PS4 Review – Call of Duty: Modern (why did they call it this) Warfare

So what can be said about the 16th game in an annual series that has not already been said 15 times before?

Honestly, not much.

What can be said is that Modern Warfare is #1, a really stupid way of naming a game, as they already had this exact title 10 years ago, so not really sure the mindset to calling it this, since it is not a remake, and it is not really a reboot, just another story in the Call of Duty universe with some characters we know and love.

#2 – This marks the triumphant return of a single player campaign.

Last year in 2018 we got Block Ops 4, the first Call of Duty to ever ditch the single player mode in lieu of a multiplayer only title. In a move I suspect Activision made so they could save money on development as they believed most folks in their eyes only play the online game.

This hurt them BAD. Sale of BO4 were about 50% of what they usually sell. Not shocking when you remove 50% of the game.

It was also the first Call of Duty game in 15 years I did not purchase. So withholding dollars actually did work in this case.

Modern Warfare is really typical Call of Duty fair, there is a big crisis, you need to take charge and stop a world threat no one knows about all while staying under the radar enough to not incite another world war. It is a tried and tested formula, and honestly, it works.

There is a reason they tend to sell 20 million copies a year, people like to play the hero. As do I.

Combat is very slick, over the last 15 games they have worked every kink and glitch out pretty much. It is fast paced, and never really feels unfair.

I play all of the Coll of Duty games on the hardest setting possible to milk the most out of the single player I can. I also like that actual feeling of war in a way. Where a single bullet will tend to do you in.

This one however felt a little light on difficulty on the hardest setting. Other than a few instances of getting overwhelmed by a group of enemies, I never really felt in imminent danger of dying if I pooped my head out of the gopher hole.

Visuals this time around were top notch as well. An obvious engine change has done wonders for the game. With expertly crafted HDR on a well tuned system made for ink black shadows and pure white flashlights. One of the better HDR presentation out there honestly.

Sound, while not in Atmos, worked very well with simulated Atmos. From helicopters overhead to siper fire whipping overhead, the sense of sound immersion was great.

All in al lthe single player campaign was pretty great for a franchise that is pretty much same old same old every year.

I can’t comment on the other half of the game though, the multiplayer. I did not even dip my toe in that pool. It has been about 5 years since I played any Call of Duty MultiPlayer online, and the community then was rife with cheaters and campers, so I can’t imagine it got any better in the last 5 versions.

If you are looking for a stellar war campaign in a time tested franchise, then I highly recommend you pick up Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2019, you will not be disappointed.

A solid 9/10 for single player mode, and a big ?/10 for the multiplayer.

Brick MOC – Carbon Freezing Chamber

My apologies folks for taking so long to get some of these reviews out. It has been a very long work filled year, and though I found the time to play games and build “Lego” I have had a hell of a spell of writes block, coupled with a real lack of motivation due to my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

But I am forcing myself to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard as it were, and punch out a few rapid fire reviews that have been pending for months now.

First up (but last completed) if the amazing Carbon Freezing Chamber by Onecase and purchased from a Chinese block-off site complete(ish)

Unlike most knock-off sets, MOCs are always a little fickle. They rarely come with printed manuals, so firstly you need a tablet or laptop close by to complete the build.

Second, there is never any semblance of organization, as all the bricks are counted out by the seller, it is literally a mixed bag of what you are going to get.

I tend to keep things sorted as they come, so in this case, about 12 piles.

Things went smoothly for the base build, it is well constructed and feels very sturdy, something that is not always the case in MOCs, but this one was well designed from the ground up. At least to start.

There was some differences in parts compared to what the manual said, like the tank toppers in the back, and the small tank in the front, but it is merely cosmetic and not a big deal.

The problems started though with the 10 part wall construction.

1st off, the instructions once complete are very vague. There is no clear picture of how to put it on the base, it was 100% guess work and trial and error.

Second and more problematic, was the way the connection to the triangle tops are designed. there is zero consistency. the 3 sections in the front were perfect, smooth, giving good surface to connect to.

But as you moved farther around, it was a mish-mash of different styles. Some only connection to 3 “dots” and having zero interior support.

Thankfully there was lots of leftover pieces to fill things in, but it all could have been avoided had Onecase done a better job with the instructions, as he must have run into the same issues, just never corrected them.

Now for the big issues.

First off, the triangle top pieces are terribly thought out. As you can see, this is how they say they should be assembled. They took forever due to their absolutely flimsy design.

Couple that with the fact I was missing about 50 important bricks. For some reason the clear 1×2 were severely under shipped, as well as the 2×2 clear circles.

There are needed so that the lights can shine through cleanly.

I ended up having to add in solid bricks just to complete the build.

The next big issue came when it was time to put them all in place. Due to the poor design, the fell apart when trying to affix them. So I had to go back to the beginning and remove many of the clean 1×2, and add in a solid foundation so they would hold, having even to resort to a bit of kragle to make them hold.

The back triangle was the worst and needed a ground up redesign as Onecase bad it just floating in place, not connected to anything at all.

I was lucky in the fact that there was a pile of unused 1×2 angle pieces left. The centers all lined up uneven originally, nothing came together smooth. But I was able to create a circle in the center with these spare parts to pull it all in nice and smooth.

The place I purchased from included a set of lights I had no intention of using, but figured I had them, and they are not compatible with my Christmas Village lighting, so may as well install them too.

I was glad I did as they look pretty great when turned on.

Adding them in was easy, they are all self adhering and went in no problem.

This set sadly did not include any mini-figs, so I will be picking some up from Ali soon to finish off the look.

All in all it was a fun build, and though there are typical MOC challenges, the finished product looks fantastic.

The fine details of all the hoses and pipes really make the set a show piece.

An excellent build not for the faint of heart or skill. Definitely an advanced level build requiring some out of the box thinking and patience.

A solid 10/10 for end results, and a 7/10 for MOC frustration.

PC Game Review – Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers

So after my long winding road of catch up, I have finally arrived at the culmination of 2 years worth of extra content.

Our poor Scions are all now trapped in slumber, the world of Eorzea is on the bring of a massive world war with the empire, and I am whisked away to some foreign land by a mysterious hooded figure.

The game opens in the new realm of the First. Bathed in a horrible unending daylight, a world that lost the battle between light and dark, when light won and destroyed everything in its wake. Wait what?!?! How can the light be bad? We are in fact the Warrior of Light, we fight for good, how could this be?

Well that brings us to the main hook of Shadowbringers, balance.

All this time we have been fighting to snuff out the darkness, all the while not realizing the world needs balance, for with the absence of darkness would mean another Calamity would overtake us, as the scale tipped too far in one direction.

That is pretty much the crux of the whole story in Shadowbringers, restoring balance to the world of the First, in hopes of staving off a full blown Calamity that would destroy both the First and Eorzea in one fell swoop.

What is sadly omitted here si the main struggle in Eorzea, what we have built up to over the last 2 years is the final showdown with the Empire, but due to our poorly timed abduction, things back home have to wait, and as time passes different in the First, us being gone for years is only a matter of days back home.

So it is a sneaky way for Square to not wrap things up back in the real world. This is both good and bad, on one hand, it allowed us to see a lot of places we otherwise could not have explained in Eorzea, on the other it seems like a bit of a cop out in story telling. Right when the central story was about to be finally resolved, poof you are taken to a place where time moves differently so it does not screw with the main plot.

But I digress.

The core of the game has seen a massive overhaul. From abilities changing, shared skills no longer being a part of the jobs, to the overall ease added to tanking (and from what I have read, Healing too)

What Shadowbringers has done is somewhat give us a FF14 casual edition.

Now on one hand, for someone returning to the game after 2 years, it is a welcome change. I was always scared to tank as I recall in v2.0 it was seriously hard to keep hate, you had lots to balance.

Now, you just pop a enemity stance and that is it, little to no effort to keep the hate.

Same goes for Bard now sadly. You used to have songs that buffed the party, you would want to pop them at the proper time. Now, your sweet music if for your ears only, nothing more than a button mashing dps, little to no skill needed.

What this did however was push me to seek out other jobs for a challenge.

I dove into my level 50 BLM and took her all the way to 80.

While that may sound like a daunting task, it really isn’t anymore. Exp is so plentiful in Shadowbringers, that just through the main story I was able to get 4 jobs (Brd, Blm, Rdm and Drg) to level 80 with just main story and side quest experience.

Everything over 70 sees massive exp in dungeons as well. So it is a pretty easy run from 70-80 now, which is also good and bad. Sure I can turbo through levels but it feels too casual friendly, like I have not earned it per se.

All in all though, Shadowbringers added some stellar story to the lore of FF14.

We finally understand Hydalean and Eorzea, from millennia of time, back to the very seeds of creation and how the worlds came to be, how the calamities happen, all of it.

This was hands down the biggest bump in lore of any FF14 expansion to date.

A lot of questions we have had for a decade got answered.

In addition to the new story, we also got 2 new jobs thrown into the mix. Gunbreaker and Dancer. A tank and a ranger dps job.

Gunbreaker is a bit of a mix of Pld and War with a side of Machinist thrown in for good measure. You have a gunblade like Squall from FF8. You build up a gauge for the ability to use magic bullets pretty much to deal massive damage.

In my opinion it feels a little too much like a DPS job and not enough support.

And that is a real downfall of FF14, there are no real support roles. I miss the days of FF11 where things like enfeebling were paramount in killing bosses.

Now it is just about timing and dps, the higher the dps, the better chance you have of winning.

The second job is a very convoluted dps job. To be fair I have not played it much outside of the initial unlocking story, but Dancer seems like ti has the potential for some real fun. Maybe I will take her for a spin in the next expansion.

All in all Shadowbringers adds a lot to the old world. I have put in about 300 hours into the expansion and it shows no sighs of slowing. With the new raid and the new alliance raid on the horizon, there is plenty of content to still master.

All in all well worth the price of admission.

A solid 9/10 and a must play for anyone interested in MMOs

PC Game Chat – Final Fantasy 14 – 4.2 to 4.5

How does one write about a game that has taken 3 months to finish, somewhere in the 400 hour range.

A game that spans continents and universes?

A game that is a continuation of almost 10 years of play?

To be honest, I am not even sure where to begin.

After a 2 year hiatus I stepped back into Eorzea with trepidation, not even remembering how to play the game, where I left off, what jobs I preferred. All of it lost to the passage of time.

My beloved game causing a bit of anxiety with the sheer overwhelming size and scope, all of this even before the expansion dropped as I had a month worth of grinding the back content to get caught up enough to even play the expansion.

I eased myself in, much like a child in a pool trying not to drown. Checking out Gold Saucer and the mini games that I had never even seen, I grabbed my level 50 DRG and ventured into dungeons telling people I was pretty much a noob here. A lie that was not so much a lie, as all of this felt fresh to me.

All coming to a culmination so I could play Shadowbringers in July.

The massive amount of content was staggering, having seen 4 full on stories unfold, new raids and dungeons, and old story treads come to a head, all leading to SB.

Once I finally found my feet I started to get braver, started to dive into some old raids, get caught up on Heavensward and Stormblood content I just never got around to finishing.

What these last 5 months have taught me is, there is never a shortage of content to be had in FF14. Not that I doubted it, but it seems even to this day that I am still finding new missions and quests I never knew existed on a weekly basis.

I have been going through the Achievement section finding things I have not finished, that lead me on a never ending wild goose chase to new stories.

I have finished the last 2 raids now, I have forged a top tier Anima weapon for my Bard, I have leveled not only my 2 mains (Redmage and Bard) to 80, but also decided to bring up 5 other jobs. (Drg, Blm, Pld, Gnb and War) as well as level up my Carpenter to 80 as well.

All the while unlocking new story content for those jobs as well.

So it is no small surprise since I allowed myself to indulge in Final Fantasy 14, that I have had a hard time moving on. As there really seems no end in sight to what it has to offer.

Even though I am playing other things at the moment, I still pop in for my daily deliveries and weekend Catpot tickets.

So that pretty much takes us up to date for Shadowbrings, stay tuned for impression coming soon.

Where oh where has CCG been?

So 2019 has been a bit of a strange year for both Lego and video games.

From Sony pulling out of E3, to Lepin being seized by the Chinese police, things have been weird all over the world.

With the lack of Sony and new games coming down the pipe, a lot of my year was spent diving into my 165 game backlog, but even that didn’t really get chipped down too much. Primarily due to this little thing called Final Fantasy 14.

For the first time in a bout 7 or 8 years, I allowed myself to just indulgently game. To play FF14 until I no longer felt like do it.

Well that still has not happened. I have been going strong now since May and for the first time since then, I am taking a small break to play through Call of Duty Modern Warfare, and also some Death Stranding (reviews coming soon)

But what this meant for The Compulsive Canadian Gamer is a lack of content, because really, I have not played anything I can review for you folks.

I will get something out for FF14 Shadowbringers shortly, but that is the only thing on the roster so far.

As for the Lepin / Lego side of things, the situation is similar.

When Lepin went under, there was a market lull for about 6 months, they are jsut making a comeback now, but it essentially killed the block-off business for 2019.

What did happen though is a influx of MOC sets, as small retailers tried to find a way to eek out a living still, and they looked to the MOC community to create some pretty great sets, just sadly, none that interest me that much.

I do have a couple things to put out, notably the Empire over Jedha and the Colonial Viper, as well as a replacement B-Wing for my legitimate Lego version.

I have decided I want to replace all my current on-brand Lego sets with block-offs, and put the originals aside for sale down the road. So I will have a few reviews there as well, but maybe not until the new year.

So please check back soon as I get caught up.

Thanks for reading!

Gear Review – AC Infinity Cloudline T6 and Aircom T8

So ever since I built my theater in 2014, I have struggled with one thing above all else.

Cooling.

I did a year worth of research into the theater build, itself prior to construction, the room is perfect sonically, with diffusers and bass traps and sound treatments on all my first reflection points.

But one thing no one ever spoke about on AVS Forum was the need for cooling in a AV room.

So it has been a constant battle over the last 5 years. Without any cooling at all, my Rotel amps would hit over 100 degrees and shut off channels to preserve themselves.

I tried an in room air conditioner that was both loud and added about 50 a month to my electric bill.

I tried a bathroom exhaust fan and tried piping the fan into the house cold air return, with the mindset of using the HRV to suck all the warm air out of the house, only to result in all the cold air return vents pumping out hot air.

So it was not til January of this year that I come across the slim AC Infinity Aircom T8’s that are meant to sit on top of your gear and suck air from under them, and vent it out the back. They also make an iteration that will vent out the front if you prefer.

The devices run about $110 on amazon.ca and they, in conjunction with a AC Infinity Cloudline T6 they have changed my room temp by close to 20 degrees cooler.

I have installed one on each of my 3 amplifiers, as well as my receiver.

They have all sorts of bells and whistles for automated cooling.

The way I have mine set is they come on via power regulated outlet, that when the amps power up, they all switch on as well, so they are not sucking up power for no reason.

But they have the ability to do temperature monitoring to switch on automatically if your gear gets too hot. They have a built in alarm that you can set via a high temp mark.

They also have 6 fan speeds, which you can either set manually, or allow the device to regulate on its own via the temp sensor. I personally avoid this one and opted to have them run at about 80% speed all the time, this lets my gear stay between the 80-85 degree mark almost constantly.

They also have a fault alarm in the event that they malfunction, which is great if you are like me and have a closed room where your AV equipment resides.

Lastly they can be linked together with up to 6 other devices and controlled with one master interface. Personally I didn’t see the point, I really want them to all function independently.

To top it all off, once the heat is blow from the components out the back of the rack, that is where the AC Infinity Cloudline comes into play. It is at head level and sucks like a vacuum on steroids, yet does so near silently.

It snags all the heat coming out and blows it out of the AV room through an exhaust port I cut in for the air conditioning unit I used years ago.

This unit I leave on 24/7 as the room still holds a lot of other equipment, from the home automation, to my media server and home theater PC, all of which never turn off. So it still gets steamy if the door is closed and it is not vented.

This unit has a temp probe of its own, and a head unit that can control 2 Cloudline devices at one time if needed.

This one I do leave on smart monitoring though, as it can judge bu room temp how fast to run the fan if needed.

Prior to installing these devices I had to keep my cabinet full of PC fans and have the door open 100% for it to remain in the low 90s temp wise.

Now with the compliment of AC devices, the room remains closed and is about 80 on most days now.

A pure win in my books.

All told it was a $600 endeavor to come up with this solution, but well worth the cash in my opinion.

It is worth mentioning there is also a dumb variety of the AC Infinity series as well for a lot less money, these devices work exactly the same, but have no programming like temp gauges and such, they are straight on and off devices. So if you are strapped for cash and have a heat issue, there is an alternative as well.

Gear Chat – Nikon D850

So I have been into photography for year now, since I was a child actually, but never in a serious way, more like hardcore casual.

I have had cameras over my lifetime and then long periods with them as well.

I jumped back in last year when I snagged a Nikon D5600 and took some great shots, but my wife and I wanted to get into portraits and nature photography more like when we are on vacation, and I was looking for a good replacement for my 10 year old HD Sony Camcorder for recording my youtube unboxing vids.

So I dove in and went to the top of the line Nikon D850, second only to their new mirror-less line which I honestly did not know enough about to consider a viable option to purchase.

But through a lot of reading, I must admit I was pretty skeptical I was a good enough photographer to even entertain something like the D850. I know a lot about taking great shots compositionally, but when it comes to the heart and soul of F-stops, aperture, ISO, etc, I am admittedly pretty clueless, which was what made the D5600 so great, it was a high end entry level camera, it holds you hand and makes picture taking easy without having to know much.

So I have spent the last 4 months casually reading up on the minutia of photography and dove into the D850 head long.

This camera is honestly not for the casual photographer, if you are one, it will take outstanding pictures still, but it is serious overkill. But if you are like me, and want to ensure you have the best available to you, even if you may not use 100% of its potential, then the D850 could be what you are looking for.

Out of the box it is a fantastic camera. And it does offer a variety of “auto” modes available to you, this helped my learning by setting things like the ISO to auto, enabled me to play with the f-stops until I got me bearings.

But it has taken me a few months of tweaking to get things like I want them, and to make it user friendly enough that my wife who has zero interest in photography can pick it up off the desk and snap a pic or two if she wants.

This is a testament to the usability of the D850. When someone with no knowledge of photography can take amazing picture with it despite its complex nature.

If you are looking for a full comprehensive review, I highly suggest checking out the folks at Digital Photography, this was the review that sold me on the D850:

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikon-d850

As much as I would love to give you all a full review like this, I honestly would do this amazing camera an injustice in doing so.

So in all our coming Lepin/Lego reviews you may notice the pics look quite different, this is the reason.

So please let us know in the comments what you think, and don’t forget to check us out on Youtube as well, all vids going forward will be in full 4k.

Lego Review – Brickheadz Han Solo and Chewbacca

These 2 little sets were too adorable to skip.

Created around the new Solo movie last year, there put out a series of new Star Wars BrickHeadz.

There is not too much too them, clocking in at only 141 and 149 pieces each, they took about 30 mins to assemble each.

The design on them is rather outstanding though. Han really does capture his Solo image even with so few bricks.

The hair was really well done, and his outfit is spot on.

Same goes for Chewbacca as well, he is suitable “fluffy” looking while being smooth plastic.

Standing only a couple inches high, they are just adorable.

Funny thing happened while putting Han together, i noticed halfway into doing his hair, that without the rest of it he looks just like Woody Harlson from Solo. HAHAHA

A couple of fun sets for under $10 and well worth it if you are a fan of Han and Chewie.

Picked mine up from Lego’s online shop directly.

Lepin Review – Welcome to Apacolypseburg – 45014

So almost my entire collection of Lego and Lepin consists of Star Wars and a couple pirate ships that I am phasing out (except the Sea Cow)

But when I saw Lego was doing a play set for the Apacolypseburg city from Lego Movie 2 I had to have one, even if it meant building it and taking it apart again as I have no room for it.

Luckily I found room for it, but it meant taking down the Super Star Destroyer, but honestly I was never much of a fan of that ship, chock my review on it if you are interested.

So when I found out Lepin was making this set it was a no brainer for me.

Coming in at 3560 pieces this is a LARGE play set. When the average sets are under 1000 pieces, it is nice to see Lego jumping in to something of this size for a family friendly set.

While cost prohibitive from Lego ($499 Canadian) it was much more reasonable from Lepin at just $112usd.

It is stuff like that that drove me to Lepin in the first place.

The set is thankfully well numbered and easy to follow, all new Lepin sets are now, or the official Lego ones at least.

Like usual it comes all jammed in one very tightly packed box.

The manual itself is about 3 lbs!

So with almost all the bags numbered properly, what I do to sort them is put them into their piles, then I put the groups into plastic grocery bags. So Step one uses bags 1, 2, 3 and 4. So all of them go into one grocery bag. This definitely helps for large sets like this.

Oddly there was 2 bags with no numbers and a handful of bricks that were loose and could be from any bag as a couple were ripped (which always makes me nervous). They did end up being used later, but with brands like Lepin, you never know what they could be, I have read of folks getting random bags from other sets before, so who knows!

The massive sticker sheet…

Each of the steps consist of 3 to 4 sets of numbered bags, and there is a total of 18 numbered groups. This is all the bags in Step 1.

There is a ridiculous amount of detail in this set, every nook and cranny is filled with cool things, like rats in the display case for sale and coffee from a gas pump in “Coffee Un hainded”

The main level is complete and again, filled with tons of detail, from poor Surfing Steve looking pretty bad ass with his chainsaw and his awesome surf boards chilling in front of his Winnebago.

To fish hanging out in the outdoor kitchen.

To the awesome makeshift gym with home made weights and punching bag.

Clearly everything is now Awesome as we need to bathe outside and have a place for criminals.

This set is definitely not for the space challenged as it is massive, the base comes in at 19″ by 12″ but it is somewhat angled so it seems a bit larger as a whole in how it will fit on a shelf.

Little details are really everywhere, we have a burger joint out back, a workroom and the list goes on.

Every layer has a few rooms with more stuff to do.

Batman sits atop his perch above Wildstyle’s bedroom. keeping an ever watchful eye on the town.

Once fully assembled it stands at a whopping 20″ tall

The cobbled together mish mash of styles is what makes this set so great, nothing looks like it belongs, yet it all somehow fits.

Definitely one of my favorite builds of all time.

Just make sure if you are ever in town, skip the burger place, their hotdogs could kill you, or at least break a tooth!

This set was so much fun and looks really great on a shelf, and is a great talking piece for the mature builder.

For a Lepin set this is top notch. I didn’t have a single issue issue with it, and it went together like any normal Lego set.

Clutch was perfect, colors seemed accurate, no mini figs looked weird, they all had the right hair and faces.

I built this over the course of a week, a couple hours at a time in the evenings.It was not a hard build in any way, you can see it was definitely aimed at kids, which is fine too as it added a bit to the fun factor.

If you are looking for a cool alternative build, definitely pick up Welcome to Apacolypseburg, you will not be disappointed.

Lepin Review – Star Plan UCS Sandcrawler – 05038

Before I start this is the first set I am reviewing with my new Nikon D850. So let us know what you think of the shots. Review on the camera is coming soon as well.

So a few years back when Lego discontinued the UCS Sandcrawler I managed to snag one for a steal at Walmart.ca. It was about $200 off, and I had it sitting here for years never getting to assembling it, I just kept procrastinating and never got to it.

Then I started checking used prices and decided not to put it together and finally grab the Lepin version and just put the Lego one away for future sale for a hefty profit.

So I managed to grab on of these back in Feb 2019, a few months before the raid in China on Lepin, so I am counting my lucky stars I did not decide to put it off any longer.

Clocking in at 3346 pieces this set was BIG. And unfortunately it predated the days of numbered bags, so it was one massive humble that needed sorting.

So I tend to sort in individual bags, i keep them together as much as possible, I find that the way they part them out adds to a logical state, while not in any order, they are still together as they came, so step 50 may need 10 pieces all from bag 10 if you will, saves in having to re-sort every last brick.

This is the end product.

The build itself was fairly straight forward, but unlike most UCS sets this was more of a playset than an actual Model like most.

The tank tracks on the bottom are not particularly functional, I found that it really does not roll like you would expect, and they kind of get stuck, now I am not sure if this is a Lepin thing, or a design issue that Lego has too, all I can say is it does not appear to be a flaw in the bricks causing it.

The framework is very much like a technic build, it is well designed and feels very sturdy, even for off-brand bricks.

The side panels are very well designed to give that old rusted metal look, and Lego’s design pulled out a few tricks to make the angles work well.

The inner details are a nice touch in the cockpit.

The interior (which is hard to picture) has tone of details, a working crane, sorting bin for droids, etc

No one downside for me on that topic, is in recent years Lego has been moving more towards functional UCS sets.

Personally I am not a fan of this. While sure it makes for a more interesting set if your kid want to fly it around or play with it, it can tend to put weird things on the set that make it “functional” and less model like.

For instance the gear that pokes out the top to make the ramp go down or the back to turn the tracks.

Now I know I could just leave them off, but it feels wrong to do that.

The set itself comes with a large pile of droids and Jawas, as well as Luke and uncle Ben.

This this was a fun build to do, bricks had great clutch throughout, stickers look good and it looks great completed and on a shelf.

Short of parting out the Minifig scale MOC version (which is over 10k pieces), you are unlikely to find a better Sandcrawler out there.

Coming in at $108 USD I would definitely recommend grabbing one if you can
still find one now that Lepin is dead (for now at least).