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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand this. I'd prefer to give children the same things that I enjoyed as a child. (E.g. meccano, technic Lego). But the problem is that these companies "modernize" their offerings to such extent that I don't like them anymore.

Also most of the good Lego sets are either cars or airplanes. This gets a little boring after giving these sets for a few years in a row. Lots of good sets become retired, which is a pity.

I think I will be moving away from Lego for my next gifts because there is only very limited choice left in the $50 price range.

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When I was first looking into buying Lego sets for my kids I felt the same way, but I've completely turned around. Legos are way better than they were when I was a kid. Check out the 3-in-1 line. They're brilliantly designed. A few of my favorites:

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/deep-sea-creatures-31088

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/mighty-dinosaurs-31058

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/underwater-robot-31090

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/riverside-houseboat-31093

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/outback-cabin-31098

I also used to be bummed that Lego retired their standalone fantastical space ships line, in favor of making everything about starwars, but instead they've now based their space line on actually realistic spaceships, and it feels like a much better fit. When my son builds Lego rockets now, it makes him want to learn about all the NASA missions they're based on. He ends up learning about the parts of real rockets that are reflected in the Lego models.

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/deep-space-rocket-and-lau...

Wow. That it... so cool. I had no idea.

I've heard the "Lego sets are worse now" meme for so long I just assumed it was true.

But all those sets look utterly fantastic, and you're right -- even better than when I was a kid. I would have killed for all those.

Thanks for the info. For whatever reason, that just put me in a great mood to start my day. :)

The "Lego sets are worse now" meme seems to be a combination of people having overly rosey memories of how good Lego used to be (80s Lego was not as amazing as people make it out to be) and people checking in during one of Lego's slumps (they've had a few) and never checking again.

I'm pretty happy with where Lego is today.

Eh, they had realistic space ships before - one of my favorite sets was the Space Shuttle (6339)!

I got a slingshot just recently: the simpleshot from scout. It was really just an impulse buy on amazon. You wouldn't believe how much better it is from the old-school wrist rockets. There's simply no comparing them.

I started hitting plastic bottles from about 30 yards away in the first couple days I got it.

If I had this when I was a kid, I would have terrorized the neighborhood fauna and my mom would have definitely taken it away. Instead, I eventually got bored and moved on to other hobbies.

HN is so resistant to change they should just call it LN.

> Also most of the good Lego sets are either cars or airplanes.

Isn't that just expression of your topical preference? The shelves are full of lego sets that are neither cars nor airplanes and I really don't know what is supposed to be wrong with them.

We tend to buy lego when there are discounts which does remove bests sets and there still seem to be enough choice.

I've found that knex is a good alternative to "single purpose legos". Not only does it stay true to the idea of no custom pieces, but they can also take a serious beating and they're also friendly to girls (mine will make things like crowns and a dog leash for her plushie)

That's curious, I had plenty of Knex pieces brake when I was a kid, while the LEGO never did.

I hear they use different plastics for lego nowadays. My legos from back in the day were pretty sturdy, but the ones my kids have seem to crack more easily, just from regular play. The knex connectors do break, but they are abused comparatively more (e.g. bending them into bracelets, dragging and throwing them across the room, etc)

What frustrates me is the price of the Lego electronic motors and gizmos. We have some but they're rarely played with. I just did a project with my son where we took apart an old rc car and hot glued the motors to some Legos and mounted the battery box+ rc receiver on some other legos. He's been building contraptions with that for a while now. Plus we did some soldering when the wires broke. I don't know why Lego doesn't target a lower price point on that stuff.

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