Special Force Zforce Police Union Robot - Oxford Review

[crossmr]

Set name: Union Robot - Buildable from 3 other sets

Price: 23400W ($19.53 USD)

Pieces: Maybe 300-350

size: Fully extended 22 cm tall, 26cm wide, 17cm deep

Construction time: about 1 hour

Okay, I guess I couldn't wait a few days ^^

Here is the big Union Robot

Instructions

Included in 3 different sets

Pieces

These are all the pieces from the previous 3 sets. There are a few more left over when all said and done, but obviously nothing new.

Construction

Not overly difficult. The only part that was a little hard was when they had you fasten the arms on and build a couple things on it. The arms aren't overly sturdy at that point.

Otherwise smooth. One glitch was near the end. They asked me for a 2x4 gray flat. I didn't have one left, I did have 2 1x4 gray flats so I used that, worked fine, it wasn't a piece that was joining.

Went in several parts. Legs, each arm, torso, then torso with arms and head then all together.

Complete Model

Oh how I want to love this. It is pretty great looking. The head turns. The chest opens to allow pilot access. There is a giant cannon on the left arm. He's got nice bulky double jointed legs. He's got a beefy right arm for whacking. The joints though are not completely up to the task. The cannon is built with a rest place on the shoulder, so that doesn't work out too bad. The right arm though can lock at 90 degrees, but due to the weight of the pieces, you can't really position it in other places. These joints are more than sufficient for the smaller models. I had no trouble posing them in all kinds of ways, but larger model has a bit much weight for them. You can see some comfortable poses that I worked out. If there was some way to give the joints just a bit more grip this would be much better.

Other than that, it's a pretty sharp model. Interesting to see what you can do when you combine 3 independent sets like this. It must have been an interesting design to try and work that all out.

I wonder if they started with the big guy and built the 3 sets out of him or the other way around.

Overall he is very sturdy but arm posing is a bit off.

Conclusion

Minifig - 8/10 Standard fig, one guy piloting, but that leaves 2 guys without anything to do. so -2 points

Parts - 8/10 makes great use of many parts, the joints are holding it back

Playability - 8/10 Huge fighter. Lot's to do. He's got jump jets, wings, cannon, big arm, turning head, opening chest, but the posing hurts playability a little in my mind.

Design - 9/10 Looks fantastic. Good use of parts from 3 sets

Price - 10/10 as always he's pretty big for the price. He's essentially free if you combine 3 other well priced sets.

Total 43/50

He's good but given a choice between holding the pose jet transformer and giant stomper with loose arms it's a tough call.

There are more pictures, just having an upload issue (going ridiculously slow)

Edited July 13, 2010 by crossmr

[prateek]

Cool. This robot is the best one yet IMO

[crossmr]

Cool. This robot is the best one yet IMO

Yes it is nice. I just wish the joints were stronger. If I could pose him a little more freely he'd be my clear favorite. He's much bigger, tough looking, but just a tad too floppy.

[VBBN]

Great review,

be sure and check out the Reviewer's Academy if you are interested in getting top quality reviewing skills!

What are the size of those ball joints? Bionicle size?

[crossmr]

Great review,

be sure and check out the Reviewer's Academy if you are interested in getting top quality reviewing skills!

What are the size of those ball joints? Bionicle size?

To be honest I don't know. I never had any Bionicle. It was all pirates for me.

My measuring tape tells me the "ball" is about 8mm in diameter.

If you have bionicle handy and want to measure it up go ahead.

For the 3 smaller robots, the joints were great, I had no issues putt the arms anyway I wanted. but a single joint to hold these massive arms was not a good plan.