Home
Contact Us
Login
Register
Store
Exchange
Browse The Scrapyard
Forum
Donate
Before I hand out any ratings, I would like to refer everyone to the following graph. This is a graph of the vertical g-forces on an older GCI coaster, Gwazi: Tiger. This graph will single-handedly explain what kinds of g-forces I was looking for in this round. Having ridden both Gwazi and GCI's newer coasters, I can confidently say that GCI's g-forces have not gotten any more intense in the last 12 years. The only difference is that recently their coasters have more moments of airtime, and more rapid and frequent changes in direction. The basic point is this: GCI's are not high-g coasters. Their moments of airtime are generally barely beyond the 0 line (just enough to briefly toss you out of your seat, not throw you skyward like Intamins,) and their vertical g's max out at about 3.5, and are mostly around 3 in the high-g elements. And while I didn't expect the g-forces to match these exactly, as I generally do consider Gwazi to be a merely decent coaster, I did at least expect it to be within the feasible range rather than what a few of the coasters here had: constant 4 vertical g's and -1 airtime. This means that I am going to be harsh on coasters that are trying to draw their excitement from high g-forces rather than from good layouts, surprises, and the sensation of being fast and out-of-control, which is really where the excitement in GCI coasters comes from.
GROUP ?????????C?????????
This is going to be a tough one. Each had problems in different departments, and it's impossible to tell which ones will outweigh the others just from preliminary ride-throughs. Coaster 1 had fewer technical problems, but the adrenaline was pathetic. Coaster 2 had the adrenaline, but the speed and intensity were just too out of control, generating some big technical problems. If those were the only things to consider, coaster 2 would be the clear winner, but then there were the supports. Coaster 1 did a near-complete support job, while coaster 2 had almost none whatsoever, which is going to single-handedly close the gap and make this one a touch call. I'll have to crunch the numbers to see which of these factors outweighs the other in the grand scheme of things. My initial leaning is toward coaster 2, though. But we'll see.
Coaster "1" (Marcello)
Overall Impression:
This coaster was pretty good in the technical department, just having some occasional style issues, but man the adrenaline sucked. The entire last ????????? of the coaster was just plain boring, with almost no airtime, drawn-out transitions, and virtually no sensation of speed. The drop was original, though, so this will overall be in the ?????????above average????????? range.
Technical:
I must say, considering that you completely hand-shaped and hand-banked the track, this is quite impressive in the shaping department. There were almost no pumps, no bumps whatsoever, and even the g-force and style-related issues which I will soon discuss were not too big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. Before I begin those, though, I would like to say that to this coaster's credit, I could actually tell that I was riding a GCI-style coaster while on this. So good job. There were some moments, especially in the very beginning, that were just about spot-on in terms of shaping, feel, and intensity. There were still noticeable errors, though. The biggest error is probably just that there weren't enough vertexes to get the style just right. This still had a phenomenon common to most hand-built coasters attempting to do heartlining, in that it had outside-turn lateral g's while transitioning into the corner, and then inside-turn lateral g's at the point of highest banking. This happens because of long transitions, because when the banking starts the track is still mostly straight, and when it reaches its highest banking a bit of an over-correction was necessary in order to reduce the g's on entry. On this coaster, they were minimal, never getting above about 1 g either way, but it was still an accuracy issue. The only way to fix this is to use more vertexes, thus making the transition into the corner a bit quicker rather than transitioning so gradually. This also would have fixed the style issue that you had where all of your transitions were long, drawn out, and lacked that GCI ?????????snap.????????? To see what I'm talking about, watch the following POV of ?????????Thunderhead.????????? The transitions are much faster than yours, they aren't so long and drawn out, and they aren't so one-dimensional in terms of banking and tightness. Rather, here they quickly transition from left to right, and there are random moments where in the middle of the turn the banking and tightness suddenly increase. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SheQ2A4rZo This was lacking in this coaster, so it was still quite short of the ideal mark although indeed putting up a good effort. So I'm going to give you an excellent mark of 8/10 in shaping. Apart from that, the only remaining issue was the supports. You did do some good work, and put in some truly fantastic work on the bridge supports, but there were still under-supported places. If you look at an aerial photo of a GCI coaster, you will notice that there is basically not a single area of the track that does not have wide supports. (not to mention they are a completely different style than yours.) I can't fault you too much due to the limited build time, but it's still worth about 0.75 off, leaving you with your score, a 7.25.
Adrenaline:
Here is where this coaster suffered greatly, although there was one bright spot. The beginning was downright fantastic. The fast turns, the lateral g's that you got while whipping out of the corners, the station fly-through, that was just a wonderfully fun and intense sequence of elements. And then after that... nothing. Absolutely nothing. The entire rest of the track was just basically a series of meandering back-and-forth turns with no force to them whatsoever, and the coaster never seemed to be going up or down either, rather remaining flat and mostly hugging the terrain. And then it just kept going, and going, and going, way longer than it should have, until it did one last decent turn with 1 lateral g before petering out at the station. So while the beginning was great, the rest of the coaster was downright pathetic, and honestly a waste of time. It was forceless, there was no sensation of speed (it slowed down under 20 mph twice, and both of those times were in the middle of wide turns that were already slow to start with,) and it just went on far too long without doing anything significant. And where is the airtime? During the entire ride, the g-force meter only tipped the scale under 0 g's once. In 5000 feet of track, there was only one moment of ejector air, and then one moment of floater air at 0.0 exactly. The rest had absolutely no airtime whatsoever. Even GCI's earliest coasters, which I would not speak highly of, had at least a few pops of air. And their new coasters, which I would rate extremely highly, have it in almost every single transition. Not to mention that the vertical g's rarely even got over 2, which is downright awful. So this was sorely lacking. The only place that the intensity was good was the very beginning, and the pacing was downright terrible due to the long stretch of bland nothingness in the middle and the end. It's only getting a score above a 5 due to the fantastic beginning. By itself, that was worth a 9, but the rest of the coaster was maybe a 2, so I'll average them out to give you a 5.5.
Originality:
Again, the beginning was fantastic. That triple-diving-curve drop was iconic, intense, and something never done before on a GCI (but that I could definitely see them doing.) The curved station flythrough was also a big plus. But then once again, we come to the rest of the ride. And it downright sucked. It was nothing but a constant string of drawn-out back-and-forth turning, with an occasional forceless fan turn thrown in to make it fit the terrain and template. But the bigger issue is just that it all felt the same. It never felt like it was going up or down very much, it never felt fast, and there was basically no variety in g-forces nor distinguishable ?????????fun????????? moments. It was just one giant blah. And while the shaping was decently close to a GCI, the ?????????feel????????? definitely wasn't there. GCI's feel fast and wild and out-of-control, with intense turns, fast transitions, and random pops of air. The beginning of this coaster had all of those things, but the entire rest of it had none of them. So again, I am going to have to contrast a 9 for the beginning with about a 3 for the other two-thirds of it. And I can't really add significant bonus points for the supports despite the effort, because they were completely the wrong style. (GCI coasters should use sloping supports, never stair-step like CCI/GG's.) I will add bonus points for the work on the station and the flythrough, though, which leaves you with a 6.
Technical: 7.25 Adrenaline: 5.50 Originality: 6.00
Final Rating: 6.25
Coaster "2" (Gouldy)
Overall Impression:
This coaster's biggest issue is just that the sequencing and pacing were way too fast, and a bit too straight and out-and-backish for a GCI. There was definitely good effort put in to making the shaping of the turns correct, though, as this had the GCI ?????????punch????????? that the other coasters were sorely lacking. If the g's and the pacing were fixed, and the supports finished, this could have been near the pinnacle.
Technical:
I really have to give you credit for making the banking transitions correctly. The turns all felt right. They had the quick snaps, the punches of airtime in the middle, and the random higher-banked spots that really define them as GCI transitions. That much was fantastic, and I have to give you some big credit for that. When I first rode this coaster I thought the style was way off, but the more I ride it the more I realize that the issue definitely isn't a lack of GCI shaping, just that the layout and the speed are off. So you're getting a great shaping score, an 8.5/10. The only thing that I feel right taking points off for there are the minor bumps, one instance after the double-helix where the banking was just a bit too snappy, and in general just that the elements were a bit too tight. Beyond that, there are two other issues. The first is the g's. If you read the beginning of the post and looked at the g-force graph, it should become obvious that this coaster was way out of whack in terms of g-forces. There were three major off-the-chart g-spikes... 4.6 at the bottom of the big drop, -1.7 going over the big air hill, and 1.7 lats in the first turn. Then just about the entire coaster had airtime that was in the -1.2 to -1.3 range, and verts nearing 4. Due to the sheer number of these, and because of how much of a redesign of the coaster it would take to fix them, it's going to cost you 1.5 points. Then finally there were the supports. Only about 10% of the coaster had any wide supports at all. I'll give you some credit for the few customs that you did in the originality section, but from a technical standpoint this coaster's structure would crumble the instant a train rolled over it. The maximum amount of points that I ever take off for supports is 3, if there are no wide supports whatsoever, and for you I'm taking off 2. Consider this very generous. If this coaster were for the exchange rather than a 3-week contest, I would have taken off 2.75.
Adrenaline:
It's really hard to judge the intensity on this one, since it was too intense for a GCI, so most of this rating will be based on the pacing and the layout. My main issue is just that everything was taken too fast. This works best in short bursts where you are trying to give the coaster an ?????????insane????????? section, or on small coasters that don't have the size to excite with speed and height, but it generally doesn't work when an entire 4700 ft coaster is like that. It is wasting the length and the height by never slowing down to let the rider see just how big everything is, and by making the whole thing fast rather than throwing in places where it suddenly got faster after a slower spot. This especially bugged me on the first drop. You were doing a massive 100-ft drop off a hillside, and yet I barely noticed it because it was taken too fast, rather feeling like a giant airtime hill. It was all unnecessarily fast like this. By the time you took a pause, at the MCBR, the coaster had already used up its immensity. Especially with terrain, I see this as some really disappointing wasted potential. One of the great things about terrain is that the rider tends to forget about it during the ride, so when you do a couple ground-hugging turns in the hills followed by a sudden gigantic drop into the valley, it really tends to take riders by surprise. This is what makes The Voyage work; you forget that it's going uphill the whole way out, so the MCBR looks like there's nowhere left to go. But as it goes downhill, it just keeps getting faster and faster and faster, which really leaves you exhilarated by the end of the ride. So while this wasn't really a bad coaster, it's just that I can't help but see all of the potential that it wasted. Nonetheless, you still get a good score. If the g's were fixed, it would still be quite an exciting coaster due to the sheer amount of airtime. But the pacing and sequencing left a lot to be desired.
Originality:
I really don't have too much to say here that hasn't already been said. In general, when it comes to wood coasters, true originality is difficult, so it's mostly based on original sequencing. The double-helix, out-and-back section, and two big straightish drops would certainly distinguish this coaster from other GCI's, but again, this coaster had a lot of potential that was wasted due to everything being taken too fast. So around a 7.5 seems appropriate. And with that, it appears that at least in my books you have indeed overcome the issues that the g's and lack of supports have caused, and defeated coaster 1 by half a point.
Technical: 5.00 Adrenaline: 7.75 Originality: 7.5
Final Rating: 6.75
GROUP ?????????G?????????
Coaster "1" (Jakizle)
Overall Impression:
Well, I guess it's pretty obvious who won this group. Honestly, though, I don't think it would have mattered. This coaster was by far the best in the contest in terms of shaping and g-forces. It didn't quite reach the intensity of GCI's best, but it was still excellent in the adrenaline department. Since my complaints are minimal, and since this coaster is moving on by default, I'm going to keep it short. And FYI, this coaster would have been the best in the contest if it weren't for the supports. If you had finished those, you would have gotten an 8.42.
Technical:
In shaping, I honestly don't have any complaints whatsoever. (And I do not take that comment lightly.) The pops of air, the turning banked hills, the random increases in banking, everything that I would expect from a GCI coaster was here, plus actually done with g-forces that were in the right range. It even copied the lift hill from the Knight Valley coaster perfectly. My only gripe is that there are a couple turns where the banking could have been higher. Aside from that, I have absolutely nothing to say. A superb effort, worth a 9.5/10 in shaping with no deductions for g's. Beyond that, the only problem was the obvious lack of wide supports. Only one turn had wide supports. Normally this would be worth 3 points off, but again I'm not being quite as harsh as usual due to the contest's time constraints, so I'll give you .75 of those back and call it even at 2.25.
Adrenaline:
Pacing was very good, right up there with the upper echelon of GCI's. And that's to say that it was really fun, with some fun pops of airtime at random places, good fast turns and changes of direction, and had a good sensation of speed throughout. Plus the two big hills with the -.5 ejector air were fantastic. But honestly, although it would be really great, it could have been a lot better. It was just a bit too constant, not really having a sense of surprise or special excitement. Probably the thing that I love most about Thunderhead is how it gets faster and faster as it goes on. This coaster didn't have that. It was definitely fast and intense, but it felt pretty much the same speed throughout the whole ride. So it gets credit for the intensity and the sensation of speed, but not so much for the pacing or ?????????wow????????? excitement factor. But I'm just being nitpicky here. Still a great effort.
Originality:
Not much else to add. It gets points for getting the GCI style down amazingly well, but doesn't really get any big points for having surprising moments or moments that truly stood out. Sequencing was good, as it never felt repetitive and had a good combination of differing hills and turns. And finally, I can't give any bonus points for supports or extras since there basically were none. So a very good score, but again not excellent.
Technical: 7.25 Adrenaline: 8.25 Originality: 7.50
Final Rating: 7.67
GROUP ?????????M?????????
Coaster 1 is the winner here. It wasn't anything really exceptional in the adrenaline department, and the technical still had a few bugs, but it had the GCI feel down very well, while coaster 2 was completely out of left field in terms of shaping and didn't get the pacing and intensity right. So although coaster 2 might get a higher adrenaline score, I don't think there's any way that it can win given its shaping problems. EDIT: Coaster 1 is definitely the winner, as coaster 2 has been disqualified due to supports under 4m on the pathways.
Coaster "1" (LeFlo)
Overall Impression:
A solid coaster. Certainly not the best, as it had some clear issues in all three departments. But for this round of the contest that's actually pretty good, as all three coasters' scores so far have been in the 6's and 7's.
Technical:
This did at least have a decent GCI feel in terms of pacing and shaping. But unlike the previous coaster, here there were some very obvious deficiencies. This coaster had the pops of air and the left-right transitions down very well, but it didn't have the intra-turn increases in banking and the overall fluidity. Your transitions had a few rough patches. Mainly I think the problems are the following: 1, you tended to bank in flat spaces before the turn started, and then made the turns more circular once they started. This took away from the fluid GCI transitions that I was looking for, where the banking transitions into the turn at a wider turning radius and then reaches a maximum after the turn has started, not so much where the radius of the turn is constant. 2, your turns were too flat. GCI is famous for hill-turns and turns that are rising or falling constantly. They generally don't do turns that stay near the same elevation for any amount of time, and prefer to have turns that are drops and hills in and of themselves rather than having flat turns with clear drops into and out of them. (In other words, to exit your turns, you should have made the banking increase and have the turn itself dive downhill, rather than banking out of it and doing a defined separate ?????????drop????????? to go back downhill.) And finally, 3, the transitions were a bit short. There weren't smooth transitions between positive and negative g's, and one lateral g to the other. It just kind of slammed up and down abruptly, making the ride feel a bit rough around the edges and bumpy. Still, these are just matters of refinement and style, so I feel like a score of around 8.25, exactly what the first coaster got, is reasonable. Then there were two other issues. The first is the dead-on tree hit after the first fan turn (it was there in both the default and the GCI environment,) where the tree's limbs went right through the train. Since one simple mouse click would eliminate the problem, I'll only take off .25 for that even though it's a major hit. The last issue is the supports. Comparing this coaster to other GCI's, which generally have wide supports at basically every moment that there is either elevated track or positive g's, you maybe had this coaster supported about halfway. It needed a LOT more work. But since I decided that due to the build time I wouldn't be taking off as much as usual, this will only cost you 1 point today.
Adrenaline:
It was all right, but just never really did anything too remarkable. It repeated the sequence of having fast runs near the ground with pops of air, then a big moderate-speed turn, then another fast run near the ground, then another moderate-speed big turn, several times. And thus the pacing never really felt like it was slowing down or speeding up significantly, just repeating the fast section that it had done already. This was all right, but as I have said with a lot of the coasters here, what I think makes a ride truly remarkable is when it throws in some surprises, and has a good variety of forces and speeds so that you can highlight the best parts of the ride and make them memorable. This coaster, though, was just another case of doing everything quickly and not having much variety or unpredictability to it. All the turns and hills just felt like they were the same speed. With the kind of speed and height that we are dealing with here, I really do feel like it is a waste to just have it going fast the whole time. This works well on small coasters that don't have the magnitude to thrill with speed and height, so they have to rely on packing a big wallop fast. But big coasters don't have to do this. They have plenty of length and plenty of height to do something different, to let the riders breathe for a second before kicking into insane gear and catching them by surprise, or to do what The Voyage and Thunderhead do and just keep getting faster and faster and faster as the ride goes on. This is really what makes a coaster feel outstanding. But this one didn't really have that, nor did it have the kind of insane randomness of something like Prowler, so it just falls in the very good range rather than being truly excellent. Honestly, I really don't know why I didn't like this coaster more. It was fast, it had air, but it just left me feeling blah. Something about it just felt too predictable, and not random or out-of-control enough.
Originality:
I'm really not a fan of this layout. Because of the flat turns and the long runs of parallel hills, this really felt like an out-and-back coaster. This is not a good thing, as even GCI's out-and-backish coasters like George and the Dragon, Prowler, and Freizeitpark's El Toro never actually feel like they are out-and-back due to their constant variety. This coaster, though, felt like a repeating series of low hills and turns separated by the four big elevated turns. When a coaster feels predictable, that means something is wrong. And this coaster definitely didn't have that GCI randomness that they are famous for. Some big turns of different degrees than just 270 and 180, some more fluid changes in elevation, or some hills and turns with randomly higher or lower g-forces would have been a welcome change. So, again, overall it was very good, but just never crossed into excellent territory. A score over a 7 actually looks pretty darn good in this round.
Technical: 7.00 Adrenaline: 7.75 Originality: 6.5
Final Rating: 7.08
Coaster "2" (Omnigeek6)
Overall Impression:
This one had great speed, and was surprisingly unpredictable and well-planned for a tooled track, but I don't even know where to start when it comes to the shaping. Not a single element on this coaster was shaped like it should have been. Also, I believe that you're disqualified since you had supports under the 13 ft mark on the pathways.
Technical:
Ugh... this is going to be a difficult write-up, and I'm hoping that you won't take it personally. But I honestly have to ask if you did any research whatsoever while making this coaster. There's just so many things that are so completely out of left field that I don't see how someone who was trying to go for a GCI feel could have come up with them. Let's just start at the very beginning, though. First, I have never seen GCI do a high-banked pre-lift. Theirs are almost always completely unbanked. Then the drop was an extremely pointy one, with an angle of descent of 70 degrees. That is almost getting into Intamin range, where GCI is famous for longer, sweeping drops. For reference, here are pictures of Thunderhead and Joris en de Draak for comparison. http://www.themeparkreview.com/dolly2004/dw19.jpghttp://www.greatfunforall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Efteling-Joris-en-de-Draak-airview-George-and-the-Dragon.jpg. If I keep going on like this, pointing out all of the times that this coaster did things that are completely un-GCI in execution, we'll be here all night. So for the rest of the coaster, I'm just going to suggest that you watch POV videos of Thunderhead and Knight Valley's coaster and compare them with yours. And I'll leave the shaping issue by pointing out a few general issues that were mostly why this coaster didn't feel GCI at all. First of all, this coaster just had too much banking. Every single turn was of the high-g high-banking variety, which GCI generally only does maybe once or twice per coaster. If you look at real GCI's, they tend to favor turns that get their thrills from banking that shifts, and from pops of air, rather than with the high-g turns that you had. There was indeed one place on your coaster that had the right feel to it, and that was the first valley-twisting section, right after the train dives down from the hill that the coaster starts on. There, you let the turns be a little underbanked, you let the banking flow better, and it didn't have such jarring high-banked right to high-banked left transitions. That had it about right. But then from that ridiculous 80-degree-to-80-degree banking thing onward, it just got worse and worse. Which brings me to my second point, the fact that this coaster's transitions were too rapid, and the turns too circular. What you generally had throughout the coaster was turns that were more or less constant radius, with fast jarring transitions into and out of them. For a GCI, it needed to flow and shift more, taking its time to exit the corners, throwing in some odd pops of air, and having parts of the turns that randomly got tighter and higher-banked. Again, just watch some videos of GCI coasters. It takes some effort to get the feel right. And I've now written way more than I thought I ever should, so I'm going to have to wrap it up by just suggesting that you put some more research into it next time. 6.75/10 in shaping. Next there were some g-force issues, which I will refer you to the graph at the top of the page to explain. You had 3.5 vertical g's in almost every turn, and were just shy of -1 airtime in almost every hill. This is a bit too much, and is costing you a half-point. Then finally there were the supports. Firstly, you just tacked on auto-supports without reinforcing them at all, which means most of your crossovers were under-supported, and then about half of the coaster had no wide supports at all, so that's costing you another 1.25 points, for a final score of 5.
Adrenaline:
Okay, now finally we can move on to the part of the coaster that was actually decent. I do have some gripes, but it was still an exciting coaster. The intensity was a bit too much, and the transitions were way too fast for a GCI, so I'm going to have to take away a point or so for the unfeasible execution, but it was actually a very exciting coaster. The first half especially was fantastic in terms of sensation of speed and a good variety of elements with well-placed pops of air. My only significant gripe is that the ending was a let-down. It's a big pet peeve of mine when people use a mid-course break and then end the coaster too soon afterward without ever regaining the intensity of the first half. And this coaster did that. The ending had one good transition-hill, and then two forceless turns leading into the final brakes. Blah. If you're going to take a big pause like that, use it. Lull the riders into a false sense of security thinking that the ride is over and then really kick their butts and surprise them with the ride's second half. Just letting it peter out is too predictable, and a big let-down IMO. Also, as I told everyone else, I think this coaster wasted its height by making everything too fast, but at least it was still exciting. Not much else to say. If it weren't for the bad execution, I probably would have given this coaster an 8.
Originality:
This is actually kind of a conundrum. On the one hand, you definitely did a couple of things that were really original. But on the other hand, these original things were definitely not realistic. I could maybe see a Gravity Group woodie doing the 80-degree-to-80-degree banking thing, but definitely not a GCI. They just don't do gimmicky elements like that. Likewise, the outside banking was original, but I couldn't see GCI doing it. The one time that GCI did do a slight shove of outside banking, at the end of Joris en de Draak, it was extremely subtle and over with quickly. This is how GCI does original elements: quickly and subtly, not big and flashy. So I'll still give you credit for being original, but you definitely missed the style. The layout as a whole was much less of a negative. It did indeed keep the surprises coming, and never felt predictable. The only thing that I would ask for better on would be the pacing department, and again execution comes into play. Plus you didn't use a single custom support, so I can't give you any bonus points there. So for the moment, although I am indeed giving you the highest originality score of the contest thus far, don't think that it means this coaster couldn't have been drastically improved.
Technical: 5.00 Adrenaline: 7.50 Originality: 7.75
Final Rating: 6.75 (DQ)
GROUP ?????????T?????????
Out of all the groups, this one was the toughest to judge just by first look. I have no idea who will win. Both had good adrenaline and moderately-good shaping, but they both had issues as well. So, yeah, I don't know. I'll have to crunch the numbers and see.
Coaster "1" (Metazoanhaddock)
Overall Impression:
This one fell almost entirely in the ?????????very good????????? category. The banking transitions flowed well, although they also lacked the air-pop sketchiness that GCI is famous for. There were a couple of slow moments, but for the most part the speed was good, and it was in general a solid build.
Technical:
Okay, well you definitely got the flow part down right. In the turns, this did indeed feel like a GCI. The turns were a bit underbanked, though. GCI's do have some brief moments of lateral g's, but certainly not all the way up in the sustained 1.4 range like you had. That's just how GCI works. They throw in all their intense moments in short burst. Short pops of ejector air, short little slams to the outside of turns, and short moments where the banking and g's in a turn pick up and whip you through them. This coaster sustained its g's a bit too much. It didn't have those little short pops and short intense moments, rather dealing them out in sustained intense moments. Sustained ejector air is more of an Intamin thing, and sustained lateral g's are more of a CCI/GG thing. This coaster bordered on feeling more like a GG than a GCI because of this. Another thing that took away from the GCI-ness of it was the flat turns. GCI almost never does flat turns. Their turns are always going up, down, and randomly increasing the banking, not so much banking to a certain radius and g-force and holding it there. If you're looking for a good coaster to illustrate what I'm saying, I suggest Prowler. It has a vaguely out-and-backish layout, and yet almost never holds banking or hills for more than a second or so, constantly delivering short bursts of air and lats. These are just some minor tweaks that were needed to truly capture the GCI feel. Since the transitions felt right, though, and since there was no bumping or pumping at all, I'll give you an 8.25/10 in shaping. G-forces were good on the vertical side, only going up to 3.5 once and then lingering around 3 for the rest of the coaster, but the airtime and lateral g's were out of control. -1.3, which showed up three times on this coaster, is Intamin airtime, and 1.4 lateral g's are even pushing it for a GG coaster, let alone GCIs which generally hardly have any lateral g's. This is costing you another half-point. And then that's it. This is the only coaster in this whole contest that isn't losing points for supports. Yours were actually structurally sound, with only maybe one or two parts that needed more.
Adrenaline:
This coaster may not have had the poppiness that truly makes a GCI soar in its fastest spots, and I had a couple of issues with the airtime placement, but it definitely had great sensation of speed throughout. This happened mainly because the coaster stayed close to the ground while still managing to be intense at the same time. Plus the tunnels and the interaction with the other supports were a big plus, and something that was lacking from the other coasters. With that said, though, I do wish that it had been a little more random. Again, it needed more of that air-popping banking-shifting intensity-changing thing that GCI is known for. Its big-thrill moments were done with infeasible ejector air rather than with unpredictability. And as I have mentioned on the other coasters, on a big coaster like this I would have liked to see some significant shifts in pacing to highlight the fast parts rather than just the whole thing being fast. You had one slower moment, the big flat turn, and then it did crank up for a moment, and I really wish you had taken it a bit farther, maybe doing something like that again near the end. Meh, whatever, at this point I'm just splitting hairs. You get points for the great sensation of speed, but lose some points for lacking the poppy airtime and true randomness that I'd like from a GCI, as well as for the fact that all of the best airtime moments were too intense.
Originality:
I really like the sequencing on this coaster. The main thing that I like is how it had clear sections, and distinct elements, and wasn't just lost in a giant randomness soup like some GCI coasters tend to be, where the whole thing just blends together because there are no truly distinct parts. On my favorite GCI coaster, Thunderhead, you can tell what's happening because there are these distinct ?????????break????????? moments where there is a distinct element that lets you know where you are, before whipping you back into the intense randomness. This coaster actually had a bit of that going on, which separates it from the rest of the field. Again, I do wish that the ?????????insane????????? moments were a bit more insane, something like the ending of ?????????Thunderhead,????????? but this was actually a well-planned and distinct layout. I liked it. Plus I have to give you some serious kudos for all of the custom support work that you did. (I don't know why you used steel wide supports in a few places, but still...) That is worth some nice bonus points, and was by far the best in this round of the contest. So although I definitely wouldn't say that this was the best, it was the best in this particular round of the contest because of all the work put into it while the others seemed mostly unfinished. A very good job.
Technical: 7.75 Adrenaline: 7.75 Originality: 8.00
Final Rating: 7.83
Coaster "2" (Gazag)
Overall Impression:
Okay, so now that I have looked at the first one more in depth, it looks like it will be tough to beat. And now that I'm looking at this one, I'm surprised that I even thought it would be close in the first place. This coaster just has really off banking transitions, and nowhere near as good of a sensation of speed as the other one. So, yeah, I was wrong, it definitely wins.
Technical:
Something about this coaster is just so... well... off. All of the banking transitions are just so boxy and jarring, and the whole coaster just doesn't have any kind of flow to it. What really bugged me was that it had these odd flat spots in the middle of a bunch of the banking transitions rather than immediately going from one side to the other. This is very un-natural and definitely not something that GCI does. Plus this coaster suffered from the same flat-turn problem that a lot of the other coasters did. (Must be a symptom of tooling...) It banked, and then suddenly had a jarring transition into a flat circular turn with more-or-less constant g-forces. I'm kind of tired of constantly writing about this problem, so this time I'll just say that you need to do more work to make the tools do what you want them to rather than just what they dictate. Look at some on-ride videos of GCI coasters (I recommend Thunderhead, El Toro, and Prowler, as these are the ones that fit the template the best IMO,) and compare them to your coaster. The difference should be obvious. Work on getting the flow, work on making the turns rise and fall and shift banking rather than just being flat, and work on getting the unexpected ?????????punch????????? factor right. Everything just felt so separate on this coaster. So that's all I have to say about shaping. You did get the air pops about right, so it's still worth a 7.75/10. The g's were teetering on the upper limit a couple of times, but they were close enough, so I'll let them go. And then there were the supports. Not a single custom support. Not one. All you did was replace the edges of the crossover wood with steel I-beams, without adding a single extra wide support or custom bridge. And you didn't even do the steel thing on the giant bridge over the parking lot. This is a pretty major issue, as due to the wood generator's terrain bug, over 75% of the coaster was left without wide supports at all. It wasn't as bad as a couple of the other coasters, as it did actually have a few, but that's still enough to cost you 1.75 points.
Adrenaline:
The main thing that this coaster had going for it was the airtime. There was a ton of it, and it was mostly just in that perfect GCI ejector range around -0.4 which would quickly toss you out of your seat and give you a quick thrill without being too intense. There was a lot of it, and it was pretty much placed throughout the whole coaster. But that is just about the only thing that this coaster has going for it. It never even came close to achieving the same out-of-control left-right randomness and unpredictability that a GCI needs to truly be exceptional. The jarring circular turns were really what did this. There were just too many of these turns. And while they had good positive g's and good airtime coming into and out of them, they just aren't good for generating sensation of speed. Quick transitions and unexpected pops of air was are what do that. Again, perhaps an example is best. Watch the ending of Thunderhead, and how it is constantly darting left and right, up and down, and that is what I was looking for. Also, blah blah blah speed changes, blah blah blah sense of scope, blah blah blah looking for changes in pacing with a surprising ?????????insane????????? section, I've said it all before, and basically no coaster in this whole round of the contest had it. Also, this coaster had the problem of slowing down drastically by the end, so I was left with a sour taste in my mouth. But the speed in the beginning, and the great amount of airtime, are definitely worth a very good score.
Originality:
I do have a few problems here, namely things that I have already mentioned like the lack of flow. When a coaster doesn't have a sense of flow, it also tends to feel predictable because it feels like all of the elements are separate. In the grand scheme of things, though, I don't think that the layout was the problem, it was the execution. So I can't fault it too much. The beginning of the coaster was actually really good. It started off with a bang, and was the part of the coaster that actually did have the GCI shaping, randomness, and poppiness down about right. It wasn't until the return leg that things started going downhill. Even then, it still had a bit of the poppiness between the big elevated turns, and those were even decent at creating the sense of unpredictability. But then things just took a nosedive after that boring 23 mph section. It just never recovered, and honestly felt like ?????????when's this thing going to be over?????????? Plus it didn't really do anything too original or distinctive, the execution was off, plus you didn't do a single custom wide support, so you get a medium-good score here mainly because of the decent pacing and sequencing.
Technical: 6.00 Adrenaline: 7.50 Originality: 7.25
Final Rating: 6.92
an because i also love my first drop.
