That is definitely some old information on the ibiblio.org page. As far as the wooden coaster information goes, I'm not sure about that, but the steel ones don't take into account at least one coaster that's a good 2 years old.
Height - 255 feet (higher than the top listed on those records) Drop angle - 61 degrees (higher than #2, and X, the newest one, is something like 86 or 87 degrees) Drop Length - at least 255 feet (it goes underground, once again, higher than top listed on those records) Speed - 85 mph (ties record)
So those are at least a few years old, and I know that Goliath has been surpassed for those records since that time.
You are so absolutely right about Viper's shoulder restraints. Now, I love Viper, it's great fun, but it's so incredibly painful. I'm 6'2", and the bars come down on a hinge that sits just below my shoulder level. So I have two choices when it swings down...have it be sorta comfortable but sticking out about a foot and a half in front of me, basically not hanging onto me at all, or pull it down further so I have to sit in the car like Igor in Young Frankenstein. That's usually what happens (those fine attendants really smash the thing down on me), and while the ride then is fine, once it's stopped and I'm waiting to go into the terminal, I sit there in intense and searing pain, starting to get claustrophobic from the damn thing.
Rest assured, if you haven't ridden it, X has *FAR* better shoulder restraints...they seem to be able to fit almost any body size that sits in them.
You really, really do need to ride it. I couldn't ride roller coasters (too scared) until about July of last year, then my friends took me there and forced me to ride Goliath. After going hoarse screaming for my mom, I had so much adrenaline running through me that I barely knew what to do with myself. That initial drop is the single most insane thing I've ever experienced. I've ridden it 3 more times since then, and it *never* gets old;)
Just as a side note, the newest coaster at Magic Mountain out in Valencia, CA (mentioned earlier as being the home of Goliath), called X, is probably the easiest one on the human body that I've seen there. They've got some videos here, in Real Player and Windows Media. They're all computer generated simulations, but you still get a good idea.
The ride looks horribly disorienting, but oddly enough, it's not at all. Maybe being flung around at those G forces makes your body's orientation matter less, but I got off that ride feeling fine.
I can, however, attest to that slightly disoriented feeling getting off Goliath, but that's half the fun of the ride...you feel a little goofed up after flying around at that ridiculous speed. The drop on it is so fast, they had to put a braking strip in the middle of the ride so you'll slow down enough for the end of the trip. I think the initial drop puts you at about 85mph on a 61 degree drop...good times!
I'm also in the "that's ridiculous" boat. Every roller coaster I've ever seen is *well* within the limits of safety, generally with huge margins for error when they run. The physics principles behind each and every roller coaster are sound, the trick is to make what is essentially very safe seem dangerous as hell. At Magic Mountain out here in Cali., I believe they've had one death, and that was a woman with a pre-existing condition that she was unaware of that caused an aneurysm or something similar. Either way, doctors later said that it was one of those things that was set off by the roller coaster, but a close call in the car, or a number of other situations could have just as easily caused it to happen, so ultimately it wasn't from the coaster.
Ultimately, even on probably the highest G-Force part of the park, (Goliath, nearing the end, on the corkscrew down to the ground), it's still not so strong that I can't lift my head against it. Can't same the same for the vomitron 5000 at the local county fair...
I would assume the reason they're doing this is to set some sort of precedent by doing this to CD's that not many people are going to buy, hence not much outrage will come of it. It'll give them a chance to work out whatever bugs they want to work out, see how much they can get away with, and just get themselves into the position they need to be in before the unleash it on the majority of the record buying public.
It'd be a huge public relations nightmare if they did something like this right now with some best selling CD in the US, so why not use the few fans Celine has left to test all this out?
For isntance, Blockbuster Video & Hollywood Video. Both had a good library of Playstation games, and generally some N64 titles, and both leapt on the PS2 when it came to market.
However, even though Hollywood had a partnership with Sega for a while there (advance Dreamcast units for rent before the official release, a preview release party out here in Westwood a couple of months before DC launch, etc), they still had a crap selection of games to rent, and most Blockbusters never even started renting out DC games. Some did, but for the most party they only rented out the big titles, you couldn't go there and find lesser known games to see if you liked 'em...
Oooh, is that out? That looked like a hell of a lot of fun, and I know that another little Sega made cutesy puzzle-like game, Chu Chu Rocket, is an awesome game. I might have to go snag that on the way home today...
Course, I also had to spend $30 for an optical casble jack that came standard on my PS2, and another $25 or so for a kit so I could watch DVDs on my XBox, something I could do on the PS2 out of the box.
XBox is nice, but I can damn near guarantee that the PS2 will be on top until PS3 comes out. XBox I think is going to trounce the Cube for the most part, but Sony's got way too big of a headstart for XBox to catch up.
If you want proof right now that coming up with a great game library won't necessarily let you beat Sony, look at the Dreamcast. It may still have the greatest library of games of any console yet made, but it never went anywhere.
Halo: Excellent, though I'm getting burned out on FPS's except for Counter-Strike, which is still great in a LAN without cheaters.
DOA3: Good, but rushed. Where's all the hidden stuff for good replay value on it? It's great, looks beautiful, but DOA2:HC still kept me busier longer.
Project Ego: Looks fantastic.
Dunno anything about Commandos or Armada
Star Wars: Starfighter: Yech. Somehow, playing this game made my brain hurt.
Amped: SSX is a better snowboarding game, Tony Hawk is a better trick-type game. Amped can't compare to either of those.
Oddworld: Man, the old Oddworld's ruled, when did they turn into a pretty power-up hunting game?
Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2: Good, but Tony still reigns, IMHO.
Dunno anything about NBA Live
PGR: Now you're talkin'. Best game on the XBox bar none, a vast improvement to the already great Metropolis Street Racer on Dreamcast, and one that should really be getting way more of a media push than Halo.
Yep, but the Dreamcast never had the market saturation or fanbase that the PS2 has right now. The PS2 basically came along and slaughtered the poor Dreamcast and has a huge base. They were also smart and released 4 or so really great games right in a row (THPS3 with online, MGS2, GTA3, Final Fantasy X) right at X-mas.
I do wish the Dreamcast had done better, and I'm pissed as hell that Shenmue II isn't coming out for it in the US. Even Europe gets it!! After leaving on the ship for Hong Kong, I had to know what comes next, and now I won't know until the XBox version comes out. AUGH!!
Gotta disagree on that GT3 pale in comparison bit. PGR is an excellent game, and one that I wasn't going to buy but was forced to due to EB's bundle policy, and it has become my favorite game on the XBox. That F50 rocks!
However, while it's got all sorts of cool tasks and that, it doesn't have the actual driving depth that GT3 does. PGR has excellent physics, but GT3 lets you tweak suspensions, downforce, chassis weight, transmissions, engine, etc etc etc. The depth with which you can delve into the cars on GT3 is just amazing as compared to something like PGR, where you can...well...change the car color.
It's sorta like comparing NFL Blitz & Madden. They both follow the same rules, and are both excellent games, but while both being football games they're pointed at completely different markets. PGR is an awesome arcadey racer, F355 is an incredible racing simulator, and GT3 is the current king of *driving* games.
That kinda depends on who you are. I bought an N64 solely because I wanted to play Mario64, I bought a Saturn just because I had to have Virtua Fighter 2 at home, I got a Dreamcast because of Shenmue & F355 Challenge. I've now bought an XBox because of Project Gotham Racing (plus Shenmue II and Jet Grind Radio Future in the..well...future), a PS2 for GT3 (MGS2, GTA3, FFX, Frequency, Tony Hawk 3 online, and Virtua Fighter IV are excellent bonuses), and a Cube for Rogue Squadron. I'm sorry to say that to this point, the Cube is the only one that has totally disappointed me, but I epxect that to change in the future.
I doubt FFX will come out nearly as nicely on the PC, and same with MGS2. The PC is great for some things, but nothing beats playing MGS2 on a big TV with a 5.1 speaker system.
Now that's a good suggestion. Imagine giving the children access to all the major systems out there, and maybe throwing in a BeOS machine or even an OS/2 box.
The main problem then is, how do you get teachers who can get the students up to speed on each of these machines? I mean, it's hard enough to find a comptuer teacher in HS these days that can handle Microsoft Office, much less get a student up and running on a Linux box. Well, maybe not these days, but when I graduated from HS less than 10 years ago, relatively basic computer knowledge was pretty far outside my teacher's realm. However, if we can get Microsoft to have to pay salaries for teachers to teach these things in all these money-strapped schools, that might end up being a bit of a punishment as well.
Am I the only one seeing Microsoft giving out free copies of WinME or something, then pretty much forcing all the schools running their donated copies to pay the fee to upgrade to XP?
It's not really all that different, except for what is, in my mind, a pretty major factor.
Apple and Sun weren't doing this as part of a supposed "punishment". Apple and Sun did this for a competitive advantage, but they were in a position where they should try to do that. Giving Microsoft an opportunity for a competitive advantage somehow just doesn't seem like punishment to me.
I don't know so much about this. We did have fun games back then, but a lot of them also were very limited in their scope, to say the least. A game like Asteroids is a classic, don't get me wrong, but it didn't have a whole lot of variety to it.
I'm also not saying that games like that don't have their place anymore...Tetris is about as classic an example that you can find of a game that is super-simple in execution, but is still a great game that you will have a hard time getting tired of.
However, and while I'll probably get flamed for this, one can't deny that games like Curse of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Zelda for the N64, Metal Gear Solid, etc etc are all great games. While something like Zelda may not have been created by one person and one person alone, that doesn't mean that Miyamoto's vision isn't what drove the creation of that game. Most of the greats still come from the ideas of one person...just having a team makes it a bit easier to code everything than having to do it all yourself.
Course, I do agree with the article...the game industry is hurting, and I'm glad I'm working for an e-commerce site as opposed to the game company downstairs.
Slashdot Mirror
That is definitely some old information on the ibiblio.org page. As far as the wooden coaster information goes, I'm not sure about that, but the steel ones don't take into account at least one coaster that's a good 2 years old.
Taken from the Goliath homepage:
Height - 255 feet (higher than the top listed on those records)
Drop angle - 61 degrees (higher than #2, and X, the newest one, is something like 86 or 87 degrees)
Drop Length - at least 255 feet (it goes underground, once again, higher than top listed on those records)
Speed - 85 mph (ties record)
So those are at least a few years old, and I know that Goliath has been surpassed for those records since that time.
You are so absolutely right about Viper's shoulder restraints. Now, I love Viper, it's great fun, but it's so incredibly painful. I'm 6'2", and the bars come down on a hinge that sits just below my shoulder level. So I have two choices when it swings down...have it be sorta comfortable but sticking out about a foot and a half in front of me, basically not hanging onto me at all, or pull it down further so I have to sit in the car like Igor in Young Frankenstein. That's usually what happens (those fine attendants really smash the thing down on me), and while the ride then is fine, once it's stopped and I'm waiting to go into the terminal, I sit there in intense and searing pain, starting to get claustrophobic from the damn thing.
Rest assured, if you haven't ridden it, X has *FAR* better shoulder restraints...they seem to be able to fit almost any body size that sits in them.
You really, really do need to ride it. I couldn't ride roller coasters (too scared) until about July of last year, then my friends took me there and forced me to ride Goliath. After going hoarse screaming for my mom, I had so much adrenaline running through me that I barely knew what to do with myself. That initial drop is the single most insane thing I've ever experienced. I've ridden it 3 more times since then, and it *never* gets old ;)
Just as a side note, the newest coaster at Magic Mountain out in Valencia, CA (mentioned earlier as being the home of Goliath), called X, is probably the easiest one on the human body that I've seen there. They've got some videos here, in Real Player and Windows Media. They're all computer generated simulations, but you still get a good idea.
The ride looks horribly disorienting, but oddly enough, it's not at all. Maybe being flung around at those G forces makes your body's orientation matter less, but I got off that ride feeling fine.
I can, however, attest to that slightly disoriented feeling getting off Goliath, but that's half the fun of the ride...you feel a little goofed up after flying around at that ridiculous speed. The drop on it is so fast, they had to put a braking strip in the middle of the ride so you'll slow down enough for the end of the trip. I think the initial drop puts you at about 85mph on a 61 degree drop...good times!
I'm also in the "that's ridiculous" boat. Every roller coaster I've ever seen is *well* within the limits of safety, generally with huge margins for error when they run. The physics principles behind each and every roller coaster are sound, the trick is to make what is essentially very safe seem dangerous as hell. At Magic Mountain out here in Cali., I believe they've had one death, and that was a woman with a pre-existing condition that she was unaware of that caused an aneurysm or something similar. Either way, doctors later said that it was one of those things that was set off by the roller coaster, but a close call in the car, or a number of other situations could have just as easily caused it to happen, so ultimately it wasn't from the coaster.
Ultimately, even on probably the highest G-Force part of the park, (Goliath, nearing the end, on the corkscrew down to the ground), it's still not so strong that I can't lift my head against it. Can't same the same for the vomitron 5000 at the local county fair...
I would assume the reason they're doing this is to set some sort of precedent by doing this to CD's that not many people are going to buy, hence not much outrage will come of it. It'll give them a chance to work out whatever bugs they want to work out, see how much they can get away with, and just get themselves into the position they need to be in before the unleash it on the majority of the record buying public.
It'd be a huge public relations nightmare if they did something like this right now with some best selling CD in the US, so why not use the few fans Celine has left to test all this out?
I second that, congratulations you two! May your marriage be long, fruitful, and full of pointless M$ bashing!
For isntance, Blockbuster Video & Hollywood Video. Both had a good library of Playstation games, and generally some N64 titles, and both leapt on the PS2 when it came to market.
However, even though Hollywood had a partnership with Sega for a while there (advance Dreamcast units for rent before the official release, a preview release party out here in Westwood a couple of months before DC launch, etc), they still had a crap selection of games to rent, and most Blockbusters never even started renting out DC games. Some did, but for the most party they only rented out the big titles, you couldn't go there and find lesser known games to see if you liked 'em...
Oooh, is that out? That looked like a hell of a lot of fun, and I know that another little Sega made cutesy puzzle-like game, Chu Chu Rocket, is an awesome game. I might have to go snag that on the way home today...
Yep, had to spend $50 for a network adapter.
Course, I also had to spend $30 for an optical casble jack that came standard on my PS2, and another $25 or so for a kit so I could watch DVDs on my XBox, something I could do on the PS2 out of the box.
XBox is nice, but I can damn near guarantee that the PS2 will be on top until PS3 comes out. XBox I think is going to trounce the Cube for the most part, but Sony's got way too big of a headstart for XBox to catch up.
If you want proof right now that coming up with a great game library won't necessarily let you beat Sony, look at the Dreamcast. It may still have the greatest library of games of any console yet made, but it never went anywhere.
I miss you, DC...
Halo: Excellent, though I'm getting burned out on FPS's except for Counter-Strike, which is still great in a LAN without cheaters.
DOA3: Good, but rushed. Where's all the hidden stuff for good replay value on it? It's great, looks beautiful, but DOA2:HC still kept me busier longer.
Project Ego: Looks fantastic.
Dunno anything about Commandos or Armada
Star Wars: Starfighter: Yech. Somehow, playing this game made my brain hurt.
Amped: SSX is a better snowboarding game, Tony Hawk is a better trick-type game. Amped can't compare to either of those.
Oddworld: Man, the old Oddworld's ruled, when did they turn into a pretty power-up hunting game?
Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2: Good, but Tony still reigns, IMHO.
Dunno anything about NBA Live
PGR: Now you're talkin'. Best game on the XBox bar none, a vast improvement to the already great Metropolis Street Racer on Dreamcast, and one that should really be getting way more of a media push than Halo.
Yep, but the Dreamcast never had the market saturation or fanbase that the PS2 has right now. The PS2 basically came along and slaughtered the poor Dreamcast and has a huge base. They were also smart and released 4 or so really great games right in a row (THPS3 with online, MGS2, GTA3, Final Fantasy X) right at X-mas.
I do wish the Dreamcast had done better, and I'm pissed as hell that Shenmue II isn't coming out for it in the US. Even Europe gets it!! After leaving on the ship for Hong Kong, I had to know what comes next, and now I won't know until the XBox version comes out. AUGH!!
Gotta disagree on that GT3 pale in comparison bit. PGR is an excellent game, and one that I wasn't going to buy but was forced to due to EB's bundle policy, and it has become my favorite game on the XBox. That F50 rocks!
However, while it's got all sorts of cool tasks and that, it doesn't have the actual driving depth that GT3 does. PGR has excellent physics, but GT3 lets you tweak suspensions, downforce, chassis weight, transmissions, engine, etc etc etc. The depth with which you can delve into the cars on GT3 is just amazing as compared to something like PGR, where you can...well...change the car color.
It's sorta like comparing NFL Blitz & Madden. They both follow the same rules, and are both excellent games, but while both being football games they're pointed at completely different markets. PGR is an awesome arcadey racer, F355 is an incredible racing simulator, and GT3 is the current king of *driving* games.
That kinda depends on who you are. I bought an N64 solely because I wanted to play Mario64, I bought a Saturn just because I had to have Virtua Fighter 2 at home, I got a Dreamcast because of Shenmue & F355 Challenge. I've now bought an XBox because of Project Gotham Racing (plus Shenmue II and Jet Grind Radio Future in the..well...future), a PS2 for GT3 (MGS2, GTA3, FFX, Frequency, Tony Hawk 3 online, and Virtua Fighter IV are excellent bonuses), and a Cube for Rogue Squadron. I'm sorry to say that to this point, the Cube is the only one that has totally disappointed me, but I epxect that to change in the future.
I doubt FFX will come out nearly as nicely on the PC, and same with MGS2. The PC is great for some things, but nothing beats playing MGS2 on a big TV with a 5.1 speaker system.
Now that's a good suggestion. Imagine giving the children access to all the major systems out there, and maybe throwing in a BeOS machine or even an OS/2 box.
The main problem then is, how do you get teachers who can get the students up to speed on each of these machines? I mean, it's hard enough to find a comptuer teacher in HS these days that can handle Microsoft Office, much less get a student up and running on a Linux box. Well, maybe not these days, but when I graduated from HS less than 10 years ago, relatively basic computer knowledge was pretty far outside my teacher's realm. However, if we can get Microsoft to have to pay salaries for teachers to teach these things in all these money-strapped schools, that might end up being a bit of a punishment as well.
Am I the only one seeing Microsoft giving out free copies of WinME or something, then pretty much forcing all the schools running their donated copies to pay the fee to upgrade to XP?
It's not really all that different, except for what is, in my mind, a pretty major factor.
Apple and Sun weren't doing this as part of a supposed "punishment". Apple and Sun did this for a competitive advantage, but they were in a position where they should try to do that. Giving Microsoft an opportunity for a competitive advantage somehow just doesn't seem like punishment to me.
I don't know so much about this. We did have fun games back then, but a lot of them also were very limited in their scope, to say the least. A game like Asteroids is a classic, don't get me wrong, but it didn't have a whole lot of variety to it.
I'm also not saying that games like that don't have their place anymore...Tetris is about as classic an example that you can find of a game that is super-simple in execution, but is still a great game that you will have a hard time getting tired of.
However, and while I'll probably get flamed for this, one can't deny that games like Curse of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Zelda for the N64, Metal Gear Solid, etc etc are all great games. While something like Zelda may not have been created by one person and one person alone, that doesn't mean that Miyamoto's vision isn't what drove the creation of that game. Most of the greats still come from the ideas of one person...just having a team makes it a bit easier to code everything than having to do it all yourself.
Course, I do agree with the article...the game industry is hurting, and I'm glad I'm working for an e-commerce site as opposed to the game company downstairs.
Tom Servo