Jarrett
Most Obnoxious Member 2016
So I've been socialized way more this season than I ever have before, and almost every conversation about coasters I have with someone ends up with me either claiming to love or hate a coaster and being called out for being inconsistent. When this happens, I almost always end up bringing one word to describe what the coaster does or doesn't have, aggression.
Now this creates more questions than it answers. Always. Usually the coaster in question is Intimidator 305 or Fury 325, sometimes Cheetah Hunt or Skyrush. When I say that Fury ranks as highly as it does for me, I always say it's because it's a shear aggression machine that was engineered to feel as fast, furious, angry, and unstoppable as possible. This is almost always confused with the classic, "but Jarrett, Intimidator 305/Batman clones/Maverick/El Toro have aggressive force/airtime to them!" No, I don't mean it's aggressive with a different quality, I mean it on its own does well in aggression as its own quality.
However, I seem to be the only one that acknowledges that this quality exists in a coaster. The quality of feeling fast, infuriated, alive, and absolutely unstoppable and immovable. My first taste of it was Millennium Force. That massive train that thundered down that drop, roared through those overbanks, teased me with a bit of airtime (way more than I had experienced at the time), and ended the ride charging over a hill, around a narrow turn that was still highly banked, over a straightaway, and kicked back into an overbank before braking just felt so powerful the whole time. And then came Cheetah Hunt, a coaster that had about the same level of force albeit with a bit more airtime, terrain interaction (now the machine is charging close to the rocks and plants!), and did a heck of a lot more organic twisting around and actually felt alive like a jungle cat in hot pursuit of its prey with intention to rip its flesh to shreds. And then came Voyage. Oh, lovely Voyage. This coaster, unlike the others, is usually ranked really highly by enthusiasts. Voyage was unique that in addition to its less-than-glass-smooth texture, it started out pretty mild and disappointing before really starting to throw you around and toss you about. And then it slows you down before it just gets angrier and angrier. Then came Fury, a coaster designed explicitly to mimic the flight of the angry hornet, enraged and ready to chase down whoever just made the mistake of kicking its nest. A month later, Skyrush came into the picture. In addition to its controversial airtime, Skyrush features plenty of twisting action, twisting action that requires just as much defensive riding as the airtime. Like, you literally have to keep this machine from tossing the snot out of you and it's fantastic. In addition to this common theme affecting my number ones, coasters that are rich in this "angry" feeling have been sneaking into lower spots in my top ten, such as the RMCs and Maverick and Leviathan. RMCs, especially Outlaw Run, combine violent twisting and glass smooth texture with insane ejector air to create a pretty standard design guideline that happens to be everything I love about my number one.
Some might say I'm making this up and aggression is the umami of coasters, a fictional quality for something else similar to the sixth food flavor that had us rolling our eyes at soy sauce commercials all those years ago. However, there is definitely some evidence at least to me. I brought my girlfriend on Voyage a while ago and while she's almost strictly an ejector person, she said she "liked the power of it," and it hit her number three wood spot behind Toro and Outlaw. Fury 325, also, was probably pretty close to being marketed for aggression. The tagline "you can't stop it, only hope to contain it" strongly suggests a powerful, unstoppable force. Not to mention they likened the ride experience to a swarm of angry hornets going after someone. It isn't presented as an airtime machine, it wasn't marketed as some colossal force like Leviathan, it was presented as angry and violent.
So am I just talking out my arese or is there some argument for this coaster quality?
Now this creates more questions than it answers. Always. Usually the coaster in question is Intimidator 305 or Fury 325, sometimes Cheetah Hunt or Skyrush. When I say that Fury ranks as highly as it does for me, I always say it's because it's a shear aggression machine that was engineered to feel as fast, furious, angry, and unstoppable as possible. This is almost always confused with the classic, "but Jarrett, Intimidator 305/Batman clones/Maverick/El Toro have aggressive force/airtime to them!" No, I don't mean it's aggressive with a different quality, I mean it on its own does well in aggression as its own quality.
However, I seem to be the only one that acknowledges that this quality exists in a coaster. The quality of feeling fast, infuriated, alive, and absolutely unstoppable and immovable. My first taste of it was Millennium Force. That massive train that thundered down that drop, roared through those overbanks, teased me with a bit of airtime (way more than I had experienced at the time), and ended the ride charging over a hill, around a narrow turn that was still highly banked, over a straightaway, and kicked back into an overbank before braking just felt so powerful the whole time. And then came Cheetah Hunt, a coaster that had about the same level of force albeit with a bit more airtime, terrain interaction (now the machine is charging close to the rocks and plants!), and did a heck of a lot more organic twisting around and actually felt alive like a jungle cat in hot pursuit of its prey with intention to rip its flesh to shreds. And then came Voyage. Oh, lovely Voyage. This coaster, unlike the others, is usually ranked really highly by enthusiasts. Voyage was unique that in addition to its less-than-glass-smooth texture, it started out pretty mild and disappointing before really starting to throw you around and toss you about. And then it slows you down before it just gets angrier and angrier. Then came Fury, a coaster designed explicitly to mimic the flight of the angry hornet, enraged and ready to chase down whoever just made the mistake of kicking its nest. A month later, Skyrush came into the picture. In addition to its controversial airtime, Skyrush features plenty of twisting action, twisting action that requires just as much defensive riding as the airtime. Like, you literally have to keep this machine from tossing the snot out of you and it's fantastic. In addition to this common theme affecting my number ones, coasters that are rich in this "angry" feeling have been sneaking into lower spots in my top ten, such as the RMCs and Maverick and Leviathan. RMCs, especially Outlaw Run, combine violent twisting and glass smooth texture with insane ejector air to create a pretty standard design guideline that happens to be everything I love about my number one.
Some might say I'm making this up and aggression is the umami of coasters, a fictional quality for something else similar to the sixth food flavor that had us rolling our eyes at soy sauce commercials all those years ago. However, there is definitely some evidence at least to me. I brought my girlfriend on Voyage a while ago and while she's almost strictly an ejector person, she said she "liked the power of it," and it hit her number three wood spot behind Toro and Outlaw. Fury 325, also, was probably pretty close to being marketed for aggression. The tagline "you can't stop it, only hope to contain it" strongly suggests a powerful, unstoppable force. Not to mention they likened the ride experience to a swarm of angry hornets going after someone. It isn't presented as an airtime machine, it wasn't marketed as some colossal force like Leviathan, it was presented as angry and violent.
So am I just talking out my arese or is there some argument for this coaster quality?
