Jumboshrmp

I have to disagree with you there. I understand that is your opinion, but I have been really enjoying ODST. I agree that Bungie always has really good games, and I don't think that this one is any different. I have not finished the campaign yet, but I enjoy the differences from the design of the past Halo games, which made the experience feel new to me. I was a bit dissapointed with the cutscenes involving actual people's faces. In particular, that ugly chick in the beginning that all of the soldiers seem to find attractive. The back of her head looked Nintendo 64ish. Other than that, I'd say the cutscenes (visual-wise) are a little better than Halo 3, but nowhere near the pre-rendered cutscenes of Halo Wars. Firefight is fun, and I enjoy being able to use any 4 letter word that the censors don't block for my service tag. The word filters are pretty smart, not only is BOOB blocked, but so is B00B, B008, and so on. The reason I think that this game is a good value is because you basically get two games. The second disc, with the Halo 3 Multiplayer experience, makes this a great value for someone who has never played Halo 3 online (IMO the best online game ever).

What's wrong with vertical loop, dive loop/immelman, zero G roll, cobra roll, double flat spins OR vertical loop, then flat spin? Thats just about every B&M there. Being a Florida person, almost every major coaster I have been on was a B&M. Should B&M do a launch? Definitely. If any company has the ability to make a reliable launch, they will. I know they wouldn't put one on a ride unless they knew it would work.

It's delayed because Universal wants to put some theming in before opening it to the public I wonder how that giant banner will really look.

I really wonder if windy conditions could valley the train during a normal test. My guess is, most likely, they were doing an e-stop test in the windy conditions, where the train is brought to a full stop on the MCBR and has to complete the remaining bit of the circuit at a much slower speed. I wonder if they had the water dummies in when this happened. Also, about the rings. It's really funny how all this hype is being built up about what is (in my opinion) a very insignificant part of the ride. What if there are no rings? What if the concept art is just a concept? If all concept art was true, then sheikra would be a vekoma right now

I clicked on the picture in the article and it brought up a picture gallery full of amusement park accidents that have happened. There would be a short sentence describing the accident, with a slightly related picture to go along with it. This one was just stupid: "The mother of a 2-year-old girl was forced to drop her daughter to people waiting 30 feet below when they were stranded on the Crazy Bus kiddie ride at a carnival in Florida in early October. The child was not injured." So you're telling me you get stuck on a ride and the best idea you can come up with is throwing your child off the ride 30 feet below to "safety"? The child was not injured but I feel bad for the child either way for having a stupid mom.

When I first saw that triangle shaped entrance, it looked so hilariously boring. Now that they've added the simple steel arches to it, it looks like some fancy ancient architecture. Not only am I excited about the ride, I am almost more excited about the Potter themed area. One thing I love about IOA is if I don't feel like riding I can still walk around the circle several times and have a great time. Especially in the lost continent area around the fountain. Universal has some really immersive areas inside IOA. I'm also a HUGE Harry potter fan.

I would be afraid of floating off into space if I used a trampoline on the moon.

If you are referring to the NoLimits video that was posted a few pages back, then just because the train slows down a lot in that video doesn't mean it is going to on the real thing. When you add a brake segment in NoLimits, by default there is a certain amount of speed that is trimmed off of the train. If the creator of that track didn't change those numbers, then the brake is going to grab the train a little bit. I think this ride will have much less trimming then you see in that video, or possibly none at all. Of course, there is no way we can tell until it opens, but I doubt that video is 100% accurate. I actually think this coaster is looking even better than it did in the concept art, which isn't something that happens often. I am looking forward to walking around Universal's streets and seeing a coaster. Now that I'm seeing what this coaster is, I can't believe this thread is only 29 pages, and the manta thread is 100 pages long! I'm a B&M fan, but since I live in florida it's going to be nice to ride a decent coaster that isn't one. Sure, there are some, but more is better

I'm so glad someone else went to the broward county fair! Just curious, why was Starship 3000 evil? It, along with every other ride there made me feel queasy that day, which is weird, because I have been on all of these rides before, and didn't feel sick at all, no matter what I've eaten before. And I'm glad that someone else hates the carnies who try and get you to play their games. I always ignore them, and get whoever else is with me to do the same. It pisses them off so much when you walk past them and ignore them. One guy actually whistled to get my attention and I kept walking past, never made eye contact with him, but I told him next time to please treat me like a human, not a dog. Early in the day before any of the rides were open, one of the game carnies came up to me and said "here, play this game, I'll let you have a free try, and you only pay if you win." I had no interest in playing the game but I decided I'd be nice and try the game. I missed, and he gave me another try. This time I hit a balloon and he said that I won and I had to give him $5 and pick a prize. I said "that's alright, I'm not interested, I was just playing for fun", and he told me I had to pay $5 because I just won the game, and the rules said you pay if you win. But he came up to me and the first thing he told me was that he was letting me have a free try. I don't care if he said pay if you win. So we started arguing, and he was sure he was going to get me to pay, convincing me that I had broken the rules. Then he started telling me that I played and now I needed to pay to cover the cost of the balloon I just popped. He kept repeating "give me five dollars and tell me what prize you want". There were some nice big prizes up top, but then I realized there was no way I wanted to carry around something that big for 12 hours. Not only that, I was sure he was going to take my $5, give me some crappy little prize and then tell me to play again to trade up for something bigger. I asked if I would be able to pick any prize for $5, and he (without answering) just told me to give him $5 and tell him what prize I wanted. I asked him again (he repeated what he already said) and after the third time I told him to just answer the damn question. He refused to answer. I said I wasn't going to pay because he tricked me, and he said "No, you tricked yourself." That doesn't even make sense. He told me me I needed to pay for the balloon I popped, and I said he'll be able to buy another balloon with another sucker's money if he really wants one so bad. He repeated "give me $5 and pick a prize" again, and I began to walk off. As I was walking off he said "ok, pay $10 and you can get any prize you want" I just said "I dont want any stuffed animals that have been traveling around florida in a trailer full of carnies for months anyway" and he called me a word I can't use on this forum. They do anything to get you to come over and just "try" their game for free. Most people would have thought they were the ones who were wrong, and they would have given him $5, and found out that they could have some crappy little prize, or try another "free" game and pay another $5 to get one from the next size up. I've seen this happen to people, and I've gotten other people to stop playing. It's even worse when I'm with my friend (who happens to be a girl), because they usually assume we're dating and that they can pressure me into winning her some prize. Now, I have no problem with buying stuff like this for her, but I hate carnival games, and I would NEVER play one. "How would you like to win that nice young lady a prize?" I just walked past the guy without even looking at him and he said "what, are you mad at her?", and when I didn't respond to that, he got annoyed, since that get 99% of the people to at least say something. I used to pretend I'm on the phone when I walk through the games area, but now it's more fun to have them know that you can hear them, and are purposely ignoring them and watch get frustrated. There was a game where you throw baseballs and get them into a bucket, and the dude there said "hey, try this game and win ...whatever" This was already after my experience with the darts and balloons guy. I looked at him, and he tossed the ball to me. For most people, it;s second nature to catch the ball. Then, most people would walk up and hand it to them, giving them plenty of time to try and get you to play. I purposely missed it, let it land on the ground and roll away and I just kept walking. I turned around and saw the guy chasing it down the midway. What an awesome feeling.

This would be so great! I have the RSS feed in my iTunes, but all of the older weekend review shows are grayed out and undownloadable. I still have a CD with the first 4 episodes of In The Loop that I ever listened to, on the same disc that has the first 6 episodes of Coasterradio. Those four ITL shows remind me of the golden age of roller coaster podcasting, back in 2005. I remember searching for roller coaster podcasts on google (this was before iTunes even had podcasts) and two came up, Coasterradio and In the Loop. I actually remember man on the midway, and the rumor alert siren, and all the other inside jokes that still come up today. If anything, I think the new show is even more crazy than weekend review, and I don't think I ever heard any F bombs on weekend review. I think the most inappropriate episodes were the ones with robb and the ladies night episodes. Just like coasterradio.com still has their episodes online, Weekend Review should be immortalized! Actually, now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure In the Loop was where I first heard of Theme Park Review. Kind of funny how that worked out.

If I was listening to the show live that day I would have texted Ryan at the same time everyone else was because that would have been funny, but hearing it two days later I'll just leave him alone. Besides, I don't even use texting that much, so every text I send or recieve costs 15 cents, and since I only send and receive about 25 texts a month, it's cheaper than including texting in my plan. I can't imagine how much it would cost me if Robb gave out my cell number on in the loop! Ryan, how many texts have you received because of this? I really wish I had read about Robb being on the podcast ahead of time. I usually listen to the show live and participate in the chat, but I was decorating my house for christmas. I would have put that off until the next day if I knew Robb would be on the podcast. Even my user title is a quote from one of the first times that Robb was on In the Loop!

Wow, it's so weird being able to see that much of dueling dragons. I'm really excited about this project, I am hoping for just something interesting!

Looks like a bunch of head choppers around the pretzel loop. This looks like tons of fun to ride, definitely my type of coaster. Lovin the colors, and I'm so excited to get to see the finished product, especially the theming.

I think it's too soon to tell

Well how many inverted coasters out there start out with a curving drop and then a vertical loop? Just about all of them.

You couldn't get any translators to work? Here's what google's translator gave me: they are talking about the harry potter ride, which is supposedly rumored to be a robo coaster.

Looks like an awesome layout! They need to get a new person to draw that out though.... Now that I see the entire lift and first drop is complete, the construction area appears much larger than I originally thought it was. I think I am going to love this coaster, because I prefer a coaster that is very smooth, and offers disorienting sensations and airtime, rather than a coaster that has tons of positive G force on every inversion that kills the sensation of being upside down. I do enjoy g force in helixes and other inversions designed to do nothing but create that force, so the pretzel loop should be awesome, particularly the part where you're diving headfirst to the ground. Before the entire lift was constructed the coaster didn't look like it was going to be very high at all based on the highest support. But now that it's completed finally it looks like a good size ride.

I agree with what one of the posters said on the previous page. Diamondback's unusual lift supports are most likely the way they are so they can clear nearby buildings. Another example of this is Manta's second highest lift support. It is bent in a very awkward position to avoid being placed in the middle of a gift shop: I took this picture on October 25th:

Those Dueling Dragons shirts are awesome! Why couldn't they have those last year? I love coaster shirts that actually show the coaster itself, and mega bonus points if it's done right, like these are. (A good example of bad ride artwork is Sheikra's vekoma/arrow style track on the shirts.)

My school definitely picked the wrong week to have the Sea World trip. I was there just last saturday. I can't believe how much has changed in ONE week!

Awesome, thanks for the link! I'm looking forward to pictures from the sky tower this week! I like that it's going over that pathway. Kraken is a great coaster, but one thing I don't like about it is that the major parts of the coaster aren't near any pathways. I like coasters like Sheikra, where the track is all located close to pathways. It looks like this will be a ride like that.

It's not an illusion at all. That's just the support where the track curves toward it's first drop. That will be the coasters highest point. I don't know why that never came to mind. I was trying to figure it out for the last few days and as soon as I scrolled below your post I would have figured it out if you hadn't said it. No problem. They aren't the greatest since I'm using my cell phone during a lunch break, but least its easy to keep up to date As for the layout, I did get to see it and I was pleasantly surprised with it. The ending, especially, looks fun and very much interacts with the entire area. - Todd I am curious to know how you got to see the layout, but I would still like to keep it a secret. I'm having a blast not knowing what each update is going to look like, and especially not knowing for sure what the 4 inversions are. I'm pretty sure that it is a safe bet that it will be pretzel loop, flat spin, and zero G roll, or something like that, but I don't want to know if I'm correct, and I'm going to love trying to figure out what stuff is as it goes up.

Wow! I hope someone posts pictures soon, I've been refreshing this thread several times a day, hooray for following coaster construction!

Magic Kingdom Epcot Disney's Hollywood Studios Animal Kingdom Boomers in Dania Beach Sea World Orlando That's it, haha. I had fun though.

I had a blast at Sea World today. I may or may not post a trip report tomorrow, if I do I will post even more Manta pics and link to the TR here. Click the little pictures, each one is mega high res. Look at these first two pictures. Very steep lift, and just like Diamondback, it really looks like there is no way that track could possibly be at the right angle to come even close to the top support. It may look like just the angle the picture was taken at, but when I saw it in person today, no matter where you stand it looks like that. Obviously it will clear the supports just fine, they know what they are doing, but it's such a weird illusion. I wonder how tall it will look when it's topped off. It's only 10 feet shorter than Kraken, a distance that should hardly be noticeable from the ground. But it looks really really short. The 45 degree lift really messes with your sense of perspective. Manta from the side: From the front of the park: The lift hill from the sky tower. The construction area from the top of the sky tower. Another angle to show the bizarre steep lift that seems like it won't clear the tallest support. And Manta's lift hill from Kraken! Today I met a girl who's home park is Alton Towers, and a guy in his 30's from the Florida Coaster Club. Both were really cool people. I also heard a guy on the bus (this was a school trip) telling people that Cedar Point has 30 coasters, and that Hydra is a clone of Medusa.