Well tbh there's lots of options coming up but I will try to stay on topic. Just not very excited about this one. It just feels a little gimmicky. The longer immersive coasters are more intriguing.
News Project 2027/Skyland/Purple: Bakunawa (Mack Giga Shuttle Xtreme Spinner)
- Thread starter Zachary
- Start date
The thing is overall they do it better than anyone
Yeah? Their GCI family wooden coaster that feels like it's going to fall off the tracks? The indoor straddle coaster through an empty warehouse? The shaky "we have Intamin at home" Zierer launch coaster? The joke of a drop tower that barely lasted a decade?
I love BGW, but saying they "do it better than anyone" is hardly a universal truth.
USED to be true. Not at all now. Also feels right to slide in that invadr is trash
I'm sure you do love it. That fact is obvious! How do you feel about Boohoonowwhat?
I guess some people have a hard time imagining the bigger picture of something and putting themselves in a scenerio on why/how something will be vs what their eyes can see.
I see beenzbrobollox find the way to troll people on non Busch gardens threads like this one
Pray hard and you too can find the way. #Snowflakes. How bout that Boohoonowhat ride? Damn they were creative with this one
ok, now you trolling, we got a new mcmehler in townPray hard and you too can find the way. #Snowflakes. How bout that Boohoonowhat ride? Damn they were creative with this one
well, you have trolled after people and even the post that started your rampage has mentioned Zachery & horseboy as those beans who been spilled
and mcmehler was a troll who gotten himself banned after attacking Busch gardens of not being as great as disney world
Baku is a gimmick ride, and I've got my gripes with how it's been presented and how the theming is playing out. But it's still an amazing ride on paper, and a game-changer indicative of the next phase of coasters around the world.
I'm annoyed at the gimmicky rides being all parks get nowadays, but I can't be too mad at them for that, anymore than I can be mad at my car dealer for the new models on the lot that I think are crappier than last year's. The days of getting full-circuit gigas and 4000'+ extreme woodies are over for now. The coaster designers and market prices have shifted things away from those. Everything these days is a gimmick to make up for the fact that the days of giant rides up to about 10 years ago aren't options in the industry. Falcon's Flight is a special standalone exception (and probably won't ever be outdone). Every manufacturer is scaling up the features of the first iterations of these gimmicky rides, like B&M's Tormenta, Mack's Baku, and Vekoma's Siren's Curse. And they're trying new features on standard models, like the coming Thrill Glider. Vekoma's Werewolf Gorge is just a long standard Vekoma with a launch and themed within an inch of it's life. Which is still pretty cool if executed well. Just go big or interesting until parks start saying no to these designs because attendees get tired of them and/or the price of steel and components comes back to earth so that an extreme thrill ride like Nitro or Goliah aren't prohibitively expensive for a chain. There's a lot of things steering new coasters in this direction for now.
Great Adventure can do better in a lot of ways, and I see them making progress and at least trying on most fronts. That's why I'm more positive about Baku because of what it symbolizes for my park. We'll have to wait-and-see about the execution of the direction it's going over the next decade or so. They could blow it despite best intentions. But at least it's a direction after being rudderless for yeeeears. To the rides being added, I'm gonna hate the game, not the player. Pretty sure Mike Fehnel and corporate didn't have the option with Mack to get a full-circuit Bakunawa, and nor could the chain probably have afforded something $80-90 million. If in ten year's time GAdv adds a family woodie and a Werewolf Gorge clone to go with Baku, I'd be happy with that, knowing a full-circuit giga or a custom 4400' RMC weren't realistic options. Yeah, I'd rather have a Fury 325 over in front of the park instead of Baku. But that wasn't an option. And I hate that Flash is one-train and a little undersized. But as far as I know, Siren's Curse, headaches and all, wasn't available for GAdv. It's not like other parks are getting my dream coasters, or even close to them.
So, Baku and Siren's Curse and Thrill Glider and Tormenta are the kinds of rides we can expect these days. I can enjoy them for what they are. I will ride them and find out if the thrills live up to the hype, or, if they're just completely underwhelming (looking at you, Superman: Ultimate Flight, among others out there). I can also boycott them entirely from the get-go, dismissing them as pale imitations of better rides, symbolic of an era that is marketing gimmicks instead of old-school full-circuit thrill experiences that rely on airtime and inversions, not drops and launches and twirling. But then, I do enjoy going to the parks and riding all kinds of coasters. Runaway Train and GASM hurt like hell and had issues, but they were/are fun. Flash and Baku are/will be flawed, but Flash is fun and Baku sure seems like it'll be a blast for what it is. Kingda Ka was amazing and terrible at the same time. The King of Gimmicks. But most of us loved it for what it was. Only truly shit coasters deserve hate. And there are sadly plenty of them out there. Doesn't feel like this era of gimmick coasters are those. They're just different. I can respect that, as long as the flaws don't ruin a good time.
I'm annoyed at the gimmicky rides being all parks get nowadays, but I can't be too mad at them for that, anymore than I can be mad at my car dealer for the new models on the lot that I think are crappier than last year's. The days of getting full-circuit gigas and 4000'+ extreme woodies are over for now. The coaster designers and market prices have shifted things away from those. Everything these days is a gimmick to make up for the fact that the days of giant rides up to about 10 years ago aren't options in the industry. Falcon's Flight is a special standalone exception (and probably won't ever be outdone). Every manufacturer is scaling up the features of the first iterations of these gimmicky rides, like B&M's Tormenta, Mack's Baku, and Vekoma's Siren's Curse. And they're trying new features on standard models, like the coming Thrill Glider. Vekoma's Werewolf Gorge is just a long standard Vekoma with a launch and themed within an inch of it's life. Which is still pretty cool if executed well. Just go big or interesting until parks start saying no to these designs because attendees get tired of them and/or the price of steel and components comes back to earth so that an extreme thrill ride like Nitro or Goliah aren't prohibitively expensive for a chain. There's a lot of things steering new coasters in this direction for now.
Great Adventure can do better in a lot of ways, and I see them making progress and at least trying on most fronts. That's why I'm more positive about Baku because of what it symbolizes for my park. We'll have to wait-and-see about the execution of the direction it's going over the next decade or so. They could blow it despite best intentions. But at least it's a direction after being rudderless for yeeeears. To the rides being added, I'm gonna hate the game, not the player. Pretty sure Mike Fehnel and corporate didn't have the option with Mack to get a full-circuit Bakunawa, and nor could the chain probably have afforded something $80-90 million. If in ten year's time GAdv adds a family woodie and a Werewolf Gorge clone to go with Baku, I'd be happy with that, knowing a full-circuit giga or a custom 4400' RMC weren't realistic options. Yeah, I'd rather have a Fury 325 over in front of the park instead of Baku. But that wasn't an option. And I hate that Flash is one-train and a little undersized. But as far as I know, Siren's Curse, headaches and all, wasn't available for GAdv. It's not like other parks are getting my dream coasters, or even close to them.
So, Baku and Siren's Curse and Thrill Glider and Tormenta are the kinds of rides we can expect these days. I can enjoy them for what they are. I will ride them and find out if the thrills live up to the hype, or, if they're just completely underwhelming (looking at you, Superman: Ultimate Flight, among others out there). I can also boycott them entirely from the get-go, dismissing them as pale imitations of better rides, symbolic of an era that is marketing gimmicks instead of old-school full-circuit thrill experiences that rely on airtime and inversions, not drops and launches and twirling. But then, I do enjoy going to the parks and riding all kinds of coasters. Runaway Train and GASM hurt like hell and had issues, but they were/are fun. Flash and Baku are/will be flawed, but Flash is fun and Baku sure seems like it'll be a blast for what it is. Kingda Ka was amazing and terrible at the same time. The King of Gimmicks. But most of us loved it for what it was. Only truly shit coasters deserve hate. And there are sadly plenty of them out there. Doesn't feel like this era of gimmick coasters are those. They're just different. I can respect that, as long as the flaws don't ruin a good time.
Last edited:
ride to happiness cost €15,000,000 (roughly $18 million) in 2021. nobody needed or wanted a spinning giga shuttle, it's just an abominable idea blown up to massive proportions, excellently positioned to sink the park financially because so many eggs are in such a structurally unconvincing and poorly presented basket
The industry is in a weird space right now, especially the regional sector of the industry. That being said, I do think a gimmicky ride is kinda what Great Adventure needed. As much as we all loved and miss Kingda Ka, it was also a gimmick ride. Incredible launch, go up, go down. And while the gimmicks are probably more prevalent on Bakunawa, it's similar in that regard. Incredible launch (that upside-down launch will probably be the standout moment), go up, go down. After the announcement, it was all over social media; friends and family were messaging me about it all week, so it's clearly gotten people's attention. I don't think this is going to be the greatest ride ever, but the goal here was to get people back into the park and hopefully, with the improvements the park has made these last two years, keep them coming back for repeat visits. I think the ride is well on its way to doing just that, I'm expecting corporate to look at this ride and call it a success and continue to invest in Great Adventure.
I do unfortunately think that at the moment, the traditional B&M giga we've been begging for is off the table, rising cost of steel being the main factor (although I do wonder if Orion being viewed kinda lukewarm had a role in it as well), but that doesn't mean they're off the table in the future. In the meantime, if they want to add a ride like Big Bear Mountain or maybe give us a tilt coaster fine by me.
I do unfortunately think that at the moment, the traditional B&M giga we've been begging for is off the table, rising cost of steel being the main factor (although I do wonder if Orion being viewed kinda lukewarm had a role in it as well), but that doesn't mean they're off the table in the future. In the meantime, if they want to add a ride like Big Bear Mountain or maybe give us a tilt coaster fine by me.
I understand where you're coming from, and I agree that a traditional spinner would be a better overall experience. But I think that a more traditional ride falls short of grabbing people's attention the way Six Flags wants it to. Something needed to take Ka's place before the park could move on, and while it was neither your favorite option nor mine....it is filling that role. Yes it's not quite as tall as Ka....but it is objectively very tall, and I don't think the GP will care too much beyond that. This ride wasn't made for enthusiasts, it was made to be a GP magnet, and from the reactions so far it's doing exactly what it was meant to.
And we need to remember that the companies shop these models. Rarely do the parks or chains go to the companies and say 'make me X' from scratch. Sometimes (hello, Arie Force One). Mack came up with this and Six Flags Entertainment bought it, then figured out which park would get it. They bought Tormenta and Rapterra from B&M, etc. Vekoma has this new glider model and SFEC and Magic Mountain bought it. If rumors are true, GAdv wasn't the first choice among the parks for Baku. So some of the revisionism that SFEC and GAdv came up with this specific ride to specifically replicate and replace Ka in a carefully laid out plan can go by the wayside. Once GAdv was given the Mack package that's how it has effectively played out, probably to GAdv's relief, but it wasn't the gameplan to start. What would the reaction have been to Ka having to close as it did but the latest coaster added to the park was Siren's Curse or Thrill Glider? Like most things SFEC before the merger, everything was semi-accidental, half-assed, and thrown together. In some ways we got stuck with Baku. In other ways, we got damn lucky.