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Heide Park


MikeC

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Looks bland.

I've done Swarm, Raptor and GateKeeper and this isn't bring anything new to the table at all.

Not to mention the complete lack of proper near misses built for the ride.

Raptor is brilliant at landscaping and near misses - it's a shame that Merlin are gradually making less and less of them with every Wing Rider they build.

I hope Alton Towers never gets one.

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I hope Alton Towers never gets one.

So do I; I'm more than happy for Alton Towers to keep investing into 'prototype' rides that can then be built far better by other parks in the world, it's serving everybody brilliantly.

I find it very uninventive this coaster; and if anything reminds me loosely of X-Flight. It's as if Merlin went "If you're going to copy our 'inverted drop' idea, we're going to copy half of your layout" kind of thing. But then, I think Wingrider's are being overdone now. They're not particularly thrilling due to their 'sluggish' speed from the air resistance. I'd much rather have an interesting layout flying coaster like Tatsu over a wingrider to be honest.

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Another video, our old friend Bastian finally rides it...

Seems like the speed flucuates between the front and backwards facing cameras... So dunno how it'll ride... Probably like the others... But the layout is alright, I'm mostly looking forward to that airtime hill more than anything...

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A game of the ride has been released and available for downloading, it looks like the same sort of game as the Smiler one from last season

Source: Theme Park Incorporated's Facebook Page (A link is there as well)

Just downloaded this (came out later on Android than iPhone for whatever weird reason...).

It's very much a game like Temple Run (swipe up/down/left/right to avoid objects). Okay game really, nice bit of fun I guess.

If the music in the game is used in the ride (which, if Smiler is anything to go up, it probably will), then I'm happy though!

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I've been following the construction of Merlin's latest coaster under the radar a bit. Withholding my judgement because, I thought, I would wait until it was finished. But the more and more I saw, the less ad less I was inclined to say anything. And I must agree with Josh, Mark, Jamie... the general consensus really. I wanted this to be amazing, especially since my four month Erasmus exchange starts in two days and will give me plenty of time to romp around Europe riding these coasters, but Flug der Damonen seems a little... misfired. Here's my thoughts:

This coaster does appear to embody the more cynical opinions of Merlin's recent enterprises; that somewhere along the line, probably after an impressive mood-board, expensive initial concepts, world-class artistic rendering and layout design were completed, it all just fell to ****. It's like they've mashed together the better qualities - layout and theme-wise - of The Swarm and Raptor, and left us all in a very (as Mark quite duly noted) bland middle-ground that wavers between trying the thrill people and maintain its theme. The Swarm gets it: it's got the speed, the sustained G-forces, the theme (sort of), and a real atmosphere. The layout embodies the idea of aliens kidnapping you and disorientating you by flying up, down, around and over. It dominates its area and is physically very impressive. Raptor, though I haven't ridden it, has a similarly very striking physical appearance. It's train is a visual masterpiece, the area looks immersive, and the layout is top-notch. It also encapsulates its concept within the layout; the idea of the Raptor running rampant around the research facility, destroying approximately everything with its relentless twists, turns and dives.

FDD has none of that. My first issue is the aesthetic. It's copied The Swarm's gorgeous train façade. Cheap cheap cheap. Secondly, it only has six rows. Now, I'm sure there are higher science-y powers at work determining the necessity for only six rows, but it makes it look like a meek and feeble sapling in comparison to it's much bigger brothers. Thirdly, colour palette. The ONE ride Merlin had credence to make black/dark over all their other poor colour palette decisions (Krake, Th13teen, The Smiler to an extent), is white. White?! All other visuals for this coaster (concept art, logo, advertisement, associated buildings even) point to a coaster that should've actually looked darker. Now it's bleached - or rather, blanched - and just disappears into a moody overcast German sky; it's not imposing; it doesn't stand out; it looks like it just came straight from the factory without being painted/was copied straight out of a coaster simulator.

Another problem for me is the layout. What exactly is it doing? Have we missed a back story with this coaster? The Swarm and Raptor have back-stories, so why did Merlin cheap out on this one? In recent times, Merlin have been so, so good at translating the story of the coaster into the layout. I've said before how The Swarm and Raptor do it, but they're not the only ones - Th13teen's layout - to a fair, but not perfect, extent - does the same, and The Smiler practically smashes the nail on the head until it falls out the other side. FDD's train is left to meander from one point to the next ticking a passable number of boxes, not really sure of what it wants to really do. The inclined pretzel certainly looks like it'll pack a punch, but then the ride is over. The best part of the ride looks to be the fortunately-placed airtime hill.

One big surprise (also negative) is the theming. Where is it?! Even The Swarm's is more consistent than this thing. Just looking at that POV video again you can see a small amount of ground themeing has been done, but where the guests can't walk, it's simply left as per the construction period. Save the new shop and a bit of queueline distractions, it's all very sparse. But then again what could they have done? I'm sure there must have been concepts at some point, but they must've not materialised. Where do these demons come from? How are they here? What are they here to do to the human race? Etc. etc. etc. All of this should've been translated into the coaster environment. It was done for The Swarm, it was done for Raptor. The resultant feeling I get from it is that it's more akin to X-Flight. It's not quite as bad as X-Flight, I'll admit, but it's easily the dullest looking Wing Coaster (theme-wise) Merlin have ever done.

I'm sorry, I know some arse will pop up with a ten-word post about how I haven't ridden it yet so can't call judgement, but that just won't wash here. No, I haven't ridden it, but I can see it. And while I know it might be a decent ride, it's not a decent attraction, especially for Heide Park. It looks off-the-shelf, a little bit pathetic, doesn't play to the design's strengths at all. You might not think all of this counts, but it does. Strip away the underground tunnel on Oblivion, the terrain on Nemesis, the The Smiler's music; what would we think if Helix was white when it's theme demands it be green? Without the imposing black abyss below Oblivion's drop, Nemesis's speed-manipulating terrain proximity, or The Smiler's world class score, and that's what we've got with Flug der Damonen.

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Heide always, always, gets cheap knock offs of the UK parks. It's lazy and they've done it since they've owned it.

They seemingly went a little bit away from that with Krake's theme. And at least they don't play thorpe parks music everywhere anymore or use Ritas advert for Desert Race.

They're getting there, slightly. But still have a long way to go and another park which'll benefit massively not being under UK ownership.

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Heide always, always, gets cheap knock offs of the UK parks. It's lazy and they've done it since they've owned it.

They seemingly went a little bit away from that with Krake's theme. And at least they don't play thorpe parks music everywhere anymore or use Ritas advert for Desert Race.

They're getting there, slightly. But still have a long way to go and another park which'll benefit massively not being under UK ownership.

****, I forgot about Desert Race. Such a dire piece of kit.

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To me I have to agree with all of you it does look very bland compared to its siblings, even Gatekeeper has more head/footchoppers(although not themed) I feel that the only decent think that would attract me to the park is Colossos even though it has the Colossus soundtrack, it just looks fantastic if unthemed, but then the rest looks a bit mediocre to me.

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It's doubly worse for Heide as the competition in Germany is so much more then say the UK or in Italy with Gardaland. I'm sure that explains why Heide continually gets these frequent but lazy investments.

My main concern though is how Merlin seem committed to making Heide and Gardaland so similar. There are strong rumours that Garda will be getting a Dive Machine for next season; just seems so irrelevant when that park needs something more like Juvelen or a Mack coaster.

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We're kinda lucky in that aspect, that we're the ones having the adverts and everything created rather than just copied embarrassingly from another site. I wonder if those parks have many enthusiasts who are proud of the parks. Wish they were allowed to do things themselves, each individual park knows more about what's best for them than someone in Dorset.

I feel that the only decent think that would attract me to the park is Colossos even though it has the Colossus soundtrack

NOT ANYMORE!:

http://www.imascore.com/en/colossos-bekommt-neuen-soundtrack-von-imascore

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