2015 Releases

[tahra]

Thanks for the pics - I love the hairpieces too!

Have I missed it, or is the hiker sporting a new leg combo?  I don't know that I've seen shoes like that before. 

Nope, space legs, with nice BROWN shoes ... AND a cavewoman hair in blonde!

[Rhalius]

The pirate theme.. well its nice to get new pirates but sadly the sets they come with are awfull.

First, the soldiers.. The boat is kind of alright I gues, the red sails seem weird though.. It looks more like a pirate ship than a soldier ship. And that sorry exuse for a lighthouse is something I'd expect being thrown in as some exclusive or such, or released after the main batch. I mean.. they released a real lighthouse before, this one just looks pathedic in comparison. The huge window does not help it either since it makes the little tower look fragile. At least they should have made it a floor higher.
Also.. only two soldier sets and each comes with a soldier and an officer. While the uniforms dont look like much to me either, I just dont know why they even bothered putting soldiers in this batch. Might as well have left it out.

Then the pirates.. well the pirateship has no playable cabin. Overall design seems weird and too toyish too, with a cannon at the front. In every single way this ship is a downgrade from the current pirate ship found in stores. Only the clickies on it are nice and thats it. Not much accesoires on board either.

The pirate island is nothing interesting either.. just a rock bridge with a prison on one side, and what looks like an outhouse on the other. Why have two cramped little interiours in it like this? I'd rather see a proper island again, a real pirate hide out.

The raft has.. two cannons on it?! and the sail looks hard plastic. Its just so weird.. I mean why would a raft have mounted cannons on it? It makes that rowboat with the cannon on board of the last batch look very plausible in comparison. But there the cannon could easily be removed while on this raft you'd have raised opening ruining the appearance still without the cannons on there.

I must say that the pirates do look very nice, also neat to see a black pirate amongst them once more. They really should make more black pirates.
But my main issue is though, that they seemingly like a few features so much in a pirate that they give them to basicly half of them.

Just look at them and see how many have longcoats, bandanas with a tricone and evil eyebrows. They kind of did that with the last batch too though, only there they where overly fond of the long hair with painted on bandana in combination with a long coat.
Sure, long coats are neat but I dislike how it limits their freedom of movement with sitting. We need more cheap looking pirates. They can't all be the captain.

Still, there are some nice new hairstyles there, I will most definatly get the small set with treasure, the lady pirate and the gentleman pirate since both clickies look great and the rock with hiding place seems usefull too. Might get the advent calendar too and maybe one of the pirate captains with a cannon even though all of them are in horrid colors. A waste of a nice new cannon design, really. The shape does look beautifull.

[Rasputin]

I agree with your pirate theme evaluation. Good thing for us though. At the rate geobra has been releasing themes and sets we need some that are so ugly we are not even tempted to buy them so we can catch up on our must have list. Let's just hope that the way geobra is running the long coat mold to death they don't do the same with the hybrid klicky molds they invested in.

[Macruran]

Yes, the alpacas are way undersized. They should be at least a third to half larger than they are.

Wrongly proportioned animals are a problem all across PM. I've been meaning to start a discussion about it.

[leefert]

Thanks for the pics - I love the hairpieces too!

Nope, space legs, with nice BROWN shoes ... AND a cavewoman hair in blonde!

Ahhhh that's why I didn't recognize them!  I don't have any of the space theme.

Wrongly proportioned animals are a problem all across PM. I've been meaning to start a discussion about it.

Like the way oversized Meercats?

[Hadoque]

Well, here a summary of my pre-review I posted in the PCC about the renewal of my favourite Pirates Theme.

I like the pirate-figures and soldiers.
Some nice new accessories in a few sets, f.e. nice new musketeer-type hat and 17th-century (Louis XIV-style) hair/wig. Longcoats (V3, the ones "rounded" at the front) in darkblue with prints, very usable for customizing naval officers (without having to use paint).

Small "complementary" sets are okay (except for the raft).

The smallish rock-island, okay for me as I have the large(r) previous islands. For those not having an island yet, I'd recommend to order the figures/accessories from DS and to somewhere buy one of the older islands.

The mini-lighttower has an appropriate size to direct a rowboat in a pool to the shore a few inches further.

The soldiers´cannon-boat is the same of the existing one, though in other colours and comes with Spanish/French soldiers instead of Redcoats.

The raft is silly.
To answer Rhalius about it´s cannons; it is fashionable these days to buy combat-rafts instead of expensive destroyers/cruisers. US Navy has set the trend with their LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) designs. The Chinese do the opposite and are building a blue-water navy.

The Pirates´"Combat ship"; the design is a variation of the 4290 from 2008.
The hull's shape is exactly the same but the deck has been redesigned.
Positive
* Nice hull and deck colours, quite similar to those of the 5135 (the ship it is replacing).
* Hull of the new ship has been confirmed by PCC-team as being interchangable with the 4290's red hull.
Negative
* The cabin-windows on the rear are now stickers.
* The cabin inside the ship is gone, it´s space probably filled up with additional foam for floating purposes. Only remaining below-deck space is now the cargo-hold.
* Cargo-hold has been much reduced in size, I guess it´s proportions are now similar as found on the schooner-ships.
* Front-mast´s crane to haul cargo on and off the ship has been deleted as well.
* The front-topmast is the cheapest flagpole they could find, no provision to put a decent topmast like on the aft-mast without customizing or replacing the crownest.
 * The "fake" below-deck cannon-mouths (3 now on instead of 4 on the 5135, port/starboard-sides) now also have no moving hatches anymore (half-sized hatches are now moulded horizontally on the fake gunmouths).
* No lanterns on the ship´s heck (stern) like on the 4290.
* Cabinboy (child-klicky) has "walked the plank" (as there is no cabin anymore, he got sacked) so crew is now down to 3 adult figures.
* Only 1 deck-cannon instead of 2 (oh, wait, the bow-figure is now a cannon-barrel so that makes 2 afterall?!)
* If the front box-picture is representative for the contents, then almost no accessories/equipment included with this ship.

Summary of the ship:
Somewhat a missed opportunity imho, it looks as if they started with a nice redesign of the 4290 but then decided to delete several important features and so they ended up with a cheap-looking/equipped version of their initial idea.


Btw, here is the promotional pirates' vid´s trailer on youtube, more details to be seen there...
http://www.youtube.com/user/playmobil
(size of the lighthouse in the video is more like the large one from 2008, so not representative for the new one!)

[Robbie]

I have mixed emotions about this year's lineup. 

The Mansion is a bit of a blunder. The color is all wrong....it's actually very bad and unrealistic. For a mansion, why is there only one very small table for eating? I don't notice the System-X holes in the flooring...now that is one good part about this home!

I really like the white deer from set 5370. The staff is also a great part to have and it hasn't shown up in that many sets.

The tree house looks great. The overall design isn't much different from the older ones but adding the bridge makes it much more enticing.

The children's birthday party will probably sell very well. It could have been executed much better but the idea of the sack race for the kiddos is creative. I'm not a fan of the green mixed with pink and orange though.

I love the "Jim's" food truck! There's even french fries, a hot dog, and ketchup. This fits in perfectly to the modern theme and a great alternative to pizza! 

Yay for a new hazmat crew!! This one should be very popular considering how much the old set sells for.

The Santa with sleigh is highly repetitive and underwhelming. I don't see the need for it really.

What's up with the dolphins on the side of the airplane?

The new produce stand for the farm is a must have. You can never have enough market stands.

The space theme is exciting! And do you see what I see?....a robot like the classic 3318 in an exciting new color! I think this theme will do very well.

The hospital is so small and disappointing. My guess is the last one was too expensive and they tried downsizing to sell more.

[tahra]

The mini-lighttower has an appropriate size to direct a rowboat in a pool to the shore a few inches further.

I really like the white deer from set 5370. The staff is also a great part to have and it hasn't shown up in that many sets.

I think it common, especially in gold. Don't they have like... WOOD trees there? You know.. brown? What are the staffs supposed to be made of?

The children's birthday party will probably sell very well. It could have been executed much better but the idea of the sack race for the kiddos is creative. I'm not a fan of the green mixed with pink and orange though.

I love the "Jim's" food truck! There's even french fries, a hot dog, and ketchup. This fits in perfectly to the modern theme and a great alternative to pizza! 

I blame my old age, but I can't recall these 

[Junker Jörg]

The mini-lighttower has an appropriate size to direct a rowboat in a pool to the shore a few inches further.

Naja... warum sollte der Leuchtturm hoch sein, wenn die Klippe, auf der er steht, hoch genug ist? Was ich tatsächlich unschön finde, ist, daß die Proportionen nicht zu den Figuren passen: Die Kette hängt in den Kniekehlen und läßt den Leuchtturmwärter erst recht stürzen, statt ihn zu halten  .

I don't see, why a lighthouse has to  be tall if there's a rock high enough to place it on. But those chains just reaching up to knee height seem to be a safety risk more than a safety railing ...

jj:

[Rhalius]

Seeing how the entire lighthouse would be better used as a children's playhouse at a playground, the chains seem an appropriate height for children's safety.