My first english review, thanks to nisiia for translate. ;)

60070 Water Plane Chase

Serie: City / Swamp Police

Year: 2015

Elements: 263

Minifigures: 2: Police Pilot, Crook

Box’s Dimensions 28 x 26 x 5.5 cm

Price: $29.99, £24.99, 29,99 €, 129,99 zł

BrickSet, BrickLink

I rather rarely reach for the sets of City serie, generally'd like a slightly different climates. However, the "City" announcement for the year 2015 proved to be very interesting and tempting, and I couldn’t restist to one of them . So let me invite you on a short trip to the swamp!

The box, square shaped, is embellished with really pleasing to the eye graphic design. Photo of the front board shows us a whole set and carefully selected, atmospheric and noninvasive background only increases the pleasure of admiring this toy. Of course there are also the logo, set’s number and age group.

On the back side of the box we find out how many bags of items is hidden inside and we can see the irregular frames with "playing" possibilities of the set itself. Unfortunately, the design presented here is the same model all the time, so looking at those images nostalgically recalls the times, when in the back of the box you could find a lot of pictures, but each was an alternative proposal for using set’s elements. And we know well that those days, unfortunately, will never return...

Let’s get to the content: opening the box takes literally a moment, and in the inside are three numbered bags of elements:

and two instructions.

I don’t like splitting instructions but in this set was used very cool patent. Namely, therefore, that the set contains more than one construction, each book received its own plans to build. It’s really a perfect solution! When you want to build a set with your family or friends together – share bags of blocks, each one gets its instructions and all can fall into a build trance! Another very nice touch is the appropriate selection of instructions cover– do not present the whole set, but only a particular part.

From technical matters: instruction counts, respectively, 48 and 84 pages, in addition to plans to build the index of components and contain quite a lot of ads.

The last komponent are stickers, and here right away forgive me, but despite the fact that I recently have often used such ornament I haven’t decided to stick them in this set. Exactly why I will explain later in this review. Below scan at 300 dpi:

Minifigures! With this set we get two minifigures: policeman in a beautiful navy blue uniform and a crook in pants tied with string. Torsos have both side printed, but the heads are printed on one side only. Figures are indeed at plus!

TLG in this year decided to refresh the look of classic crocodile, what in my opinion is quite controversial decision. The new model is not so bad, and all of changes in the majority seem to make sense, but still I like very much the classic version, and it does not seem to me that it needed this refresh so terrible. More about that I wrote in a separate sidebar on the blog, where you will also find a lot of pictures of this green reptile, here below I put a few selected:

Let’s the building begin! The first one goes off-road thief’s car in a tasteful masking color: red. The width of six dots with protruding wheels and a large cabin make it really hudge monster. At the same time car looks very nice and I would say (maybe stupid comparison) gracefully. And one of the incentives for buying this set was that it reminded me of some classic set, 1720 Cactus Canyon Value Pack. And I know that in the old days everything was better and nostalgia is a strong feeling, but for me the new beast eats that old weakling for a starter!

The only thing that surprised me negative was some kind of lacks of elements in a few moments: it's something like the designer "forgot" attach somewhere small piece which can't be seen in total, but whether it would affect the stability of the structure or covering a small gap. Kind of small detail, but some bad impression remains.

Another construction is tiny safety box, where you will find a gold bar and money. Such a thing that looked a bit like "few items left, we need to cobble together something". But gold is always in the price, so there's no whining!

The last, but for me the most important, module is plane. And it was that, what makes the main reason why I bought this set. And this reason was really simple - I love Indiana Jones, and plane from the first movie. That's why I didn't put any stickers, "my" plane will remain civil, not the police one.

Generally I don'tt practice showing in the review steps of the construction, review aims to describe a specific set in general, not to dismantle it into its component parts, after all, is not analysis, and let it be something left for the future builder to do with the pleasure of exploring different technical solutions, but in the case of this plane let me snap some photos in construction. The plane is building out of a modulars, it's really very pleasant, so it may be worth showing.

We start from the cabin,

then the tail,

wings,

and the floats.

Putting this all together we got this small piece od art:

IMHO: a high quality. Very nice design, combined with an extremely aesthetic was the end result.

And of course the photo collective, the whole set in full glory:

The verdict? I recommend it! I don't have to deal with sets of City serie often, but this met my expectations fully: I received a very nice toy with interesting and nice designs, playfull, with cool minifigs and, a little controversial, but really only because "that is the new", crocodile. Add to this not pointless splitting of instructions, which are also worth calculation "in plus". Cons, if they are, they are literally marginal, and there is nothing to bother. Set is now "officially" expanding my private collection, "In the spirit of Adventurers".

Edited January 24, 201510 yr by nori

Thanks for the fine review, especially for the crocodile comparison.

Good review.

The plane is fine - it is indeed something for the adventure colleciton.

Thanks for the review 'nori', neat set though I'm only thinking of scratch building the truck for my layout......money doesn't go as far this year so swamp police is a miss for me.

The truck looks solid, perfect for scrub bashing or escaping the cops.

Actually the best part is the croc.......look into it's eyes !

Now the plane is cute but practical.......Brick On 'nori' !

I'll give this one a "miss" this year too.

The truck - it's just the umptieth rendition of this theme, although I like the way they did this one. It just doesn't fit in my city that well (and I've got at least half a dozen of them already).

The plane - what a great build, almost perfect. As soon as I saw the first pictures of this set, I started to try figure out how it's been built and think I succeeded. Since then I have progressed a bit with the design and have almost finished my version of it - no floaters for me, but wheels and a larger body too.

So while the set won't be bought by me (well, I'm not planning on buying it), it did give me a great idea and starting point for a build of my own. And that's what I love about Lego.

I really like the plane and the truck in this set. I'm planning to pick this set up but I don't know when I will.

Although, I think my favorite City set for 2015 so far would be set 60071.

Thank you for this excellent review.

I liked swamp police from first time I saw them and this set is one of the best in lineup.

Very nice review! I'm not a big fan of police sets but I quite like how the plane looks without the decals, might have to think about this one.

Nice review. I'm not really into city, but that plane looks alright. I don't personally think the crocodile needed an update, though. The main thing that bugs me is the back of the truck...

Thank you for a nice review, especially the croc/gator part :)

I like the new mould, but I like the old one as well.. A new animal mould is great, but I would much rather kept the old crocodile/alligator and gotten a brand new animal mould instead ;)

I wonder if they just made a decision to upgrade the old animal moulds or if the old ones are worn out?! So they had to make new ones anyway, and decided to upgrade them instead of making a identical mould!

Thank you for a nice review, especially the croc/gator part :)

I like the new mould, but I like the old one as well.. A new animal mould is great, but I would much rather kept the old crocodile/alligator and gotten a brand new animal mould instead ;)

I wonder if they just made a decision to upgrade the old animal moulds or if the old ones are worn out?! So they had to make new ones anyway, and decided to upgrade them instead of making a identical mould!

That would make sense but I don't think so. I think as the original is 25+ years old, it wouldn't fit in with the current style of animals.

I don't understand why LEGO didn't just make a new head piece for the old animal. That's th only part that really needed a slight upgrade.

Thanks for the review, and yes, the gator part is really helpful!