Today, lets take a look at the 70431 Space Explorer Rover and Alien Life  – the 6 wheel rover of this year’s City Space Redux. This set draws on the long pedigree of Exploratory rovers, and brings some alien life to the story. It has 311 pieces and is priced at $AUD49.99/$USD34.99/€29.99/£24.99

In the beginning…

Since the earliest days of mobile ground based labs in LEGO® Space sets, 6 wheels has generally been considered a good start. Sure, there are plenty of 4 wheel rovers, for scooting out to check the perimeter fencing,  or to get to the neighbouring base. 

However, once you start looking at vehicles for travelling further afield or doing a bit of serious exploration, 6 wheels is de rigeur, occasionally extending to 8 or more for special occasions. And we see this pattern demonstrated as we travel through the space themes of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s:

And so it appears to be for this wave of City Space.There is a small rover in the Largest base set, while 70431 has 6 wheels,74322 has 8.

The Elements

60431 Space Explorer Rover and Alien Life is a six wheeled Rover, part of the 2024 City Space range. The set adheres to the established colour palette of the 2024 LEGO City Space Theme: Black and white, with reddish orange and sand blue  highlights, as well as the opalescence purple once again being used as the power supply McGuffin, providing a reason for our explorers to be out… well surveying, exploring, and in other sets, mining.

A further look through the elements reveals another windscreen element recoloured in the new Transparent Black. This time its the 10x6x4 – having debuted as the colour formerly known as Transparent Black, back in world City, it has lived a life of Superheroics, as well as appearing in ExoForce, Mars Mission, and Space Police III (to say nothing of its role in the top of the booster in 10213/10231 Shuttle Adventure/Shuttle Expedition. Taking a glance through the entire City Space range, Every set appears to introduce a newly recoloured transparent element. I do, however, dislike the way that the new Transparent black is rendered in online images: it is much more darker than it appears on the box. But I digress.

The new Reddish orange colour brings us a few rails and plates and tiles, as well as the technic steering wheel  – it has been appearing in various places over the years – mainly as a steering wheel in Racers, Technic and Creator Expert /Icons sets, but also in the occasional random Star wars sets. 

We have a new white ‘Airplane rear with cutout’ element in white: making its debut in CITY this year, it also appears in the new 60413 Fire Plane  – this 6x8x3 element provides a clean 45º angle upwards towards the rear. We will see more about this shortly.

Finally, the returning highlight for old school space fans is the return of 2515 54mm Plastic wheel, that debuted back in 1989’s Space Police Spy Trek 1/Space Police Prowler.

This appeared throughout the 90’s space themes and then all but vanished from black – coming back for half a dozen sets between 2015 and 2020. It just felt like yesterday, until I realised that kids born back then are only about a year off starting school. This wheel style was instrumental in defining the style of rovers in Space Police, Space Police II; Blacktron II and M-Tron.

Minifigures

Finally lets take a look at the mini figures. Let’s start with the humans:

The colour coding of different roles continues: Azure referring to the Driver, while scientists are in Green.

Our driver is an unshaven male, with a raised eyebrow. The scientist is an older woman. – a few wrinkles apparent around the eyes and cheeks. She maintains the swept eyelashes of a feminine coded head, while her lips have the very faintest colour to them: this is a far more practical look for space space explorer, particularly when compared with Dr Kelvin’s bright lipstick and hoop earrings back in Ice Planet 2002. Or indeed, this might be Dr Kelvin, 30 years on. Its a bit hard to work out exactly when ‘City Space’ is set. This appears consistent with the other female mini figures we have seen so far in our previous 2024 LEGO City Space reviews.

We also have some new aliens – a slimmer, finer, and more fiddly to build version of the ones we saw back in the 4+ set. Set upon an inverted Disney Princess coronet(although originating in Angry Birds, back in 2016), recoloured bright yellowish green these aliens feature a similar face to that seen in 60429, but printed onto a min figure head rather than a dome element. These aliens stand up on their own, easily enough, but are more susceptible to table bumps than the 2×2 version.

The build

We start with a small vignette of life on our unknown alien world. Set on a 10 stud wide octagon. Our scientist has a robust camera, formed with a 1x1x2/3 white brick over the standard camera – appearing for the first time in white, while a small remote camera drone follows along. The small remote droid is a simple but clever example of the use of microscale techniques in this type of build. The aliens bathe in their pools, relishing the early days of an emerging life form. An opalescent crystal might just be what the explorers are searching for.

We start off the rover with the chassis frame, incorporating the new ‘aircraft rear’ element at one end, and a pair of axles at the other.  Reddish orange plates add to the trim along the side. 

We build up the walls of the cabin, adding some detail for the cabin as we go along.  It is apparent that there is scope to sit two mini figures in the rover, and the use of the dividing panels means that it might be appropriate to put your minidolls in the drivers seat. Or the Passenger seat. Or Both.

We construct the rear wheel unit: two sets of seesawing assemblies, allowing Pairs of wheels to suit the terrain independently. Our wheel assemblies involve taking a disc and steering wheel, and placing them inside the ‘wrong’ side of the wheels (as our 1990s indoctrination would have us think). 

The front forks are attached to the traditional Technic spring suspension, this time in Black and pearl gold. Finally, we add the roofing, with a little greebling along the way: the logo tile and orange railing on the roof, while we add a camera and spotlights to the roof to the windscreen. A fencing foil in pearl silver serves as an antenna, and the inevitable battery packs are attached to the sides of the vehicle. You can see that the suspension is effective. With the wheels hugging the ground whatever the terrain.

Some thoughts

Minidoll compatible:

The vehicle is a great size, and really zoomable (the ground based equivalent of swooshable). Removing the roof gives good access to the cabin, and you can fit two passengers, either minifigures or minidolls, inside, thanks to the 1×2 split panel in the foot wells. Figures are accomodated despite backpacks.

Power Cells

The set demonstrates the ongoing story element of the crystals, as well as some fairly benign aliens. Once again, the vehicle has the standard power unit attached. I wonder what would happen if the aliens were to claim them?

I feel the set offers reasonable value for the price: there is great play value. It looks cool, and feels great to zoom.The two minifigures, as well as the drone and alien landscape offer some great play potential beyond zooming the car around.

While not offering formal laboratory space, this rover has some storage in the rear compartment, accomodating the accessories and drone. This distinguishes it from some of the early 6 wheel rovers which were designed for surveying and experimentation. This one appears more designed to explore a benign environment at a reasonable pace, or to be able to escape any catastrophe that might befall you on your travels…terribly quickly!

In conclusion:

Its great to see old elements reborn after years away, and current elements recoloured, providing the new colour trim, giving the sets a fresh look, much as Classic Space had back in 1979.  While it has been done in the past, turning those big wheels inside remains an inspired way to bring back a nostalgic element, as well as reintroduce a great new look for the wheels. It is only now that I realise there were no stickers to apply in this set: all decorated elements were printed. 

I love the fact that you can integrate minidolls in this set. If you have the Friends set 42605 Mars Space Base and Rocket, you should be able to take your minidolls comfortably into the rover and heading off to explore the planet.

This set has great playability, and it becomes apparent that there are good reasons that the Goode Olde Space Baseplates are no longer produced: you can barely park this rover on a single 32×32 baseplate if you tried. At 17 x 32 studs, it is much larger than some of those earlier rovers. You would certainly be looking to create a wider diorama to display it on. And if I was doing that, I would want to be able to define the shape of the planet completely.

If you are looking for a space rover type vehicle, this is a good one: reasonably priced, minifigures, aliens, mystery, great suspension and cabin accomodation. Even better for being able to accomodate mindolls as well as minifigures. While there are no stickers, and the set makes use of multiple printed elements shared with other sets already reviewed, I wonder if a little more decoration might have been appropriate, although it is in keeping with the minimalist lines of the theme. I am happy to give this set 4 out of 5 Arbitrary Praise units.

Set 60431 Space Explorer Rover and Alien Life  has 311 pieces and is priced at $AUD49.99/$USD34.99/€29.99/£24.99. It is now available world wide through LEGO.com, but seems to be delayed hitting the shelves with most general retailers in Australia. If you can’t wait, consider using this affiliate link to your local online store.

What is your favourite Space Rover from over the years? What do you think of this one? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Until Next Time,

Play Well!