Offsite round-up: Space Shuttles and more....

Having promised a few weeks back that I'd be more proactive about posting a notification here on Gimme LEGO when set reviews and other new articles that I'd written were published elsewhere, I figured that I should let you know about some articles that I've written for Issue 4 of Bricks magazine which came out earlier this week.

As you've no doubt already guessed from the front cover above, the latest issue of Bricks is mostly concerned with various facets of LEGO space. The content spans almost four decades, with Jeremy Williams' Classic Space retrospective rubbing shoulders with an overview of the newly-released Star Wars: The Force Awakens sets and a look back at the Space Police III theme. There's also an interview with LEGO designer Mark Stafford who has worked on a multitude of space and sci-fi themes including Space Police III, Mars Mission, Exo-Force and Alien Conquest, while Exo-Suit designer Peter Reid gives us a tour of his favourite LEGO mechs.

Given the space focus I was predictably keen to be involved, and when Bricks editor Mark Guest approached me about writing a potted history of the LEGO Space Shuttle I was happy to oblige. As a longstanding fan of the Space Shuttle I've previously reviewed a number of LEGO's Space Shuttle sets including Set 6544 Shuttle Transcon 2 (below) and Set 3367 Space Shuttle. I'd also been meaning to do a round up of LEGO's Space Shuttle back catalogue for absolutely ages but had never gotten around to doing it; Mark's request was therefore just the push I needed. Anyway, it's finally done now, and at over 1,000 words it's a fairly comprehensive overview of the subject which covers pretty much every Space Shuttle that LEGO have released over the years, including some pretty obscure stuff.

In addition to my Space Shuttle feature, Bricks Issue 4 also includes my review of the recently-released City Space Set 60080 Spaceport (below) as well as a brief overview of the other three 2015 City Space sets.

Bricks is only available online at the present time, and you can order it here.

Humble Pie

I've got a bit of a thing about LEGO space shuttles, always have done. I've therefore made it my mission to track down and aquire all the different space shuttle sets that LEGO have produced, which I think reached an all time high with last year's awesome Shuttle Adventure set.

As luck would have it, LEGO gave us another new space shuttle this year, which is part of a range of four 2011 City Space sets. I posted a few first impressions of these sets a couple of months back, and was I confess pretty lukewarm about the newest space shuttle, mainly due to the large, one piece cockpit which is just the latest in a long line of big, ugly, unnecessary parts (POOP) included in modern sets.

Anyway, POOP or not, I had to get the shuttle - it would have been rude not to given my love affair with the subject matter - and so it was that I sent £24.35 of my hard-earned cash to Amazon.co.uk and they were kind enough to send me Set 3367 Space Shuttle in return.

The first thing that struck me was the box - it seemed slimmed-down compared with recent sets of a similar size. This is most welcome; while I'm familar with the argument that bigger boxes make more of a splash at retail, smaller boxes are kinder to the environment and take up less space in my already over-stuffed LEGO repository, so I'm a huge fan of this latest packaging development - bravo, LEGO.

On carefully opening the box, out fell two numbered bags of pieces. As well as the previously-identified cockpit POOP there was further POOP in the form of the rather large tail section. Also present were a crumpled instruction booklet and a Dreaded Sticker Sheet, or DSS. I was delighted to recently learn that LEGO are now packaging the instruction booklets of larger sets in plastic bags stiffened with cardboard so as to avoid them getting damaged. Unfortunately this treatment doesn't extend to the smaller sets like 3367.

The build was predictably quick and simple given the relatively modest 231 piece count and the 5-12 age recommendation. Due to the simplicity of the set and the POOP within I was not expecting to be particularly impressed when I was done, but I have to confess that once built, I quite liked it.

First thing to like : the minifigure. Although only one is provided, I think he's great ! His default attire is a regulation helmet with clear visor, but when a zero-G spacewalk is on the cards, the standard helmet comes off and he's able to don a serious heavy-duty helmet with a huge gold visor (pics below; click to enlarge). The interchangeable helmets are a nice touch, and there's even somewhere to store the bulky alternative helmet and visor in the shuttle's cargo bay when it's not in use.

Next thing to like : the satellite, which can be manouevred to some extent using an arm which rises out of the open cargo bay. OK. so it's pretty rudimentary, but given the size of the set it's nice that the shuttle has a vaguely functional Canadarm. It's also good how the satellite and arm fold up neatly inside the cargo bay, allowing the cargo doors to close completely over the payload.

"Houston, we have a problem...."

And finally, the ship itself. Notwithstanding the one-piece cockpit and tail, it's an infinitely swooshable little model with a rotating front wheel, opening cargo bay doors, moveable flaps and room inside the cockpit for the astronaut. And it actually looks like a shuttle to boot, which also helps.....

So in summary, a relatively inexpensive and swooshable model with some nice play features and a cool minifigure. Better than I expected, and worth getting if you're an inveterate LEGO space-head.

Space !

I've always had a thing for LEGO Space sets. One of my very favourite sets as a kid was 928 Space Cruiser and Moonbase, and through the ages I've always been drawn to space-themed sets, be they one of the many Space Shuttles that LEGO have produced, the excellent if short-lived Discovery theme from 2003, and of course the Star Wars theme which I collect obsessively.

Set 928 - a big part of my love affair with LEGO Space....

I was therefore delighted to see that later this year, according to a NASA press release, LEGO will be giving us 4 "NASA-inspired sets" in the City theme, each of which will contain "NASA-inspired education materials". Images of these 4 sets have been circulating for some time, and now that they've been made available for pre-order by Amazon in the UK I thought it was about time I took a closer look.

As a massive fan of the real-life Space Shuttle, I really have to start my round-up with a look at the 2011 version. You can see a picture of Set 3367 Space Shuttle below :

First impressions are mixed. For sheer accuracy and resemblance to the real thing it looks pretty good, but this is in large part due to the use of a large, one-piece, custom-made cockpit section. I've made my views on such large pieces known very clearly in the past - I hate them and wish we could go back to brick-built alternatives (even at the expense of realism) - but it's the way the LEGO company are going at present as evidenced by the majority of aircraft and train sets over the past few years, so we're stuck with them. Otherwise the set looks OK, with opening bay doors, a satellite, a mechanical arm to manoeuvre the payload, and a cool astronaut minifig. Amazon is quoting a piece count of 217 and a pre-order price of £26.99 which is, to be honest, less than I was expecting.

The largest of the 2011 Space sets with 494 pieces is Set 3368 Rocket Station (picture above). It's somewhat reminiscent of a couple of older Space sets (Set 1682 Space Shuttle Launch, which I've previously written about, and Set 6339 Shuttle Launch Pad) in that it features a large red gantry. The big difference is obviously the huge rocket on the launch pad, in contrast to the Space Shuttles of old. In fact, I was surprised that the only older set I could think of featuring a large rocket on a launch pad with a gantry was Set 358 Rocket Base from 1973, which is still one of my all-time favourites, and was the subject of a previous blog entry. So we're well overdue another one ! Looking closely at the picture of the 2011 set, it also seems to suffer somewhat from "large piece syndrome", both with respect to the rocket and the launch gantry, but I do like the overall look of it anyway. It's showing as available for pre-order at Amazon at a price of £49.99 and is due for release on March 1st of this year.

Any excuse for a pic of Set 358 Rocket Base - inspiration for 2011's Rocket Station ?

The other 2011 City Space sets are Set 3366 Satellite Launch Platform and Set 3365 Space Moon Buggy. Pictures of these smaller sets, which are currently available for pre-order at Amazon at £13.99 and £3.99 respectively, can be found below :













So the verdict ? Well, on the basis of what I've seen so far, LEGO Space 2011 is shaping up to be OK. Admittedly not awe inspiring, but not bad either. That being said, even if all these sets had been utter dogs I'd probably have gone out and bought the lot of them anyway. I'm a total sucker for LEGO Space and will probably remain so until I'm pushing up daisies. Less than £100 for all 4 sets combined seems reasonable, and I have no doubt I'll be picking these up come March.