Budget Brick Review - Enlighten 9823 Shifty Helicopter
It's Budget Brick Review time again. It's another Enlighten set and this time it's a helicopter.
So, there's a couple of things to note here straight away. One is that this is clearly based on Lego set 6515, the Stunt Copter from 1994. They're not identical, but they're more than close enough.
The second is this:
I am reviewing a Shifty Lego clone. It's like the old Lego System logo if it was really badly done and announcing to the world “Hey, look at me! I'm a legally dubious clone of someone else's set!” at the same time. I mean Shifty, really? That's terrible, but maybe not as terrible as that picture of a brick there.
That logo is horrendous and should never appear on anything ever again.
Now, with that out of the way...
The top of the box has all the elements from the front of the box and a little bit of Chinese text for good measure and the back shows some alternate builds, all of which are actually quite different from each other.
One end of the box shows the front image again.
While the other end shows... the front image again.
Finally, on the bottom we discover that's it made in China (surprise!) and that it's not suitable for children under three due to their apparent habit of eating their toys.
This set comes in two bags instead of one, which is nice I suppose.
The instructions are pretty clear and simple to understand, which isn't really surprising as, like the set itself, they're a slightly modified version of a Lego original, just with the colours for solid red pieces and transparent red pieces the wrong way round in this case.
Oh, and check out the wandering stud on the 1x1 red plate right at the back.
How does that even happen?
Anyway, bag one contains:
Bag two contains:
Now the keen eyed amongst you might have noticed that something's not right with the minifigure parts in those bags. In case you didn't notice, here's the figure from the box, the figure from the instructions and finally the actual figure.
To be fair the actual torso kicks the arse of the other two designs (figuratively speaking of course – minifigure arses are clearly part of the leg assembly). The shirt in the box images is a bit rubbish and the one in the instructions appears to be the Octan logo spelt as Ortan with half the text in blue instead of green. Clearly the only purpose of such a torso would be to mock it mercilessly (kind of like I'm doing already) then stick a decal over it and pretend it never existed.
Yeah, that guy looks much better than the guy in the instructions.
Shall we see how compatible he is?
Heads work. Hands don't. Dammit Enlighten, sort that out already. Pick a size and stick to it. I don't care what size it is. It doesn't matter if you pick one that isn't Lego compatible. It really doesn't. Just pick a damn standard.
Grrr...
The legs on the right (your right, not the legs' right) are the Enlighten ones. The others are Lego ones. Like in previous sets the green is way lighter than the Lego one. Though, it is pretty consistent between Enlighten sets as far as I can tell, so that's something and it's nice to get a few different trouser colours.
The red is also a bit on the light side compared to the MegaBloks brick and the Lego antenna thing.
The transparent green is a perfect match however.
The transparent red, not so much.
At least those are all the right parts though, right? At least everything matches on that front.
Oops.
Oh well, the actual helicopter looks pretty good and went together easily.
Of course the colours are wrong, but still it's a good colour scheme even if it's not the one on the box and I can't fault any of the parts for anything else.
So, would I suggest you get this set? Yeah, sure. Why not? It's not perfect. It has flaws, but overall it's one of the better Enlighten sets I've seen and well worth the couple of quid it costs on eBay.