I don't have the Batboat (probably won't buy it any time soon) but I did get the Batmobile today. I was going to review it anyway, so maybe this will help.Modesty wrote:Okay guys, I've heard a lot about most of the sets, but I can't decide; which set should I get? The Batmobile,or Bat-Boat?
Both have cool villans and cool elements...
First thing to touch on is the gate and spiked chain. There's really not much to say about these. Aside from a cleverly used dinosaur tail as a light fixture (which honestly doesn't really look that great anyway), there are no building techniques worth noting here. Also, these don't really add much to play value either. You may as well consider these spare parts (pretty nice ones too).
The figs are all pretty good. Nothing spectacular about the thug. Two-Face's hair and torso are pretty cool. His face looks great but I'm not a fan of flesh tone. The Batman fig is awesome though. It reminds me of the Batman portrayed by Michael Keaton in Batman and Batman Returns.
The accessories are some of the best things about this set. The guns look fantastic. They're pretty much to scale with the figs and are sculpted well. Also, because the tips of the guns are the same size as the handles, you can personalize to your heart's content (one of the short technic pins attached to the end of the smaller gun looks great as a silencer). The batarang (with handle) is really cool too, but I haven't quite figured out what to do with the other style of batarang. The handcuffs are all right and snap onto the fig's wrists perfectly, but I think the chain is a little long.
Two-Face's van is very well built. It's sturdy, has some nice weight to it, is a good size (for use in a town setting... it's too small in comparison to the Batmobile), and the color scheme is all right too. The driver's seat is very spacious, something I always worry about when building any sort of vehicle. The hidden guns are neat, but obvious. Any idiot can see that there's something hidden there, so I don't think they're going to be fooling the world's greatest detective. The flipping mechanism works well, but it really doesn't look good. I wish they would have done something to make the back look more solid. Regardless of my qualms with this model, all in all it's really nice and I'll probably keep it built for a while.
The Batmobile is awesome. Nice overall shape, nice overall color scheme, detailed and spacious cockpit (disregard Batman's cape), a storage compartment that all of his gear will fit into, and a clever design using a lot of otherwise useful pieces. The 2*2 slope in the cockpit is printed with a generic computer design... no bat-symbol, nothing specific to the set or the character... and I thought this was really nice. The missile launcher doesn't look out of place on the front of the car and lines up perfectly with the target on the back of Two Face's van. The wings are a little bit ridiculous and the car looks better without them (the same goes for the flame pieces). Unfortunately, the designers once again included many pieces that don't match up with the color scheme (yellow bricks that are visible in the cockpit and storage compartment, white brackets that connect the jet turbine to the rest of the car), and this is something that always bothers me. You may have to tweak the colors and shape a little bit to your liking, but it's a very well designed model.
Like the other set I reviewed, the set includes a sheet of stickers instead of a large amount of printed pieces. This is something I have mixed feelings about. I'm glad that I don't have permanent bat-symbols on the Batmobile or markings on the van, but the fact that the Batmobile has stickers for headlights and computers (two 1*2 tiles in the cockpit) really bothers me. I'm also bothered by the fact that the gate has a stop sticker on a square sign instead of a a printed octagonal stop sign.
The alternate models are a truck with a jet on the back, a mini Batmobile (more or less a shorter, less detailed version of the main model), an air vehicle and an anti-air missile launcher.
The set also comes with a handful (literally) of extra pieces (and extra bat-stickers, again). It was a fun, time consuming build with a decent number of figs. I would definitely recommend it to anyone.