a laser cutter. The claw springs closed thanks to a rubber band, which really should have been orange. The laser is a translucent red rod, which makes for a nice effect. There’s also a hitch on the back to possibly interact with another model from another set. Maybe a dump bin trailer for samples? The Mineral Deposit has two geode pieces, which can be collected by the Rover’s claw and placed into the Sample Drone for transport. There’s also a sticker with some coded images.

That’s where the Heli-Drone comes in! This little guy has a scanner, which is a translucent red screen and when it’s placed over that sticker it reveals the scientific data for the available samples. No, the Mineral Deposit piece isn’t all that convincing because it’s so angular, but I like the play mechanic it adds and the geode pieces are very well done, with translucent blue plastic molded into the shells.

I think this set is from around 2019 and I believe the MSRP was around $35, which feels about right. It’s actually still available at some online retailers, but it’s going for close to twice that these days. There’s a lot of fun to be had in this set and the play pattern is really well thought out. You have the Heli-Drone seeking out samples, the Rover collecting them, the Sample Drone bringing them up to the Shuttle. The Minifigs are a little blah, but they fit in fine with the rest of the set, and I’d definitely recommend it, if you can find it for under $45. Hell, the Rover itself feels like a model that could have turned up in one of those small $9.99 boxes all by itself.

Sep 20 2014

Lego City: 4×4 and Diving Boat (#60012) by LEGO

Sup, Toyhounds… It’s a bonus Saturday feature today because I’ve had this LEGO set kicking around since last Christmas and I thought it was time I built it. I’m so backlogged on stuff to feature I decided to just throw it up this weekend or else I’d never get around to it. It’s been a while, but I seem to recall going over to Walmart one Saturday with the express purpose of picking up one of the larger Coast Guard sets, only as usual they let me down. In fact, this little guy was the only Coast Guard set they had on the shelves. I decided it was better than nothing and brought it home with me. And here we are, nearly a year later and I finally built it. Let’s take a look…

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The set comes in an elongated box with the familiar blue deco from the LEGO city line. Something about this Coast Guard sub-series struck a chord in me. I think it’s because it just reminded me of Playmobil. Either way, this is sadly the only one I’ve picked up so far, but maybe I’ll try to hunt some of the others before they get too pricey on the secondary market.

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Inside the box you get an instruction booklet, a sticker sheet, a boat, and two baggies containing 127 bricks. When all is said and done you build two Minifigs, the truck, the trailer, and the boat. Yeah, the boat is mostly already assembled, but does require some extra pieces. I’m not all that keen on getting big pieces like this in these sets, but I guess that’s the only way to get something like that into a set in this price range. Let’s start with the Minifigs…

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You get truck driver guy and diver guy. These are nice, basic figs, but I don’t have a lot to say about them. They each have only one face, but they do have printing on the backs of their shirts. The truck driver has a ball cap and a life preserver. The diver has a life ball cap and some diving equipment. I like that the license plate number is the same as the set number.

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The equipment consists of a helmet with goggles and a snorkel, a set of flippers, and oxygen tanks for his back. Pretty cool.

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The truck represents the bulk of the build here and while it is the usual super-deformed style and fits only one figure inside, I still dig it quite a bit. It’s got big, beefy off-road tires and is raised quite a bit off of them. There’s clips on the side to hold a walkie-talkie and a megaphone and the back has a little equipment pallet that holds all the diving gear. The boat trailer attaches to the hitch via a ball joint and the boat itself locks on top with just a couple of studs.

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The boat requires you to build the motor and the light bar and the steering console, but other than that there’s nothing else to it apart from slapping on the stickers. Once again, the registry numbers on the sides of the boat is the same as the set number.

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So, this isn’t the most exciting set out there. It was an insanely quick build and I think to get the full value of this set you really need to have some of the bigger Coast Guard sets to go with it. I like it well enough and at about $20 it seems like a pretty good value. Maybe if I felt safe enough to go to the pond out back I could get some cool pictures of them launching the boats, but the alligators that congregate on the shore tend to disuade me from venturing too near.

Apr 10 2012

Lego City: Mobile Police Unit (#7288)

Ok, so yesterday’s Lego City set was ok, but it didn’t really blow me away. Let’s see if something a little beefier can fit the bill. We’re still on a police vehicle kick, but this time we’re looking at the Mobile Police Unit, a semi-truck that opens out into a CSI style crime lab. If you’re living in Lego City, chances are a lot of your taxes got pissed away on this thing, so let’s hope it’s paying off with a return on lower crime rates, eh?

The box is satisfyingly big and it shows off the truck opened up as well as all the other goodies and figures you get in this set. It also shows a motorcycle cap nabbing a crook running off with a gold bar. How clever can the criminals of Lego City be to be knocking over gold bricks right in front of what looks like a $2.5 million mobile crime lab? Not very. At 408 pieces, this set is more than twice the size of the last one I looked at. Inside the box, you get four numbered baggies of bricks, two instruction booklets, one sticker sheet, and a loose base, which will become the floor of the trailer. This one took me quite a while to put together and there’s all kinds of cool stuff going on with it. When all is said and done you get three minifigs, a little sports car, a road barricade and traffic cone, a police motorcycle, and of course the truck itself. As always, let’s start with the minifigs.

You get two cops and one criminal. The criminal is just a guy wearing a striped shirt and a pair of grey pants. He’s got a skull cap and he comes with the gold brick. Next up, we have the crime lab guy. He’s wearing a blue shirt with a badge and tie and has the cushy job of sitting in the lab while our next minifig, the motorcycle cop is humping the beat all day. The motorcycle cop is my favorite figure in the bunch. He’s got a nicely illustrated outfit showing off the zippers on his jacket, his badge and his walkie-talkie. He’s also got a helmet with a movable visor and the ubiquitous mirrored shades painted on his face. He also comes with a pair of handcuffs.

Next up are the little vehicles. The police motorcycle is an awesome little piece. If Lego would put this bike and the cop in a baggie and sell them alone, I’d bet they’d move a bunch of them. I’d buy a half dozen just in case I ever want to make a Lego Presidential motorcade. The little car, on the other hand is pretty goofy, but it still makes for a nice bonus in the set. I’m guessing it’s the criminals getaway car.

And then there’s the truck. It’s built in two pieces: The cab first and then the trailer. The whole thing is beigger than I expected. The cab can disconnect from the trailer and the trailer has fold down support so that it can stand on its own. The cab features opening side doors, angling sideview mirrors and movable spotlights on the top. The trailer features a compartment just behind the cab to store the road barricade and the traffic cone. The back of the trailer has a cell area with a barred door and bars on the windows. There’s also a rotating dish antenna on the top of the trailer.

The roof and doors to the trailer all fold out to give clear access to the crime lab inside the trailer. Inside you get two workstations with chairs and computer screens, a coffee pot, which oddly enough is one of my favorite things in the set, and a rack to keep equipment like the magnifying glass, extra handcuffs, and flashlight. The set makes great use of the stickers as display screens on the walls, maps of the city, and a wanted poster.

At $40, this set was a lot more satisfying then the last one. It was double the price, but it has signicantlly more than twice as many pieces. The extra vehicles add a lot of play value to the set and the whole design of the truck and crime lab conversion is executed extremely well. Plus, the motorcycle and cop are really cool additions to the set. If you’re short on Lego funds, I’d recommend skipping the Prisoner Transport and going straight for this one. Yeah, it’s more money, but you really get a lot to show for it.

Apr 9 2011

Lego City: Prisoner Transport (#7286)

So, after more than a week of remaining Lego-Free here at Figurefan, I’ve decided to do a Lego weekend before moving onto whatever it is I decide to go with on Monday. I probably should have used today to look at the last Lego Atlantis set that I built, but I’m rather excited to begin my first forays into Lego City, so I’m going to spend the weekend looking at two of the Police themed sets from this series. We’ll start with the smaller one and move on to the bigger one tomorrow.

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The box shows off what you’re going to get inside and proclaims this is a “Modular Build, Easy Start.” I have no idea what that means, but I’ve seen it on a number of the Lego City sets. There’s nothing challenging here, but I didn’t find building this set any different than other sets in this size and price range. Anyway, the box contains an instruction book, a sticker sheet, and two numbered baggies with a total of 173 pieces. Once everything is built you get two minifigs, a motorcycle, a police barricade, a box of junk police equipment, and the prisoner transport vehicle. Let’s start with the minifigs.

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The minifigs consist of a police officer and a criminal. I’m used to my minifigs being knights or space police or fish-men, so these guys are pretty normal by comparison.The policeman is ok, but because Lego is a European company he doesn’t really look like any cop that we’re used to seeing here in the States, and he doesn’t come with a gun. He does come with a lot of stuff, but I’ll get to that when I discuss the box that goes in the vehicle. The criminal comes with a striped shirt that implies he just got out of prison and is wasting no time commiting more crimes, as he has a backpack and a stolen stack of loot. The motorcycle presumeably belongs to the criminal. It’s a nifty little piece, which thankfully came with an extra kickstand piece for me to give to my Pharaoh’s Quest motorcycle so it’ll stop flopping over.

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I don’t have a whole lot to say about the truck itself. It sits one figure up in the front by taking off the roof and the rear section has a seat for the prisoner with bars on the windows and door. It’s a bit weird just having the one seat in there, as if it was designed to transport Lego Hannibal Lector. Nonetheless, the truck was pretty fun to build and it rolls along great. The oddest thing about it is the hinged shutter-like doors on the sides that give you access to a compartment for the crate of junk equipment. It’s kind of an odd addition to the design and with the shutters up for some reason it reminds me more of an Ice Cream truck than anything else. I guess if you play with these things the equipment is a nice bonus, but I kind of think it was tossed in to up the sets brick count. There’s a hinged spotlight on the back and a rotating spotlight up top. It seems like with just a few modifications you could turn this thing into a number of different vehicles. I’m seeing a News Van and possibly some kind of Animal Control vehicle.

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This set cost $20 at Walmart, which quite frankly I think is pushing things a bit. The truck is substantial enough and you do get two minifigs and a bunch of stuff, but maybe I’m just not seeing as much of the play value or coolness factor because it’s a Lego City set and not a bunch of Knights or Aliens or Divers fighting Fishmen. I just know that I spent less for some of the Atlantis sets with higher brick counts than this, and I guess that just bugs me. Although, I will admit, this set seemed to use a lot less tiny pieces than some of the sets from other lines that I’ve built. Even still, it’s a fine set, and it’ll go well with the Police Station if I ever decide to pony up for it.