LEGO 4507 Designer Set - Prehistoric Creatures review

30 August 2004 16:28 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Every time we look at Lego it seems to get more and more advanced. The latest batch to come out of the factory in Denmark is a series of designer sets aimed at not only providing one model to build but nine individual designs. Even better, the large instruction booklet also contains a further 26 design ideas that you can try and copy from the prebuilt pictures.

We tested the Prehistoric Creatures set which when built gives you everything from pterodactyls to the T-Rex. The nice thing about the set is the varying difficulty levels that are catered for. If you're unsure of building with Lego you can opt for a simple model that will be complete in 11 stages (like the pterodactyl in the picture) to something that will take over 25 steps with multiple mini steps in between (like the T-Rex).

However whether it's 11 or 25 stages the technical build aspect isn't that difficult and as with all Lego instruction booklets on the whole everything is well presented and laid out. Lego has introduced some new pieces to this set and they allow a more joined monster than would have been previously impossible. The model choices suggested in the book are good, however some of the designs are faced with the problem of being top heavy and therefore not able to stand up very well - we had trouble keeping the T-Rex standing upright.

Verdict

Okay, so we've stretched the gadget boundaries slightly with this one, but then Lego has always been good fun and you can never turn down the opportunity to build dinosaurs. The new pieces included in the set will be enough to get any Lego aficionado excited, and the fact that the possibilities really are endless just with this box rather than having to invest in a stack of other sets certainly shows value for money.

For the super gadget mad fan, there is always the transformer styled robot that can be made into one super robot or individual units. We say - mix this with your Mindstorms and dinosaurs really will walk the earth again.