8+ City Yellow Bulldozer - 60466

The construction excavator (60420) could arguably be considered one of the best sets of all time. Based on the strength of that build, I picked this up when I was able to find it for 40% off. I mostly buy official sets to see amazing new techniques, and they mostly deliver. This one does not - it is a very straightforward build, only a couple parts are built with studs on side and there's very little interesting geometry. There's a couple techniques that really shouldn't be used in an official set, with 2x6 plates getting stacked (difficult to disassemble later) and so many plates are overlapped to make the blade that the 2x16 plates actually warp and pull away from the Technic bricks at the edges ("brick bending"). Unbelievable to see this kind of stuff in a modern set. The play features are very basic - the front cylinders are purely for show and the blade actually falls off if you pull it down while holding the set off the ground. Why Technic axles were used instead of pins is anyone's guess. This is the weakest use of the new Technic cylinders yet, there isn't even a differential so they only move when one track moves. To the designers credit, the ripper is perfect, a clever technique is used to lock the tail fin in place, it's a good re-use of an existing tail fin part for a novel purpose, and it slides smoothly up and down. Finally, the build is just too big. I get that this is trying to model a D9 or a PR776 but even if they're big they're not **that** big, and the same play features and overall shape could have been accomplished with half the number of bricks and a model that's to scale with other city sets. The size would be forgivable if the play features were there, but the blade that falls off if you press to hard is a joke -- this is a dozer, that's its one job. Having said all that, my kid loves it, so maybe I am just old and out of touch.