Another early lego gift for my children, this one is a bit of a mixed bag.

Box/Instructions

Not too much can be said about this, they do their job and are ok. Something worth mentioning is the little comic book included which was a nice touch.

Parts

There is a good mix of standard bricks and plates (mainly red and white) and some windshields, wheels and other car necessities. While nothing particularly special there is also a good amount of accessories for each of the minifigs included. A nice starter pack it seems, which is just the intention of this set anyway so mission accomplished.

Minifigures

Several minifigures each with several accessories (only the kid has just his skateboard): a fireman with a fire and the equipment to extinguish it, the paramedic with stretcher and instrument case, the police officer with handcuffs and traffic signal, the thief with loot and crowbar... All rather generic but that's not a bad thing at all as it allows for more versatility.

The build

This is where it's kind of hit-and-miss, the builds themselves are easy enough that a child of 4 with some help and guidance could get it done but then each vehicle requires several stickers which was hard enough for me to get more or less right (two windows with horizontally striped stickers right next to each other? Try to get those matching perfectly). There are some other weird choices in the builds, first comment of my 4-year-old after seeing the ambulance completed: "where are the driver's doors?" so even if he sees obvious flaws maybe it's too basic, at least the fire van does have doors. Then again, this is something that's easy to fix if you have the extra doors lying around.

The completed model

The completed cars aren't super but they are decent and recognizable as fire van and ambulance, and definitely a step up in detail from when I was young. The scale seems to have been changed so they won't fit in as nice with the old sets I still have somewhere, especially the motorcycle looks absolutely huge when compared to the old ones (or even when compared to an old car) but that's why you can take everything apart and build something else if you want.

Where this set excels though is in playability, in one go you get a police officer, a thief, a fireman and a paramedic so something to do for everyone although the fire van has been a clear favourite over the ambulance (lack of doors maybe?).

Overall opinion

Overall this set seems a bit expensive for what it offers as far as parts and build go (I just bought it because it was on offer at the moment) and the stickers are a difficulty, but the playability this set offers certainly makes up for it. And later on I'm sure better trucks can be made with this so it's definitely no loss.