Before we get to the actual article, let me make an important announcement: This will be my last regular review of the LEGO City magazine.
I’ve bemoaned the decline in quality in the last few issues, no doubt to the annoyance of you, my dear readers, and while last month’s space theme gave me a glimmer of hope, now we’re back to the ever same boring stuff and it’s not even good. This assessment is not only based on this issue but also the preview of the upcoming one. I understand that I’m not the target demographic and there’s certainly nothing wrong with fire patrol and police themes running on repeat, but it has become so stale I no longer consider worth it. It used to be fun, but lately LEGO seem to be optimizing and simplifying their sets “to death” and it simply doesn’t make for interesting comics or extras, when you can clearly see where stuff was chopped and cost spared.
All that being the case I will limit myself to sporadically buying the mag whenever there is something that I deem “good” or interesting like the aforementioned space stuff or perhaps if they include animals or other bits from this year’s agricultural theme like back when the lion cub came as an extra. I regret this decision and really would love to give you better news, but the LEGO City mag has become a source of frustration more than one of enjoyment and I’d rather focus my energy on other things.
Now on to the review!
As mentioned, we’re back to stuff burning and the inept LEGO City fire patrol trying to put out the fire while all sorts of other messy stuff ensues. I for one hope that most real firefighters are more competent, but of course the mundane facts of a real emergency scramble would be uninteresting for the little ones. So I guess if you don’t take it too seriously, the comic is just fine. Visually it could be a bit more varied, as there’s tons of orange fire, drab walls in brown shades and a bit of blue sky, but not too much else. It just doesn’t look as lively as it potentially could.
The posters are overstuffed and lack any sense of “classy” design. It’s once more just a mess pieced together from cut out marketing photos haplessly layered over a background and each other. The reverse is slightly better, if not by much.
The extra is downright an embarrassment for everyone involved from whoever designed it to the guy signing off on producing it. C’mon, we had minimalist buggies a-plenty, but how did we even arrive at this total non-effort? It really makes me wanna throw a tantrum and shout at someone for how lazy they are…
As you would have guessed based on my introduction this really tipped me over and I can barely put into words how the sloppy treatment of the mag annoys me. I mean I’m not even working for Blue Ocean and I can think of a million ways to do this better! Be seeing you for only the occasional “good” outing then, I guess…
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