Building Sets Reviews

We loved these and are going to buy another for a friend. I am sorry about the other reviews misfortune, but I wonder where she was when this poor child was allowed to have something to small for his age. Legos have been great for our family, my son is making friends due to these toys at school. Educational and he is reading more about the planes, cars, etc that he makes.

My 3 boys love it (3-6 yrs). They have been taking turns opening the doors and counting down to Christmas. It's the first thing they want to do when they wake up. This is our first year with the calendar and I plan on doing it again next year. My 3 year old is learning to recognize his higher numbers. My oldest has been working with calendars and dates in first grade so this is just more reenforcement. I have already reccomended it to my friends.

I see I'm a minority here, but this is my favorite Lego advent calendar yet. True that it's not very Christmassy at all. It's city themed. The funniest was the burglar with the chainsaw. No, not Christmassy. (I'm on day 12.) But it's a great starter set for budding Lego maniacs.

Let's face it, the blocky christmas gift has been done so many times. The smiley boats and bugs weren't Christmassy, and I hated the oversized minifigs with Harry Potter wands somewhere around 2003.

How could Lego improve this? Add wintery stuff. Intersperse a Christmas tree, guy with snowshovel, street light post with decorations. I'd love to get a salvation army bucket for Santa for the front of my Lego department store.

I don't think it would happen in this PC age, but a really cool Advent Calendar would be the traditional manger scene with animals or characters for each day.

The Power Sweeper is the most useful Rokenbok vehicle, even though it is expensive, slow moving and odd looking. When you set up a Rokenbok world it sin't long and you have little balls scattered about that need picked up. The Loader and the Skip Track can pick up balls stray balls but it takes a lot of action to pick them up. Meanwhile the Sweeper, while slow moving just drives over each stray ball and sucks it up into its cavernous cargo area. It can easily receive balls into its back cargo area as well the front end will lift up so you can reverse the roller to dump balls into cargo bins, etc. Yes, it costs more than some Rokenbok vehicles but it is very versatile to the task of moving balls within the world you will create. The only downside is that it is slow to drive and to dump the cargo.

This is by far the most popular Rokenbok vehicle in our family. It picks up the most balls (and does it well). Then you can dump the balls in a dump truck style or run the sweeper backwards to unload part of the balls. Lots of options for playtime fun.

Having received a start set and a few extras, has given me and my sons alot of good times already. DO BUY THIS , great fun for young and older.

Shiver me timbers! It's Mega Bloks Pyrates! When I discovered that Mega Bloks was producing a pirate line, I was excited. This is definitely something to look forward to, and given Mega Bloks's usual quality and attention to detail, their seafaring vessels and crews would no doubt be absolutely fabulous.

Well, the wait is over, the Pyrates have been subjected to my scrutiny, and my feelings are mixed.

Good news first. Check out these minifigs! This set comes with four skeletal pirates and one Privateer, and--Whoa, have a look at that articulation! Ball joints at the shoulders and hips for super posability. Legs bend at the knees, arms bend at the elbows. Head is on a ball joint as well. These are the coolest minifigs I've ever seen. You can pose these guys in ways that you could only dream of posing Lego figures. This is how all minifigs should be. But the good news doesn't stop here. The detail and paint jobs on these guys is fantastic. Detailed outfits, pirate scowls, adventurous facial expressions, texture detail on the outfits, hats, faces. They're like mini action figures. Accessories for our skeleton crew include ghostly cutlasses, a harpoon, treasure map, a few barrels, and need I mention that treasure chest filled with gold?

Now here's where the winds in our sails abruptly change direction. The pirate ship. It's mostly great. It's detailed. It has some nice features. But there's almost no building going on here. The boat is composed of maybe four or five large pieces that all easily snap together. The aft cabin is all one piece. This thing goes together in about five minutes. Mega Bloks produces "building toys" (in other words, "Lego except not Lego"). If this boat had been brought to me courtesy of, say, Fisher Price or Playmobil, I'd expect to see this sort of design. When I buy a Mega Bloks set, I am expecting to do some entertaining building. There's nothing to build here. The only thing about this boat that makes it remotely Lego-esque is that it has pegs on the deck for the figures to stand on.

I suppose the upshot of this nonexistent building set is that the durability is excellent. It's not gonna fall apart during play. The boat has little wheels on its underside so that it can roll along on a flat surface. Features include two masts with five ghostly sails. What little rigging there is here has already been assembled for us. That's a good thing. Man, was the rigging on that Playmobil pirate ship a challenge. Some of the sails are already attached to their masts. Others have pre-assembled rigging with hooks that attach to rings on the masts. No "fun with string" here. It's all been done for us. Atop the mast is a small crow's nest. Stairs ascend from the deck to the top of the aft cabin, where our pirate captain can man the steering column.

Below deck in the ship's hold, we can install three spring-loaded cannons. On the starboard side of the ship is a flip-down panel that offers easy access to the ship's hold. I'm not sure if I got a defective copy of this set or what, but this panel doesn't quite stay in its upright position for me. I've got part of the deck sticking up a bit; it won't go flush with the rest of the deck. I wasn't pleased with this. Grated floors flip open, offering access to the cannons below deck. Firing each cannon causes a part of the ship's hull underneath to light up a soft blue. There's also a gaping hole in the deck where you can feed a Privateer or Sea Marauder to the ship, and the ship "eats" him accompanied by glowing hull effects. Don't worry about your poor guy, though; he comes out the back of the ship. Rounding out our ghost ship's accessories are an anchor, secret compartment for storing that treasure chest, and a plank. Walk the plank, landlubber!

As mentioned, the details are fabulous. This is a great-looking ghost ship with cool details too numerous to mention.

My complaints with this set are twofold. That starboard flip-panel doesn't stay closed all the way. Bummer. And there's nothing to build here. In spite of these flaws, I'm giving this set a thumbs up. Our skeleton crew has a fine seafaring vessel on their hands. It's not quite as good as Captain Cutlass's Stormstalker, but it's certainly the best ghost ship set I've seen.

This has to be the best toy ever, and I mean it.If you have a child that loves pirates you have to get this for them.This isn`t a toy that you build and the fun is over, but it is fun to also get the Stormstalker so they can battle.This toy has the best ever figuers they can move like humans.The people are very highly detaild.Even if you don`t get this you must go on [...] and play the game, but make sure you have micromedia flash player. I built this toy in around an hour.If any thing breaks put it back on in a second.I sure hope they make a movie for it. but it`s time to move out the dragons, and bring in the pyrates.There is also a neat story.

This Ship Is Awsome The Looks+design Are Spectactular I Enjoyed Hours Of Play Time With My Grandsons

I get a kick out of making things and thought that this would be a fun little toy I could stick on my desk and fool around with.

It is, it's fun and for the price decently made. I got it today and messed around with it for about three hours before I realized how much time had passed.

This product got four stars for two reasons or it would have gotten 5.

One, the design booklet... there was no point for it, the instructions weren't clear nor did I have enough pieces to make the 'two' designs in the booklet that my set was capable of, other than being a little disappointed I didn't mind, my mind it good enough to have fun with them.

The second is the more important one. When trying to build things like a ball or what they show on the cover pictures you see here, the sticks aren't long enough to fully 'stick' it all together which was annoying, RoseArt needs to redesign the lengths or they need to put some sizes in to let them come together to make the shape.

Over all a four, it's fun to play with. If it had come together in the shapes they show completely, it would have gotten a 5.

Despite all the recent happenings with recalling magnetix because a little boy died after ingesting them...I would still buy this set again anyday for my kids!!

It says ages 3 AND UP FOR A REASON! The plastic pieces may fall apart but we've had ours for 4 months and my kids play with them non-stop and we've NEVER had a problem with the magnents falling out. But these are not plastic they are metal and they do not fall apart like the plastic ones.

If you do not think your kids are old enough to not put something in their mouths then do not buy this product. But I have a 3 and 5 year old that love their set more than anything else in the house!!