Samuel

Actually, I believe that rendering is an old one from Badnitrus, which later became Virtual Image Productions. You can see that some other minor things are off in the layout, too. Before NL2 and such, those kinds of renderings were seriously impressive and drooled over by the coaster community.

I don't know if I'm late to the party, but there are some really cool rotational and iso-perspective tools that you can now use on Google to check out the park! I'm really having fun with this. The coasters give off a 3-D effect, too -- kind of a merging between the visuals of Maps and Earth. The look is inspiring my early wishlist for RCT 5 or Planet Coaster II.

I'm a huge Intamin and flume fan, but STR was a puzzling stinker that totally overcooked a perfectly fine formula for what a flume should be: - The drop sequence seemed to be in the wrong order - The seats and floors of the cars often returned to the station in a waterlogged & nasty state - Way too much dull, ground-level meandering at 2 mph - Way too much wetness for a flume, made worse by the fact that the "let's get soaked" role was already covered by two other nearby water rides - The trains had none of the zany intimacy that you get from riding in a log with your group - Felt like a "hot dog" composite of spare parts borrowed from Intamin's coasters, while never capturing the fun or feel of a flume - Maintenance woes and lengthy closures - The accident In addition, those chunks of real estate between the water, Frontier Town, & Millennium Isle are too valuable for a flume that I think was a notch below Whitewater Landing. I've heard nothing but good things about Chiapas, so it seems like Intamin has really improved on its flume technology, but they've had some hiccups in the water rides department, for sure. Again, I still love Intamin. We all know who built the best rides in the park.

I thoroughly agree, although I'll add with comical reflection that I remember the collective letdown when the layout was leaked. There were pages across multiple boards delivering the sentiment, "Oh no, surely that's not all it's going to be. No way. Hershey wouldn't build all this hype and then just build that. That leak is probably a red herring..." Although the disparity in size between the first hill and the rest of the layout should have clued us into the notion that this ride would be bonkers, very few people thought so initially from a glance at the layout. The insanity throughout the layout of this coaster is why you can't always believe the polls .

Kumba, the archtype B&M looper, is in my books the best element-to-element flowing coaster out there. Like Magnum, it's served as inspiration for a bunch of coasters that followed, yet still may be first in its class. From a business perspective, the Vekoma boomerang & SLC. I have to give credit where it's due, these things have sold like hotcakes for a long time. Vekoma found a niche selling parks on small footprints, reasonable costs, & simple installation when other manufacturers were increasing coaster scale & sprawl. Ehh-to-UUGGHH riding experience aside, that's two very twisty layouts that parks bought into like there's no tomorrow. Coney Island/Luna Park Cyclone! Hey, this is 1927 we're talking about, and granddad's layout has had plenty of knock-offs. A very solid (albeit rickety), jam-packed mix of hills and turnarounds. Just as it seems to be settling into a hilly formula later in the course, I love how it throws in that little speed bunny hop. The turnarounds bookend a visual-evenness that's very appealing, the prototypical design that you'd get if you asked someone to doodle you a good-looking wooden coaster. At Kennywood, the woodies and Phantom all have great layouts. Phantom is the big one, but Pippin's conversion to Thunderbolt, Jack Rabbit's double-dip, and Racer's single track all deserve layout appreciation. Nemesis -- one marvel of a layout, and perhaps my favorite. That whole ride has been given fantastic mythology and love by Alton Towers, but a big part of the legacy is that B&M just knocked it out of the park. Any time in RCT where the game would toss in construction height restrictions, I'd think to myself, "Ah nuts, well I hope they put the B&M invert in this scenario so I can just make Nemesis again." And put me down for one more vote for RMC. I always love to see what kinds of new layouts and conversions they'll cook up next.

Atari is listening the community, but it comes off like children barking directions at a substitute bus driver who doesn't know the neighborhood and keeps making wrong turns. With a tough coaster editor, strange physics, difficulty in finding the right identity & tone, competition from Frontier, and big delays, this game has become gum stuck in Atari's hair. I've had serious doubts about many aspects of this game and its development for a long time (still do), but I didn't mind those flat rides. I look around social media and a lot of people are saying that those flats look pretty good. The physics aren't perfect, but I think the lighting is very nice and shows a flair for detail that an enthusiast would appreciate. Still, it looks to me like community trust in Atari has seriously deteriorated. In November, some people thought that tweaking the coaster editor would be the only fix required, and now it seems like Atari can't show a shrub without triggering the community gag reflex. Hopeful players have migrated from the benefit to the doubt, especially since seeing Frontier's development on Planet Coaster. Aside from anything Frontier has done, back when Atari showed off those high-end coaster stations and fine-textured benches, I expressed concern that the developers were misinterpreting a call for better graphics to mean many rigid "set pieces" that were pretty, yet robbed the players of the chance to be creative. That recent mosaic snapshot reinforces my doubt -- it looks like a lot of set pieces arranged to give an impression of a lot going on, but it doesn't look capable of offering depth or customization. Also, I don't know what the crest of that coaster-thing is supposed to be in the right-hand corner. Eek. Good luck to Atari. I seriously don't root for this game to flounder, and I hope the team can pull together a competent final release.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-10-09/weather-channels-web-mobile-growth-leads-to-advertising-insights The Weather Channel's editor-in-chief & president represent the "hit our targets/forget the point" ethos that's seen a lot of businesses and websites sacrifice integrity for a shot at advertising revenue. To put it in coaster terms, The Weather Channel has gone Six Flags. The TV channel went in the direction of reality TV, and the website's writers churn out click-bait articles with zero research, depth, concern for credibility, or desire to tell you about the weather. I understand that businesses can benefit from a bit of advertising, but it can be done appropriately. For people at The Weather Channel to be proud of the fact that it's trying to become an addictive TMZ seizure of junk consumption? Gross. I don't use The Weather Channel at all anymore for this reason, and my bored aunt now uses it to see if clouds resemble any celebrities and to peruse cute cats stuck in buckets. We shouldn't be so surprised that the list is garbage. I've also seen image links of various coasters with blatantly misleading titles like, "You'll never guess how many people died!" Zero integrity.

Although Gatekeeper's rollover drop is a slightly larger inversion, VR's hulking immelmann looks very impressive jutting out toward the midway. I've wondered if there would ever be a standard B&M multi-looper layout raised to hyper scale, but I can clearly see how much space that would demand in any park! Even if someone prefers different kinds of elements, these jumbo-sized B&M inversions are still a marvel to see in person. I love the grace and scale.

You mean like CP did with the dive coaster concept 18 years after Oblivion? I guess we'll see Iron Mean Streak in 2029 Hah yeah, the dive coaster and an RMC Mean Streak might seem overripe by now, but in fairness to Mossed, Cedar Point has followed that format for a long time. Watch Paramount and Six Flags be the early adopters of coaster technologies, and then swoop in with steroid versions of various styles. Cedar Point didn't do firsts like Batman the Ride, Vortex, Gardaland's Raptor, Oblivion, Xcelerator, Linear Gale, or Detonator at WoF --> a lot of CP's famous records have more to do with scale than with first-to-market status.

There is Time Warp, the holdover Zamperla flyer from the Paramount days at Canada's Wonderland. After DP taking Stinger, Possessed, & Demon Drop...hold your breath!

I'm not sure if the seat belts have changed on it, but Jack Rabbit at Kennywood has (or had) tiny spaghetti strap belts that stretched across both riders and were fastened loosely like a dog leash. The airtime on that double-dip can be so nuts that I never could figure how those tiny straps would ever really hold someone in the seat. When I was a kid, I would ride with one of my parents and I remember the strap stretching out for their bodies to the extent that I could probably just stand up and climb out of the ride. It was about as close to having nothing there as it gets. The ride was always safe and great fun, but the airtime when I was younger hovered right on that "Never in America/this day and age!" edge. That's about as far as I'd go!

- The first thing I thought of was that documentary "x-number of coasters in 24 hours" where a group tried to break the record by traveling around California parks. The group would jump on the rides during operating hours; needless to say, the GP didn't appreciate it. The riders were heavily heckled and booed on Medusa at SFDK at Demon at CGA, and I remember feeling embarrassed for them while I watched the show! - It happens to plenty of people, but I've been the guy with the stuck restraint on numerous occasions. As the team of ride operators begin to attend to the restraint, the crowd starts looking at me impatiently as if the delay was my decision. - Occasionally, there are simply so many rowdy kids and carny Walmart adults in a park that I wonder where members of normal society have gone. I've waited in lines where I feel like everyone either came from a rehab clinic waiting room, juvenile hall, or a babysitting center. I'm in this hobby for life, and it always puzzled me that a lot of my friends just see parks as something that you do as a kid, skip 20 years, and then take your own kids. I've often wished that there were more adults who simply enjoyed going to parks. There shouldn't be a stigma there, but I know people who gawk at the notion that I love to visit amusement parks, as though it's an embarrassing hobby. I disagree, but I can't deny that sometimes I do feel like the only non-parent, non-"Walmart folk" adult in a park for miles around.

There are some classics like Mario that I can't refute in terms of "all time," but my personal favorites are as follows: 1) Chrono Trigger 2) Ocarina of Time 3) Link to the Past 4) Skyrim 5) Mario RPG 6) FFVII 7) Bioshock 8) Arkham Asylum 9) Mega Man 2 10) Fallout New Vegas I'd love to just cram 30 or so games into my top ten! There are also games like Tecmo Super Bowl, RBI Baseball, and RCT 2 that have given me countless hours of fun, as well. With no Internet communities back in the day, I feel lucky that I just naturally gravitated toward RPGs and some of the most well-regarded games ever made. I picked up Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger as blind buys from a computer store in a local mall!

I'm a little bit foggy on the specific order, but it was either Raptor or Vortex at Carowinds. At the time, Raptor immediately became my #1 coaster. It's held up over the years, but seemed so ahead of its time in a day and age when Arrow reigned. I was blown away by its smoothness, pacing, and variety of elements. I remember waiting at least two hours for Vortex, and just about everybody was sweaty with anticipation. I'd hear, "Whoa, whoa, you stand in that loop? No way -- nuh-uh! I ain't riding that!" The roar also added a sense of intimidation. With rides like Fury today, it's funny how the formerly mighty Vortex now seems more like a family ride.

Some very nice train art at :30! I'm glad to see the flag for attention to real-world authenticity flying high from Frontier. There's tremendous potential with PLC, and I've liked everything I've seen so far. When I saw the fluidity of the shots and one employee's Alienware computer, however, it reminded me that I need to target a PC upgrade in the near future!

Ah, I got a real kick out of seeing this come to fruition so quickly! The concept is a little quirky, but I think it could be another fun arrow in the quiver of POV presentation. I hope it's being received well enough on the YouTube post -- I saw a few puzzled comments, but it seems like plenty of thumbs-ups are happening, too. There are lots of coasters with neat layouts that I think would be fun to see through this unique perspective. If it ends up not gaining as much traction as you'd hope, Robb, I for one would pay cash on the nail for a DVD or download akin to "Coasters in the Raw - Reversed."

A few YouTube users have taken some of the official reverse POVs from Cedar Point (I don't know if they needed/had permission to do this, so I'm not giving them backlinks here) and did some tinkering so that they play backwards. While it's still the reverse POV, you get the illusion that the camera is front-facing and that the train is moving forward through the circuit in the reverse order. While it's an editing parlor trick, I was totally intrigued. It's very interesting to see the trains approach and maneuver elements in the reverse order. I haven't seen more than a couple of YouTube videos do this, and I haven't seen any discussion of the concept here. I don't know how complicated it is to pull off the edit, or if there are other reasons why it hasn't been more widely explored. Is it something that we may see with future POVs?

I agree with you. In addition to the downtime, the concept animation for PP's splash never matched reality. The water level/splash didn't feel quite right, with the boats glide-hopping over the water and then suddenly nose-dunking to a sudden crawl. Speaking of PP, I just remembered Perilous Plunge, another non-success story. All the while, I was actually coming here to post Shoot the Rapids, another Intamin water ride. I could build a case on maintenance/accident/delay issues alone, but my chief disappointment is that the ride is somehow significantly less fun than many older flumes, including the one that left for Maverick. Two average drops, with the second being less climactic than the first, broken up by a multi-minute, 2 mph meandering at ground level. The layout feels backwards and has worse pacing than many Arrow flumes. If it ain't broken, don't fix it: the flume formula got overthought and overcooked here. The trains and riders get waterlogged, the restraints feel excessive for what the ride is, and it's unfortunately a ride I've come to avoid. I think flumes should be the the light-intermediary amount of wetness alternative to splashdown and rapids rides, but StR can drench like the other two water rides in the same area. I always thought that its real estate in the park should have gone to any number of other attractions. Chiapas at Phantasialand, a newer Intamin flume, looks impressive and much more refined: a true modern flume. The modernity that went into StR only seems to have made it needlessly complicated and confused its identity.

Lightning Racer -- It doesn't totally excel in any one g-force category, but I'm always giggling like a schoolgirl throughout the course. It's smooth, hoppy, and visually appealing. The bouncy, weaving stretch through the tunnel has tremendous pacing, and the ride as a whole is excellent. LR is one coaster I would NEVER want RMC to touch. Beast -- Even with the magnetic brakes and passe straight sections of track, I giggle like a schoolgirl here as well. Night rides are still incomparable, and even a slightly neutered helix still rips. Like Magnum, some people want to topple the legacy of the Beast in favor of newer stuff, but I think these imprecise "old school" layouts add character. I also enjoy the suspenseful ambiance of slowly ticking up the lift hills on Beast, smelling the grease and wood, looking out toward the woods, and hearing that old soundtrack play through the speakers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aYJTcS4d_c At 1:41, that's me on X/X2. If I'm sitting in an outside seat, something always wants to slip out during the raven turns. I try to keep one hand on my pants pocket during those elements.

Maybe my perception would be different today, but I recall the face-ripping speed and simultaneous head banging on the swooping base of the original Steel Phantom's second hill to be insane. Awesome thrills and horrific pain in equal measure. The original X felt like a car accident. The seat rotations were tremendously clunky, and the whole course was intense in a "square wheels" sort of way. The intensity of SkyRush, combined with the vulnerability felt in those wing seats, make it nuts. i305 is another good mention for pouring on the positive forces, but SkyRush hits hard in every sense: buck nutty positive, negative, and lateral g-forces. I don't know why the laterals aren't discussed more...the mini-Stengel curve and s-curve have literally dumped my upper body from one side of the seat to the other. Those two elements are the only ones where I've felt the need to hold on in order to simply keep myself upright. I don't know how anyone goes a full lap with their hands up without getting rag-dolled. I love it! The pre-trim days of Mantis were heavy with positive g's. Nothing like numb legs, headbanging, and that plastered-to-the-wall Rotor effect! Graying out in the incline loop wasn't uncommon for me. I didn't flat-out hate the coaster, but I'm glad to see the conversion to Rougarou.

I love the view from the front of inverts and flyers, but I've found the back seat to be much more intense in general despite the terrible view. * I love the back on B&M inverts. I want as much oomph and snappiness as I can get on them, and the backseats usually deliver. Despite the limited view, there's something that I oddly enjoy about looking at the backside of the older B&M invert trains...the seats, wheel caps, and vertical seat support columns always looked sharp to me, & I enjoy seeing the snaking contour of the train in front of me. * There are some coasters like Phantom's Revenge, Millennium Force, and the B&M hypers, where there's so much more wind and sensation of speed sitting in the front as compared to any other row. When that's the case, I usually prefer the front. Of course, I love a good backseat yank (hey, who doesn't love a good backseat yank?). Usually I just read the line or choose what I'm in the mood for at that moment. * With woodies and clunky steel coasters that have questionable smoothness, I'll usually head toward the front of the train to get a feel for how a coaster is running before trying out the back.

On Phantom's Revenge, I would make the double-down a single, blissful airtime drop. The bunny hop under the station that precedes it is airtime heaven...a long, sustained mix of floater/ejector with a gentle return to your seat. The double-down is fun, but there's a bit of back thwacking there, as well. The brief leveling always felt to me like an interruption of what should have been another glorious ejector-float into the right-hand turnaround. It's still a stellar coaster, but that slight modification would make me drool like Homer.

To the notion that VR doesn't live up to the legacy of the park...(1) I think the subtext is that some people just want a manufacturer change away from B&M (even though, as has often been said, dive machines tend to deliver), & (2) these aren't the days of the coaster wars anymore. CP vs. SFWoA/PKI/KW + SFMM: The WWIII of amusement parks, & what a time to be alive as coaster fans! There were so many competitive ingredients, new technologies, improved engineering, fights for bragging rights, and a decent economy (for a time) working together. "Bigger and better" was simply out there for the purchasing. The economy has now recovered a bit, but this is a post-coaster-war era overall, & a post-Kinzel era for Cedar Fair. Cedar Point can only push so many more legitimate record-setting boundaries, let alone coaster types. Settling in the 170-230 ft/70-80 mph range still speaks to undeniable large scale, the park snagging a few categorical world records, and getting a hit coaster. I think that's the formula we're going to continue to see for CP's major coaster additions. Even with an RMC Mean Streak, I'd bet on roughly 185 ft and 70-75 mph. I know we all want the creativity of coasters to progress over time, and I think they have in many ways. We see smaller footprint coasters. We see weirder coasters. We see more creative launched coasters. Euro Fighters. RMC. The bars of innovation are still being raised, but the benefits are now spread around so that more small parks and those with spacial/budgetary limitations can get great rides, too. For the big coaster wars parks, it gets tougher to keep being innovative while beating the "bigger and badder" drum when they already have great coaster collections, and when manufacturers are tapping plenty of business with parks that aren't necessarily looking to break world records. Cedar Point needs people pleasers and people munchers, with some record-setting cherries on top. The GP seems to love Gatekeeper and they're going to love VR, too. The few hundred niche nerds (if that) around the world who might say "I'm not going back to that park with 17 coasters until they build what I want" are only screwing themselves by turning a hobby that should be fun into a party-pooping, armchair GM list of demands that will never be actualized.

Good-looking GCI! I wasn't all that thrilled with the look of the first out-run...things are indeed drawn out & for whatever reason GCI seems to deliver less airtime than appearances would suggest, but my eyes were opened in the second half with the clever use of terrain. It looks like it could be one of those rides that gets better as it goes on, and it really seems to be ripping in that final stretch. By the end of the POV, I really wanted to ride this!