Great for teaching kids about diplomacy!

Says it is compatible with other building block sets, I wonder if that means Legos. Great price for the amount of pieces you get with this.

Hmm. Do I contaminate my "Other Building Blocks"? Good price per piece. Seems cool. It all goes into the bottomless "Other Building Block" bucket eventually anyway. I'm in for 2. (One of each color), (Two Kids)

Picked up two different sets(space ship and a fire engine) of Best Lock kits last year for Christmas, both were a pain to assemble. They barely fit together with their own brand, package says that its compatible with "other brands" but its very hit or miss. Their instructions are also bad, not exactly bad bad, but they tried to be different than LEGO in their coloring scheme and its just...it doesn't work well. The colors they use make it hard to tell what piece is next in the instructions.

The price is right, but not sure the frustration will be worth it.

Thanks for the clarification.

Based upon Amazon ratings of other Best-Lock products, I'm staying away. This Amazon comment alone sums it up:

"If you like Lego, you'll hate Bestlock. A better name would be "Worstlock". My best tip would be to buy five tubes of Super-Glue to overcome the numerous defects."

Amazon linky to similar item

I bought this set last time and I must say it is not very good. A lot of pieces did not fit together properly making some of the set impossible to build. Understand that this is cheap because it is "cheap."

So it's, um, fake Legos then?

When I was a kid these were the type of knock-off's that Grandma didn't know any better of and would buy me for Christmas/Birthday. I thanked her earnestly but inside I knew they were nowhere near as good as real Lego and was a bit disappointed.

schrody wrote:So it's, um, fake Legos then?

Not really. They never claim to be LEGOs on the package.

MegaBloks seem to be best "known" LEGO compatible blocks though.

mfpmax wrote:Picked up two different sets(space ship and a fire engine) of Best Lock kits last year for Christmas, both were a pain to assemble. They barely fit together with their own brand, package says that its compatible with "other brands" but its very hit or miss. Their instructions are also bad, not exactly bad bad, but they tried to be different than LEGO in their coloring scheme and its just...it doesn't work well. The colors they use make it hard to tell what piece is next in the instructions.

The price is right, but not sure the frustration will be worth it.

Thanks for the info. Saved me grief and money!

DON'T DO IT! After buying it the first time I promised myself I'd never buy Bestlock products again. 2 years later I fell for it again. A bunch of the pieces don't fit together. Pieces break. We bought 2 sets and my 7 year old son, who loves legos, asked to just give it away or throw it away. He also said we should write the company and tell them to build them better.

mfpmax wrote:Not really. They never claim to be LEGOs on the package.

MegaBloks seem to be best "known" LEGO compatible blocks though.

These make MegaBloks look like a Rolls Royce...

Susan11125 wrote:Thanks for the info. Saved me grief and money!

this

theguruguys wrote:The make MegaBloks look like a Rolls Royce...

A gold plated Rolls Royce filled to the top with gold bricks.

To: aw185

You may wish to print off the text of the Munich Agreement, http://encyc.org/TextOfTheMunichAgreementAndBritish-GermanDeclaration. Diplomacy is based on weakness and ultimately leads to war.

I don't know if this is a good buy or not. However, when I grew up I learned to shot and hunt and studied military tactics. Kept me alive in Vietnam.

why the hell did i buy two?

philadel1 wrote:why the hell did i buy two?

It increases your odds of building at least ONE kit correctly.

...or you're a masochist, or perhaps you have a child you wish to torment by making them put together one of them.

schrody wrote:So it's, um, fake Legos then?

How would you kids....like to go to......BLOCKO LAND!!!!!!!

/homer

philadel1 wrote:why the hell did i buy two?

You can always try to cancel your order. The new layout has a link to modify your order, though I haven't needed to try it out yet.

I bought these the last time that they were on woot, and they are just terrible.

The tank's turret mount cannot support the weight of the turret itself, and the helicopter's main rotors hit its rear stabilizer. The motorcycle doesn't stand upright, but luckily, my tank treads didn't rip in half.

This review says it a lot better than I can:

lichme wrote:Says it is compatible with other building block sets, I wonder if that means Legos. Great price for the amount of pieces you get with this.

Bad Idea. My son, a Major LEGO fan, was given a couple of these sets last Christmas. He was sorely disappointed. While they are semi-compatible with "other brands" they do not play well with others. Heck, they don't even play well with themselves. Some parts will not even connect where they should, while others won't stay together. Your kids WILL know the difference.

bilnsnow wrote:Hmm. Do I contaminate my "Other Building Blocks"? Good price per piece. Seems cool. It all goes into the bottomless "Other Building Block" bucket eventually anyway. I'm in for 2. (One of each color), (Two Kids)

Bad idea, you will end up having to sort these out of your bottomless LEGO bucket. These are a true waste of your money.

about 10% of these will break on their own, averaging around 1 per day.

I have bought a few of these sets for the kids. Compared to legos they don't fit together as well, the colors are not as bright and the directions are subpar at best. BUT you get a lot for $10 bucks and the kids love them.

compared to legos, these mini figures look like wierd little mannequins

Ah, war toys...don't ya love 'em?

I was a kid barely 10 years after the end of WWII and when we were SURE the commies were gonna nuke us. Had little green plastic combat soldiers throwing grenades and others with machine guns. In cereal packages there were little "free inside!" spring-loaded ballistic missiles and "US Navy Frogmen" powered by baking powder that had knives and mines.

When did we star making "cute" war toys?

philadel1 wrote:why the hell did i buy two?

Use them as decoys around block-munching vacuum cleaners to give the LEGOs a chance to escape.

Don't buy them, complete waste of your money! We purchased Best Lock "legos" for my son hoping for a cheaper alternative to the real LEGOs. They are very thin plastic, they don't fit together well, they do not stay together at all, the doors and other accessories like that constantly fall off. It is just frustration in a box. We ended up throwing them in the recycle bin and keeping the little people, who look different than the LEGO brand people but my son can at least play with them, they seem to stay together okay.

They do not lock well, and come with missing pieces. Some parts are a tight fit, and will never split apart after you manhandle them together, others are a loose fit and don't lock at all.

They are the same size as lego, and could theoretically be used together. I have not tried. They are much lighter than lego pieces, and can be separated apart easily by touch.

Since lego doesn't make war sets, it would be an 'acceptable' set to glue together for display, or for play time. Glue strongly recommended before play. Visual quality is not as impressive as lego, or even the better mega blocks.

The minifigures look a bit strange to me, but the realistic weapons (which lego doesn't make) carry over well to lego sets.



If you want a throw-away set, or a toy to glue together as you build, these are acceptable and fairly cheap.

Otherwise there are several other Chinese brick sets that come far ahead of this one.

Best-Lock? My kids say best not. We've thrown out our Best-Lock stuff, rather than donate it to Goodwill and cause other kids to suffer. There is *no comparison* between Best Lock, Mega Lock, or any other knock-off brand and the original. If you have kids, you'll know what I'm saying. These things are like the scoot-bike you got them for Christmas that was missing a bolt.

Shortly said: These will cause your kid frustration, not inspiration.

My son, who has more legos than any 20 children combined should have, actually likes this military set. He buys the small ones because I quit paying $100 per set for legos and he has not complained. I'm in for one as a Christmas present.

My son got a LEGO knock off for his birthday once... Never again. It was a PITA to assemble and kept falling apart to the point where he couldn't play with it. I promised myself that from now on, that if it doesn't say "LEGO", I don't buy it.

With all these negative comments no one will buy them now. And then, you know what will dominate the next Woot-off... Nooooooooo!!!!

worst woot buy I've made. definitely not worth it. blocks don't fit well with each other, dont' fit with lego brand, directions are marginal at best, and pieces for all figures are mixed together in separate bags. not a buy I'd recommend. pay the premium price and get lego brand.

Ooooo, I feel bad for whoever was duped into buying these. I loved legos as a kid and now our son and 2 daughters also love legos. That being said, I'm not a Lego snob and could care less about the brand so long as they work. There's certainly no question that Legos are overpriced.

However, my son's friend gave him a "Best-Lock" brand race car set and I can unequivocally say that I would never spend a dime on this brand. The legos, errr best-locks, just don't stay connected to each other. I'm not exaggerating - he built the car and then could not pick it up, let alone play with it, without it falling apart.

To the parents that bought this Woot - Give these to your kids as a reward for doing something, not as a gift, and you'll hopefully save some frustration and disappointment. I would not have spent $10 for 3 of this brand, let alone $10 for one of them. I feel bad for those that decided to "take a chance" on this one.

theguruguys wrote:These make MegaBloks look like a Rolls Royce...

Indeed. I'll second that comment. We've had MegaBloks and while they're not as good as Legos, they are lightyears better than Best-Locks. These truly are not even Dollar Store-worthy, unless of course you're just trying to figure out a cheap, non-violent way to make your kids cry.

turelpld wrote:I bought these the last time that they were on woot, and they are just terrible.

The tank's turret mount cannot support the weight of the turret itself, and the helicopter's main rotors hit its rear stabilizer. The motorcycle doesn't stand upright, but luckily, my tank treads didn't rip in half.

This review says it a lot better than I can:

That video is awesome! And, I must say, 100% accurate. Poor kid admits it's the crappiest set he's ever bought and that he basically wasted his money. Good for him to get that life lesson out of the way early though.

sinsemilla wrote:You can always try to cancel your order. The new layout has a link to modify your order, though I haven't needed to try it out yet.

I tried to cancel the order 20 minutes after I placed it and was told it was too late and a no go, and then that I have to email them back again to ask for the return shipping label. Pretty disappointed.