Benin

My initial assessment of meh got upgraded to, "oh that's quite cool actually"... I still see it as rather weird, but I'm sure smaller parks will lap this ride up... And given Walibi Belgium's issues with locals it's probably the best they can do...

>Can't pick a fad >Chooses VR concept Good game Merlin...

£10 million on the marketing, £10m on the VR and the rest to Derren? The ride is actually made by kids at the local school... Community help and all that...

That won't stop people from waiting outside expectantly... Seriously, someone just mingle around the entrance tomorrow and watch a queue form behind you..

I saw some AR stuff used at a show recently, the only hope is that the quality of the fake stuff is actually good... Like, the purposes for the thing I saw weren't entertainment based, but it was very unreliable/unresponsive... For a mass thing, Thorpe need to have brought the a game in maintenance stuff... Anything less won't do...

Because they're greedy and having two days worth of media stuff 10 days prior to opening... The POVs look standard... Pterosaur looks very fab with the rockwork and stuff...

Media day is today, so expect a fair amount of pics to come through... On the Twitters, it's really looking great...

I do hate this obsession with filters, it's very simple to get great pics without resorting to them...

Problem is that it's very unsubtle marketing... Merlin parks are the only parks who seem to constantly remind you that Fastrack exists on a regular basis... Whereas some parks who offer it kinda just go "it exists, but we won't force it down your throats"... Those tend to be the parks where you see about 2 people using it though...

Carriage not suspended in midair? Sorry, worst ride ever, 0/10, would not visit again...

Forbidden Journey is the only thing I can think of that would be stuck upside down... Which is plausible given the range of motion by the KUKA arms... At the same time though, could be rubbish... 2 years ago this happened? You'd probably get suing quicker than that...

So ORPs as green screen? Maybe even have you do something like Defi de Cesar in Asterix? Sounds a bit pointless if the photo is a head in a jar...

Surprised no one has raved about Civil War yet... The second half of it is the best stuff Marvel have ever done... The entire airport sequence is a delight, and then the final fight is astoundingly brutal and tense... Great job of introducing Black Panther and new Spidey, which makes the hype for both their films increase... Also Ant Man The first half is slow, but it does the job in setting up the story and the various sides put in pace... That every character gets their chance says a lot about how well written the story is and how they've balanced it... Marvel keep marching on... Infinity War with the Russos behind it should be even better (especially if we get another Community alumni cameo)...

Sounds more like trying to fit in too much new technology which hasn't really been fully tested on such a scale... Paying the price through this as a result...

Rumours? That was gonna happen until someone pulled the plug...

Gotta love the UK media, especially with the tenuous link back to last year... For all future references, I suggest people link to the Daily Fail site, since that provides the news but doesn't provide them money...

They make full use of their charitable status... I'd like to see a breakdown of what they spend money on and how much on each aspect... This is still not to say that in order to keep things at a high quality, you need to spend lots... You need a team fully behind providing the highest quality product as possible...

Do you have a sense of irony Jamie? You're certainly one to talk about people being defensive of specific parks, you have a sixth sense when people moan about Blackpool...

What's REALLY unacceptable is that the correct spelling is idle for this context...

I can honestly say I've never dived to the depths of stealing children just to get a cred... Yet......

It's a poor show, after apparently planning this thing for 3 years if I recall? Perhaps Merlin need to revisit their cycles of investment at the rate of delays/close calls to their additions... A case of too many eggs in one basket perhaps? This has got a lot of new tech inside it, so perhaps they sold themselves short on the 'perfection' stage... Though of course this idea of "we are perfecting the ride" is marketing speak for "things went wrong and it'll be late"... Shame I've missed the OUTRAGE due to work really...

I like how suddenly there's new rumours of it being delayed, and now loads of people are coming out saying "I've heard things suggesting this"... I do look forward to the mass OUTRAGE if it is delayed...

Because there's a new cred and slides...

Neither of those options should occur, it needs redoing, but going back to Prof Burp would never recapture the same imagination and humour of the original... And I doubt Merlin's fresh take for a modern audience would improve it... So complete retheme to something new and original or just bin it... Those are the right options...

Wembley was great yesterday, the final will hopefully be even better...