ShawnV
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ShawnV's Stats
ShawnV's Stats
- 5Average Rating
- 60Helpfulness Votes
- 0Featured Reviews
- 3Review Count
- July 26, 2017First Review
- January 13, 2019Last Review
ShawnV's Reviews
Posted:January 13, 2019
ShawnV
Age:
35-44
years old
Customer Type:
LEGO Fan
Building Experience:
Advanced LEGO builder
Overall:
5
/
5
One of my favorite LEGO sets of all time.
" To be honest, I wasn't expecting too much from this set: I picked it up for my birthday and assembled the B and C models (1 per night) over the past week.
When I assembled the A model, though, I was blown away by a few things:
1. I was planning to redesign/rebuild the main robot build to be a mech driven by a classic LEGO space guy. Little did I know that the set was designed to remove the eye and just place a guy inside: perfect!
2. I tried the LEGO Life app version of the build instructions. These are awesome, and I'm going to look for these on all future LEGO sets I build. Way easier to follow than the paper instructions (and I've been building LEGO for 30+ years) -- just being able to pan and zoom, plus animated glows on the added parts per step, this was amazing.
3. The set is just friggin' cool. :-) Big, beefy, articulate, truly frightening claw hands with a drill in the one palm, and a nearly opposable thumb in the other. Just cool. The pipes tracing through the model. Just cool. Very nice.
The only thing I'd say about this set that might have made it better was add a few dollars to the price and include a minifig. All 3 models can be piloted by a minifig, and I did not expect this just looking at the box in the store.
An amazing set -- I'm surprised more people aren't talking about it online. I'm looking forward to slightly modifying and putting in my classic space display.
"
I would recommend this to a friend!
From: Almonte, Ontario
From:
Canada
Age:
35-44
years old
Customer Type:
LEGO Fan
Building Experience:
Advanced LEGO builder
Build Time:
03
hrs
Play Experience (Optional):
5
/
5
Value for Money (Optional):
5
/
5
I would recommend this to a friend!
Share:
+23points
27of 31found this review helpful.
Carnotaurus Gyrosphere Escape
Carnotaurus Gyrosphere Escape
Posted:August 5, 2018
ShawnV
Age:
35-44
years old
Customer Type:
LEGO Fan
Building Experience:
Advanced LEGO builder
Overall:
5
/
5
This was an amazing set!
" My daughter, wife and I (all Adult Fans Of Lego) built this set yesterday.
To be honest, I was not expecting much from this set. It seemed small from the box art and I hadn't read any of the reviews of it before building.
I was blown away by this sophisticated, beautiful set with very high play value.
The vehicles were beautiful. The giant paramilitary-styled transport truck with jacked up suspension, beautifully detailed front grill, and detachable control center with a beautifully detailed steel structure -- I just love this vehicle. And I love the gray and dark blue color scheme. Awesome.
The trailer with outrigger lights, holding the gyrosphere was awesome. When detached from the truck, the trailer + gyrosphere passes as a nicely detailed space exploration rover. Very nice detail.
The gyrosphere itself was awesome. I never had any of the previous run of Jurassic Park sets. I figured that it would look nice but not work well. But this amazing Lego device -- the minifig inside stays upright despite rolling, and the weighting and friction -- we spent a long time rolling it back and forth on tables, the floor, this thing is awesome. I also love the trans clear half spheres: I was surprised to see how few LEGO and MOC sets use this part: it lends itself to all sorts of creative solutions.
The Gyrosphere station is beautiful. The lava dump function is adorable: I especially like the detail of dripping lava on the trapdoor. The launcher works great. The nest and eggs was a delight -- we didn't know what we were building until the eggs went in and when it was revealed -- that was awesome. I love the huge number of botanical elements included. Some I'd never seen before (like the red flower element which is now a new favorite).
The carnotaurus is a beautiful model. Fun to play, well poseable (although I wish he could hold standard bars in his hands :-). I look forward to getting a few more dinosaurs and try swapping legs and heads and stuff.
The minifigs were nice, well detailed. The baby dinosaur was adorable. We all gushed over the little guy.
Even the stickers were nice. I liked the yellow-and-black caution tiles in the gyrosphere station and trailer. They seem like they'll make nice pieces in some MOC.
Any of the truck, the gyrosphere, the overgrown gyrosphere station or the dinosaur would have made this set a favorite. The fact that this set contained all of these blew me away.
This set made yesterday awesome. :-) I've been playing with LEGO since the late 1970s. LEGO is way way better now than when I was a kid.
I'm looking forward to building and playing with the rest of the sets we got. Thanks, LEGO!
"
I would recommend this to a friend!
From: Almonte, Ontario
From:
Canada
Age:
35-44
years old
Customer Type:
LEGO Fan
Building Experience:
Advanced LEGO builder
Purchased For:
Self
Build Time:
02
hrs
Play Experience (Optional):
5
/
5
Value for Money (Optional):
5
/
5
Level of Difficulty:
Average
Very Easy
Very Challenging
I would recommend this to a friend!
Share:
+29points
31of 33found this review helpful.
CLAAS XERION 5000 TRAC VC
CLAAS XERION 5000 TRAC VC
Posted:July 26, 2017
ShawnV
Age:
35-44
years old
Customer Type:
LEGO Fan
Building Experience:
Intermediate LEGO builder
Overall:
5
/
5
My first Technic set was incredible.
" I'm a long time Lego fan, and have often been interested in Technic sets, but I've never purchased one before.
I've recently got back into buying Lego sets, and purchased the Twin Spin Helicopter (31049) set. The little Technic mechanism inside the helicopter was really fun to put together, so I wondered what a bigger Technic set would be like to build.
Having a small hobby goat farm, the CLAAS XERION tractor set was too good to pass up. Lots of complex mechanisms, plus a beautiful giant tractor - once I saw it I had to have it.
Our (grown) daughter was in town for a few days and she helped me for the first few hours before she had to go back home (boo!) so I had to finish the set myself.
The build experience: fascinating, and surprisingly challenging. Very different than a normal Lego build. Seeing the mechanisms come to life was magical. I have to admire the folks who design these sets: so compact, so complex, so well engineered.
I particularly liked how some subassemblies articulated into place like little mechanisms themselves. Really neat!
The model is incredibly solid. I'm sure this is a Technic thing, but normal Lego models are always a bit fragile: if you pick up a normal model by an appendage, it will tend to fall apart. Not this tractor. It feels like I could punt it across the room and it would survive (not that I ever would!!).
The play value is really fun. I'm 42 and I've spent probably an hour making the cab swivel back and forth, operating the little crane/grapple, operating the mini-3 point hitches, and hooking and unhooking the PTO. The manual operating extending boom and grapple are pretty neat to operate, and the 3-function steering is amazing.
There's something really neat about a bag of parts that you put together into such a sophisticated little machine.
And heavy! This thing is dense. I was very surprised the first time I picked up the completed model.
I capped the set off with the farmer minifig from one of the random lego sets (the one that comes with a pitchfork and a pig).
Complaints? Not many. It would be great to have more power functions, but honestly the point is not to have a tractor to play with as much as to build the thing.
My only real complaint is that I was missing 3 pieces from the set (4513174, 6135494, 6055631). I've never had a Lego set missing pieces before. So I've placed my missing pieces order and I'll see how that goes.
In the end, I wasn't stymied because all 3 pieces were more-or-less substitutable from the Twin Spin Helicopter (31049) set mentioned earlier. But still disappointing.
"
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I would recommend this to a friend!
From: Almonte, Ontario
From:
Canada
Age:
35-44
years old
Customer Type:
LEGO Fan
Building Experience:
Intermediate LEGO builder
Purchased For:
Self
Build Time:
06
hrs
Play Experience (Optional):
5
/
5
Value for Money (Optional):
5
/
5
Level of Difficulty:
Challenging
Very Easy
Very Challenging
I would recommend this to a friend!
Share:
+2points
2of 2found this review helpful.