A couple weeks ago I blogged about an awesome kid named Zack who selflessly donated all the money he had been saving for a LEGO Minecraft set to Pennies for Patients to help kids with cancer. Well, we thought that was pretty amazing, and a kid so awesome deserves some LEGO. So we sent him the set he was saving for so he could do a special review for us. He had fun building it and has shared some thoughts with us.

A big thank you to his mom and dad for taking pictures and getting his thoughts and a HUGE thanks to Zack for not only reviewing this set for us, but for being such an inspiration and of course, awesome.

Zack is a fan of the Minecraft game, so he found it very familiar and fun to build. In fact, he has built a very similar mine in the game. There was a few small bumps in the road during the 4-5 hour construction though. For one, he got confused on pages 2-3 on the instruction, not realizing he needed to build three subassemblies. The turns in the track were a little tricky too, with a building method that he had not experienced before. The beams were also a little tricky, because one of them had a groove in it.

While the track was a little tricky, it's also Zack's favorite feature of the set, he really likes that the cart can slide around on it. Although he would prefer to have just a bit more track, so the cart could make a circuit. As it stands it just makes short runs before reaching the end of the track and falling off the set. Speaking of the cart, it's one of the easiest parts to build according to Zack.

Some of the other things Zack liked about the set is the fact that it's like a park on top, with trees and dirt, very much like the game. The water is also very interesting since it's different from other LEGO sets, it looks just like it does in Minecraft and that's very cool.

Being able to reconfigure the set into different shapes and changing the track is another feature that Zack likes, as well as the simulated TNT explosions play action. This makes the set customizable and fun to play with. And if you get bored with how it's configured, change it up and it's all new, just like the game! The instruction book has some great tips on how to change it up, and of course you're only limited by your imagination.

Overall, Zack was super excited to get and build this set. It has lots of features like the game and the play features make it fun to play with. He gives it 4 3/4 Nerdlys