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Frank Filz wrote:
>
> I just received these the other day, so I thought I'd review them. 6740
> Xtreme Tower is on back order, so I can't say anything about it yet.
Ok, I just received 6740 today...
> The minifigs in this series are nice, we have:
>
> Pepper - red torso with a pepperoni pizza, blue arms, yellow hands, blue
> pants with knee pads, wears a white baseball cap. His head has red hair
> and a slightly goofy smile. He sometimes has a green neck dohickey which
> gives a stud on the minifigs back (or torso).
>
> Snap Lockit - white torso with yellow flowers (or are they starfish?),
> yellow arms, yellow hands, yellow legs with black waist, has a black
> muffin doo. He wears cool shades and has a slanted smile. Great torso.
>
> The Brickster - white torso with jail stripes, inmate #23768, white
> arms, right hand is white, left is blue, black legs, wears a wool cap
> (ok, now I need a bunch of these to go with the black zodiacs from Jack
> Stone...). He has evil looking green eyes, wears glasses, and has black
> sideburns, he's got a weird mouth.
>
> Sky Lane - female, dark red torso, dark red arms, yellow hands, printing
> of shirt shows bellybutton, black legs, black pony tail hair, her face
> has a twisted lipstick smile and eyebrows which point in and down. A
> decent minifig.
>
> 2nd Crook (unnamed so far) - white torso with black stripes, wears light
> blue coveralls (which obscure his inmate number but it looks like
> 63109), white arms, black hands, light blue legs, wears a black pirate
> doorag. Must be an oldster with a white goatee and bushy white eyebrows
> and a crooked mouth.
3rd Crook (unnamed so far) - (same torso as 2nd Crook), also wears a
black
pirate doorag. A younger face, black hair, stubble on the chin.
Old fellow - red torso with sport jacket, silver bowtie, silver button
with an "i", pen in pocket, black arms, yellow hands, white legs, wears
a red captains cap. Face has white hair, mustache, and huge wire rim
glasses.
6740 Xtreme Tower, 328 pcs, $49.99
Includes Pepper, Sky Lane, The Brickster, the 2nd and 3rd Crooks, and
the Old Fellow. The set makes up a helicopter, beach buggy, and a base.
The set is divided into 4 components, 3 in bags, one in a box (car,
helicopter, main part of building, control room at top of tower).
The beach buggy is pretty decent. It includes a light blue curved top
race piece with the Brickster's shark logo. A light blue 1x4x2 roll bar
sports two spot lights. A trans smoke 1x4 hinged glass forms the
windscreen. Two white racer fender pieces add some detail, and the rear
mounted engine uses two spigots. I would have preferred seeing the front
wheels smaller or something else done to make the rear higher than the
front, other wise the vehicle is decent.
The helicopter is pretty nice, though it uses the new canopy which just
attaches by two studs in the front (used in several of the new Star Wars
sets). It has a Jack Stone reel with hook. The body is made of two 4x4
inverse slope hull parts, and a 2x4 center piece, all in yellow. The
main body is orange, using two pairs of 2x3 wedge bricks. While it uses
a juniorized helicopter skid, the model is reasonably detailed (and I do
like the juniorized helicopter skid, though it's annoying to get too
many of them). The chopper sports a rear wing using one 2x4 wedge plate,
and looks nicer than the 3x3 quarter octagon used in the past.
The base is pretty nice. It is built on a bright green 16x32 baseplate.
People will appreciate that the ground floor is in fact a completely
enclosed building (with an adjoining open carport under the heli-pad).
The structure does use 6 1x2x5 columns, and one 1x6x5, but also uses
many bricks. The basic wall color is light yellow (cream). The right
hand wall is a climbing wall made using 1x2 bricks with horizontal rod,
spaced every two brick tiers. A total of 7 1x4 and 8 1x2 bricks are used
in the wall (plus 7 bricks with rod). Two dark grey bay windows and two
dark grey door frames with light grey doors are used in the set (one bay
window on the ground floor, one on the control tower). The control tower
is supported by 3 dark grey 2x2x10 3-sided lattice columns (and part of
the climbing wall). Over the bay window area on the ground floor is a
clamshell opening skylight made of two 3x6 trans smoke windshields (on
hinges made from 1x2.5 tile with top hinge, and 1x2 plate with 3 hinge
fingers). It is a little breezy on the side. The tower supporting the
control room sports two 2x2 radar dishes, and a 6x6 webbed radar dish,
while the control tower sports and antenna and 2 4x4 radar dishes (all
radar dishes are grey). The computer in the control tower is neat, a 1x4
tile with a full keyboard, numeric key pad, and arrow keys (finally, the
minifigs can type correctly, I counted the keys on the main keyboard, it
is the correct number, though they are too small to have readable
symbols - all it's missing is the row of function keys), the screen is a
trans green 1x4 windscreen with all sorts of neat printing. There is a
console on the ground floor also made from a grey 3x6 windscreen with a
sticker (it also sports a full keyboard, though no arrow keys or numeric
keypad, a radar screen, and two control levers). The control panel
hinges up to reveal a hidden compartment. The control room at the top of
the tower has 4 6x6 quarter octagon plates as a floor and rotates on a
4x4 turntable (surrounded by 4 1x4 bricks topped with tiles for a stable
base). The roof of the control tower is a light yellow 8x8 radar dish
(supported by two red 4x4 quarter circle plates). off the back of the
control room is a gang plank with a 2x4x2 brick spool with thin elastic
string and a red 1x1 plate with loop. The helipad is supported by a
structure made from 4 light yellow 1x6 curved top bricks formed in an
"H" shape with a light yellow 2x6 brick. On top of that are 4 light
yellow 1x6 bricks and a dark grey 8x8 lattice plate. A 2x2x2 mailbox is
built into the front of the building. A half height set of Harry Potter
spiral stairs leads up to the helipad. In front of the double doors is a
stoop made from 4 grey 2x2 tiles (this set has a lot of tiles, 7 grey
2x2, 8 dark grey 1x4, 1 dark grey 1x8, and 2 black 1x2 [on the car]).
Two dark grey thin flex tubes make handrails, one for the stairs, one
for the control tower. In front of the building are a red 1x8x2 fence,
and a prickly shrub.
The sticker sheet includes 2 skate board stickers, an Island Xtreme
Stunts logo to stick on two 1x6 bricks (under the helipad), two Island
Xtreme Stunts logos for the 1x4 thin walls which line the cockpit of the
chopper, and the control panel for the ground floor control room.
This set seems a little expensive, but makes a pleasing building. The
cost is somewhat made up for by the fact that you get 5 nice large parts
(the two bay windows and the 3 lattice towers).
This certainly proves that while minorly juniorized, the Island Xtreme
Stunts theme is definitely a trend for the better. The one real building
has a completely (3 sides) enclosed ground floor, and even the control
tower is mostly enclosed. The number of radar dishes on this building is
just impressive, it's a real communication center (has any building in
the past had more than like 2? this has 5). This set is littered with
the little details we have missed from the old days. One of my few
complaints is that the 2nd and 3rd crooks share a torso. We could have
at least had 3 different crook torsos. The light yellow looks wonderful
for beach buildings, and it is welcome that a good variety of bricks are
available in this color between the sets (though there are no 1x1 or 1x3
bricks). This set has 33 light yellow regular bricks (1x2, 1x4, 1x6, and
2x6). A quick look would suggest that if it was completely
de-juniorized, probably fewer than 30 bricks would be added (probably
only 21 bricks would be added by eliminating the 5 high columns - 2
would be replaced by 5 2x2 bricks, 1 would be replaced by 2 1x2 bricks,
and 3 1x4s would become 1x6s, the other three 1x2x5 columns would be
replaced by 1x2s and the 1x6x5 would be replaced by 1x6s, the helicopter
skid would be replaced by 2 plates and 2 fences, adding 3 more parts,
the rest would be perhaps a few more details added). A more reasonable
price for this set would have been $40 (even completely unjuniorized, it
still has enough large parts to justify more than 10 cents a brick).
I think we are seeing LEGO prices drifting away from the 10 cents a
brick price point. To some extent, this is reasonable. I am rather
amazed that that price held steady for so long (though I guess the price
of plastic has probably been pretty stable, and TLC has probably trimmed
margins, and used greater automation, and other strategies to reduce
manufacturing costs).
What would be a cool addition to the theme would be a beach motel in
light yellow. If the set was a big one, it would be two stories, with 3
rooms on the 2nd floor, a office, and a small restaurant on the ground
floor. Two vehicles could be included. Presumably it would include a
proprietor, Pepper, Sky, Snap, and perhaps the Brickster. A larger skate
park would also be nice, and perhaps a smaller set with a hot dog stand.
A pier would also be a nice larger set.
Frank
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Reviews of Island Xtreme Stunts
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| (...) I know some people hate 1x2x5 (does Tim C. hate it as much as the 2x4x3?) but I've come to think of these as vertical 2x6 bricks. The real juniorized junk is a fusion of special parts and basic brick, like bricks with axle pegs. (...) It's not (...) (23 years ago, 26-May-02, to lugnet.reviews, lugnet.year.2002)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Reviews of Island Xtreme Stunts
|
| I just received these the other day, so I thought I'd review them. 6740 Xtreme Tower is on back order, so I can't say anything about it yet. The minifigs in this series are nice, we have: Pepper - red torso with a pepperoni pizza, blue arms, yellow (...) (23 years ago, 18-May-02, to lugnet.reviews, lugnet.year.2002)
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