H2H7 / [H2H7 Round 3 Match 1] - Itallian Stallions vs Manual Laborers

then you'd better ask pierrot cuz he did all the work in jerusalem :-p

 

I voted for the labourers btw, I just can't get past the impressiveness of the park

Looks like the first tight match of the season, at last. 19 against 18 now! Go Stallions!

^yeah both have equally awesome strong points this is gonna be really close I think.

Nice matchup, Laborers and Stallions! This is a real tough one just like the Laborers vs Robbers last match. But I think neither parks reach the quality of World's Fair or Bermuda.

 

Meizhou Rising:

 

The opening on this park was perfect. Awesome first impression with those majestic towers on the entrance bridge, the swinger ride over the cliff and the timed eel just seconds after opening!

 

The bridge with its towers is truly badass. Something Freerider would do. Good shape and proportions! However I must say that this building was the best one in the whole park and from there on none of the other buildings came equal to it in quality.  You did follow the same construction as on the towers (rims on the rooves etc.) but it mostly didn't work that much. The archy felt a little repetetive and busy, especially in the center where the towers crossed the view on the town.

 

Overall the setting was really interesting but the story behind it was not told well enogh. Where did the water come from? It seemed like the people arranged with it (building wooden bridges) but thats all I could tell.

 

From the coasters I only liked the launched one. It was executed really well. Very nice theming and tracklayering in that corner (although I did not understand the lava). The rapids there didn't do much as others already have said. The dive machine was boring, the colours seemed like 'let's take a typical asian colour scheme' and did not fit into the sourroundings. The suspended was ok. I liked the foundament of the building next to its lifthill with that wooden pathway around. That looked really appealing. Was a pity though that peeps were totally abscent in that area.

 

The flooded harbour was nice. I liked the draw bridge. But I'm not sure about the boat choice with those AE-boats. Overall the flooded area looked convincing and nice. I liked the rooves coming out on parts and the temple (?) structure near the rapids' station.

 

All in all the park was nice executed and had some awesome parts (bridge, adventure coaster). But the concept wasn't clear at all and the central part of the map, the city was the least interesting. Too much detailed archy there with too less interacting stuff going on.

 

70%

 

Hanging Gardens of Babylon:

 

This park was really warm. It wasn't busy in any part what I liked a lot. It was easy to focus on all the elements.

I agree with Fisch that the blue gate is a little underrepresented. Even though I clearly interpretate it as the entrance to the park it was so jammed in the corner of the park. This was obvious as the opening screen was set here (that being said, you should have get rid off of the puke in front of it). But for my likings I would have expected something like this:

 

A large boulevard behind it leading to the palace.

 

The palace was really nice. Right amount of detail and nice shape. The building opposing it felt indeed a little non-babylonian and thus did not fit too much.

 

The coaster was ok, interlocking loops were awesome. However, some of the underground turns were a little annoying and made it hard to follow the train. The backpart with the tower was great. I really liked the tower, it could have been a little taller, it lacked a little majestic feeling, I mean the biblic story says that the humans wanted to reach heaven. Nonetheless a great effort. The underground beneath it made no actual sense and was not really connected to the construction of the tower.

 

Let's come the gardens. I really like them. They are so refreshing with all that greenery growing around the pavillions and the white colour gave it a clean vibe. I missed a little the 'hanging' meaning actual terrasses and height changes (that is atleast how I picture them in my mind). What was REALLY disturbing was the carousel's music!!! I mean, it is the most reckognizeable song in RCT but in this area it totally did not fit. I had to turn it of that much it did annoy me. It was a pity that the restaurants in that area weren't peepable and thus dead. The little flower stalls were a nice touch but I did not like the colour choice of their covers. The tireme was also a well done custom flat.

 

The area around the gilgamesh was also well crafted. I liked the ride with its animatronics despite not knowing the myth's story. It was ok to have a circus maximus in this area. But like Liam said, the park misses coherence in its time setting what made it a little confusing. Also I missed two or three more larger rides. One half of the park has only like two rides. That's too few. You have a bunch of nice rides in the buildings (I liked the museum tour). You could have implemented one that still went with the calm setting of the park.

 

Also a 70%.

 

In comparasion both park again are equal when put onto one scale but they differ in most parts. Meizhou was nicely pulled off park with an unclear concept/story while the Hanging Gardens were nicely pulled off with an unrefined concept (It was not clear what this park wanted to be). I think in the end I go with the Hanging Gardens as the overall archy appealed more to me and while it had fewer rides it had the better choices of them.

Voted for the Hanging Gardens. Both were pretty good, so I chose based on the feeling the park gave to me.

Once again, I'm voting before reading anyone else's comments.  Both parks were outstanding and this is a really tough match:

 

Hanging Gardens:

-excellent architecture all around

-Ishtar was great, maybe one of my favorites from H2H so far

-the park had a lovely atmosphere

-Loved that circus below the arena providing the sounds

-the tower was great, though I wish it was taller

-the park needed one more big ride I think, something like Ishtar.  The flume was good but not enough

-I've seen this theme done a lot so it wasn't totally original, just done well

-The interior area where the boats started was decent, but I was expecting a little more

-Overall, excellent park. Hard to come up with many cons

 

Meizhou Rising

-Beautiful architecture and excellent use of the terrain and water

-Excellent rides overall, especially that launch coaster

-Creative ideas and fun details all over

-Park had a great atmosphere right from the start

-Loved the usage of boats and sunken ships/buildings

-A little too crowded and messy in certain parts with peeps, but no big deal

-story line confuses me, but whatever it's an awesome park

-overusage of certain buildings, and I've seen the theme done before in past parks, but that doesn't take away from this great park.

 

I've looked at both parks twice now and left both thinking I was voting for that park.  Really close call for me, but I've gotta give to Meizhou Rising.  Congrats to both teams

Babylon is probably my favorite park of the season thus far. Great job, Stallions. 

Null vote.

Man Lab. <3

so sad much cry

 

anyway, now I can uncontroversially give my review of babylon, which I'll try my best to do without any grudge

 

Firstly, the good bits. The hanging gardens are brilliantly done, beautiful stuff and excellent work on the foliage especially (which is obviously the important bit). Especially that building near the bottom with the blue worked into it, thats a lovely plaza. I also thought the tower of babel was really well executed, reminded me immediately of that famous painting, which is ideal really. There was also some lovely architecture in parts of the entrance area. My main issues were the lack of cohesiveness, and also the lack of a 'babylon feel'. Firstly, the three areas area really distinct, which feels strange for a park thats meant to be just a city. The entrance area has this sort of romanesque/blocky style to it, which is already a bit strange because I absolutely would have given this a solid Persian/middle east feel more than that. At its height, babylon would have had its own cultural identity and wouldn't have been just a mimicry of rome or athens like a lot of classical places. Especially near the dark ride/canoes (which was excellently themed on the inside) the cohesiveness falls apart and the architecture is blocky and confusing. The central white building is fantastic though, good call on that for the screen. Moving on, there's some totally different archy around the arrow, (which is a pretty solid layout). Some if it is pretty good and different, more babylon-feeling, but some is pretty poorly constructed. The tower is great, but the underneath confuses me- its very modern and mall-like, which gets to the crux of the identity problem IMO- is this a real park/area of park, or is it a historical exploration ala tenochtitlan or careirra? different parts seem to indicate different aspects of these and it doesn't quite come together. IMO, the hanging gardens and tower should have been the true focuses of the park in terms of identity and layout (they were both fantastic but should have been the centerpieces I think). So make the blue gate more prominent and central with a proper entrance plaza, with an avenue that leads to a huge palace/gardens complex right in the center with the tower worked in there, and as you get farther away from the bustling city it gets more haphazard like the buildings near the arrow. That's how I would have done it anyway, as it is it feels very segmented and awkward.

 

anyway, congrats on the victory. personally I really loved our park but the builders know that and should be proud anyway

 

in a way, its good that no team seems to be getting 3 straight wins, gotta keep this competition fresh and exciting.

Looking forward to what you guys have in store!

Mehhhhhhhhhhh

Phew, was very close for a while there.

 

Any critique regarding planning and cohesive I'll happily take on the chin. I'm frankly terrible at planning things. This was originally gdb's idea that I basically adopted because I've always wanted to build a hanging gardens-esque area. However, further than that specific area I hadn't really thought about setting other than the iconic ishtar gate. Clearly the ambiguity of whether this was realism/fantasy annoyed a lot of people; which is probably fair enough although in my opinion the only unrealistic feature of the park is the long underground flume section...

Anyways, great to hear a lot of the feedback and it's certainly interesting how polarising this match up turned out to be. The Manual Laborers turned out a really awesome park [which I'll review when I get the time], so huge props to all the builders. It was also a great pleasure on my part to have the opportunity to build with Rene and Jonny who contributed a great deal.

Also, in response to a couple of people commenting on the arrow layering; just having the bright orange for the corkscrew coaster track contrasted a little too much with the darker browns of the poor area. Alternatively, using just the dark orange was too dark and looked quite ugly. Because of how colouring works on track for the corkscrew coaster the best way to get an orange that blended in to the surroundings but was still to some extent 'eye-popping' was to keep the light orange for the corkscrew coaster and add the darker orange underneath.

 

For those interested:

Stoksy - Hanging Gardens, Ishtar layout [can't believe that no-one, especially myself, didn't notice the spelling error in the sign; apologies], Tower of Babylon interior/rockwork/some roof detailing, theatre interior, museum interior, custom swinging ship.

Rene - Palace, Tower of Babylon, architecture in the poor area [around the Tower of babylon], entrance restaurant, top spin, Ishtar queue, theatre building.

Jonny - Dark ride, circus maximus, flying carpet, market area, bridge to the hanging gardens.

hey stoksy don't forget to credit me for the custom water

 

this was a great matchup and i enjoyed both parks a whole lot. it's not over yet for the stallions!

I'm liking this ManLab nickname that's picking up.

 

It's better than the IS one for Italian Stallions

rivers of Mosul is confirmed to be the stallions finals park

I was sure GDB has build in Babylon, damn

 

JimmyLaessig, PizzaWurscht and Navalin confirmed their reputation as big talents, wow impressive guys! 

great match stallions. there have to be a winner , so congrats !

 

MCI and V1 ? talk to me

Great work by a couple micro madness breakouts, it's always nice to see relatively fresh faces improving. Hopefully there's more to come!

Guessed 5/6 right. babylon was obvious who built what and meizou was so pizzawurscht it's not funny