NE Olympics '16 / July 14th: Biathlon

Finally done with my exams, so here are my reviews:

Kingdom of Ni

Seems a bit empty to me. The buildings are generally cool, the cliffs are good. Don't really get why the mine train track exists. Set-up of custom flat a bit weird.

PDR of the Chillippines
 
Cool idea for the readme, but the writing itself isn't great. It's basically Alton Towers' more creepy part combined. Well done though, especially the Madhouse.

 

Aesthetica

 

Loads of potential, shame it's unfinished.

 

Parkmenistan

 

Great Park. I really like everything, especially the architecture and the coaster. Best Park of this round imo.

 

][topia

 

Cool, but for some reson doesn't scream Batman from me. Would have liked it more if was really set in Gotham and not in this theme park style of architecture.

The Curse of Diaz Island: I really like the concept here, with the old, abandoned track running alongside this new coaster, the general atmosphere you were trying to attain with a lost island was cool, it just needed more time to raise the quality of this park. Very Kumba-esque.

 

Herne the Hunter: As G-force said, one the most memorable pieces of architecture in the contest, awesome castle and cutaways, so fantastic. You built the inside of the castle really well, nice two story building with the various rooms set up. I liked the coaster layout too, but I didn't see a flat ride anywhere. Am I missing something? Great job!

 

Royal Fair: Great start...

 

Last Days: Very cool ride, it's always fun to see a different ride utilized. And very well designed, great interaction with each other. Archy was repetitive, but I'm the king of repetitive buildings so it didn't bother me. In a small park I feel it added to the atmosphere you were going for. Definitely creative pirate ship, not a huge fan of the swan ride. Can someone answer why it's called Last Days? Clear winner for me...

 

Batman: I thought this was extremely well executed for this park. Loved the dark brick buildings, overall dark atmosphere of Batman. Very cool station construction and probably the best flat ride of the discipline. My second place park for this round!

 

Adventureland: It's seems to be missing something...

Kumba, for real? Is breaking down other entries your way to gain votes?! Bit childish... I can deal with constructive critique (like G Force did) but not when it's nonsense. Why you nag it's unoriginal and an a rip off from Nemesis? Tell me how much Nemesis based coasters we have seen on the site?! I can't tell you because I can't remember one outside of the one Maverix did in Fort Knox. 

 

Kinda ironic you complain about that. You'r best/most known work is a recreation of Kumba and a coaster based on Kumba. And using real coasters as a basis happens all the time... I can't see how you can think this is a fail... I didn't use Phantom Manor as inspiration, though I used scenery from the Haunted Mansion package (there is not much ghost scenery other than that). I wanted to build Hex but not in a classic grey castle since it wouldn't set the scene/story.

 

 

GForce: honestly, I ride a lot of coasters but I don't look at the length of the trains  So I know no better than reasoning 9 cars is more than 8, it's a bigger capacity! What was the problem with the supports? I think they are OK. Foliage and landscaping is not my strongest point (and a thing I don't like to do as well) and since deadline was approaching I couldn't put more time in it. That's the same reason as why the peeps don't interact with the madhouse, I didn't have time for creating peep interaction with it, and just walking the peep trough it would be lame.

Guys calm down it's Kumba. Did you really expect him to be reasonable in this contest?

 

Fred: You should look at more parks, Nemesis inspired coasters are not exactly rare.

Kingdom of Ni:

I didn’t really get this.. I thought some crazy hack was going to happen with the coaster or something because of the mine train track. Maybe this entry relied a little too much on the readme story to prop it up. There were some things I really liked here though.. mainly the landscaping with the tiny land blocks. I haven’t seen that used much before and it gave the cliffs a really fresh look. The flat ride looked crazy in a good way too.

 

PDR of Chilipines:

I love that you used a ‘Hex’ style ride for your flat ride.. that’s something I would’ve never thought of. The building was really nicely done I thought and I liked all the (slightly daft) animated props. Invert was pretty cool, not a bad crack at a Nemesis style layout. Maybe a little too loose in places but it’s nicely paced and works the landscape well. Architecture and theming was solid throughout but a little dull, even for a spooky theme. I think some touches of dark purples or reds could’ve lifted this a bit. Nice entry.

 

][topoia:

I’ll admit I groaned when I saw the overview and park name here but I was pleasantly surprised actually. You worked with the linear shape of the coaster very well. I like how you have the path following it’s length and I like even more how large areas of the coaster are on-top of the railway with the supports straddling the tracks. Although there were a couple of instances of the supports actually going into the track.. Was the railway just theming? I liked all the flashes of colour against the dark/dull colours in the architecture - Chilipinos take note! Great theming and architecture for the most part. Only complaints are the graveyard monuments which were a bit overused and the rather ham-fisted use of bat sculptures. Custom flat ride was beautiful.

 

Aesthetica:

Very nice execution of travelling rides with the beautiful schwartzkopf coaster and log flume. And the enterprise.. I’m going to steal that for my LL park. Nice start to the palace. Otherwise a pretty dull map but it’s obviously unfinished. Has loads of potential so I hope you finish it.

 

Coaster Rica:

Very plain and dull.. difficult to see what you were going for here? Is it somehow based off the film ‘Adventureland’? Wasn’t a fan.. sorry guys.

Coaster Rica:

Very plain and dull.. difficult to see what you were going for here? Is it somehow based off the film ‘Adventureland’? Wasn’t a fan.. sorry guys.

Yes and no. The name was a play on Adventureland and the plan was to build one of those super-generic cheap-ass themeparks. Like Adventureland. It isn't exactly based off the film. The plan was kind of to go for ultimately generic, but it probably wasn't as smart a move to go for an extreme when I haven't even mastered normal parkmaking. If you get what I mean with that. The park definitely could have benefitted from more time. Also from more space. I may try my hand at such a park again. Had a lot of ideas that came in far too late to rebuild parts of the park.

Nice, figured my posting a bitchy review would spark some feedback

 

Tho Fred, when commenting on your park I said it was "really good quality." I thought it was a very nice park and in no way a "fail." You guys can think whatever you want about me, just sticks and stones. No hard feelings either way.

-Kingdom of NI-  There. it's now 56. Bite the bullet and move on. The reason it got a 55 is because it is average. The coaster layout is not good and just seems forced, The station is way to ugly and bulky, Architecture is just a big fat OK, and I'm not exactly sure what the flat ride is supposed to be (but that's just me probably). I gave it 60 which I think is still being a bit generous.

 

-Parkmeninstan-  I don't see how people don't think that goldolas is a flat ride. The entry as a whole screams Heaven's Kitchen. Doom of atlantis is also pretty dope. I gave this entry a 70.

 

-Topia- I'm a sucker for realism and and remakes of rides from established parks. Because of this BTR is my favorite. The architecture is really well made and the atmosphere is really there. I could definitely see Gotham city. I do wish however that the layout was more accurate. Probably the only bad thing I could pick out from anything in the map. OH and please never ever use 9 cars on an invert. 70%

 

-Chill- Nemesis and the Haunted Mansion came together. enough said. I don't think i can vote high on it as a contest entry because there is no flat ride that I can see to my knowledge. I feel like 9 cars on an invert is a theme for this week also. 60%

 

I'm not going to review anything else only because they are unfinished. I don't like to judge something that isn't done because I wouldn't be judging the builders intended work.

Some guys here should definitely go to more theme parks. Herne the Hunter has a custom Vekoma Madhouse in the mansion.

Some guys here should definitely go to more theme parks. Herne the Hunter has a custom Vekoma Madhouse in the mansion.

American parks barely have those sadly so I understand. And than there's the question if a madhouse is a flat ride or darkride... It is a tricky question.

And please someone explain what the big problem is with 9 cars on an invert?

Some guys here should definitely go to more theme parks. Herne the Hunter has a custom Vekoma Madhouse in the mansion.

I understand what your saying but there is only 4 madhouses in America and 2 are at no name parks and the others at the weakest six flags parks.

Even if I went to a park with one I probably wouldn't ride it because #1 Its not a coaster, and #2 Its Vekoma.  That's like a lose-lose deal there.

I understand what your saying but there is only 4 madhouses in America and 2 are at no name parks and the others at the weakest six flags parks.

 

Great Adventure is one of the weakest Six Flags?

 

That aside: If you're not sure, don't complain and ask. I just find it lazy to say "there is no flatride, therefore I give it a lower rating". I would say that Madhouses aren't dark rides, as dark rides are basically defined as rides that move through space.

 

G Force: Exactly what I expected to hear from an american.

Its all about priorities Version1.  When you have 6 hours at a park and 8 coaster to ride, you aren't going to spend your time on some silly tilting house thing. 

 

I mean, if Phantasialand had 8 good Coasters instead of 2-3, would you spend your time on a Vekoma Madhouse? 

 

If you had, TTD, MF, Maverick, Magnum, Valravn, Raptor, Rougaru, Gatekeeper, Gemimi, and Mean Streak to ride would you pick a Madhouse over that?  I'd hope not.

I wouldn't just spend one day

Is SFGA only open for six hours a day?

Well its unlikely you are going to stay the whole operating time.  If I had unlimited time at a park I'd probably get around to it at some point, but with limited time, a type of ride like that would be pretty low on my priority list.

What would make you stay shorter than the whole day? Visiting a park for the whole day seems the norm for me, unless the park is opened until midnight or something. Genuinly curious.

Travel time, time in general...  I mean, its rare for me to make a "trip" to a park.  Usually its just fit in because of convince or whenever people have time. 

 

For example my hope park CP is usually open from 10am to 10pm during the summer, you would have to fit in 1-1.5hrs driving time both ways then whatever time it would take to prepare to leave and then get into the park etc..  Unless you wake up at 7am and return at midnight, its unlikely you are going to be at the park the whole day.

 

Maybe others are different and make destination trips out of parks, but the only time I can actually say that a park was the "destination" of a vacation was when I went to Disney World 11 years ago...  They are just too expensive and for anything other than a handful of really large parks its hard for me to justify staying multiple days at one park.  To me the extra cost isn't worth being able to ride all the flats and smaller coasters etc...

Getting up at 5 am to start driving at 6 am isn't that weird to me.