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Icon or Blue Fire?

Icon or Blue Fire?

  • Total voters
    50
I don't think it's a silly question, in fact I initially voted undecided. But yeah it's Blue Fire.

I love the tophat airtime on Icon but is a faff after that. The launches are genuinely pathetic.

Regardless, it's a decent ride. My main gripe is that it's a huge missed opportunity. I wasn't expecting a Helix beater but it shpuld be so much better. I'd have gone from a once every couple of years visitor to a passholder if it was 10% faster.

Helix is an elite coaster, I doubt there's a single human on earth who would rate BF or Icon above it.
 
RicketyCricket said:
Helix is an elite coaster, I doubt there's a single human on earth who would rate BF or Icon above it.
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It’s funny you should say this, because I have seen at least one person who rates Icon above both, probably multiple people come to think of it.
 
Matt N said:
Out of interest @AstroDan, what do you mean by "clunky"? Do you mean that you think Icon has jolty/rough transitions?
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I find the elements quite jarring in places. I don't feel they connect.

This is probably due to the fact they (understandably) had to compromise elements to fit the available space.

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
 
As others have said, Blue Fire isn’t perfect. It certainly isn’t an overly intense experience. If that’s what you’re looking for, it won’t completely satisfy. It’s very clear that it was new territory for Mack. It was by far their biggest project at the time it was built. For a company who, while having dabbled in other things, was primarily known for powered mine trains and wild mice, it was a significant milestone. Since then the product has been refined and the boundaries pushed further with installations such as Helix and DC Rivals. It happens with most products. They mature.

However, Blue Fire is excellent at what it does. It’s fun. It has a decent layout with some great inversions. The launch is surprisingly punchy for a LIM system. It’s pretty well paced and flows nicely from one moment to the next. Couple that with the overall package and theming and you have a great all round attraction. It isn’t top 10 for me by any means, but it’s certainly a memorable and enjoyable ride that I have no major gripe with (provided you don’t get stapled in by an over enthusiastic host).

Icon on the other hand is tedious. It’s layout is uninspiring and clearly a product of “ok, what other bit of space can we get something in next?”. The result is a whole lot of steel trying to get from A to B without achieving a fat lot. For some parks, their limitations, be it space, planning, or topographic, are what lead to their most inspired creations. This is not the case with Icon.

The top hat is fine, the roll and dive into the second launch are good, but everything else is completely forgettable. The first launch is laughable. I’ve had more thrilling rides across the Tesco car park in a shopping trolly. The second half is then pretty much a series of long drawn out turns with some odd variance in height to prevent it turning into Rita at 20mph. I spend the whole second part of the ride wishing it’d just do something!

Icon feels more like the prototype experience than Blue Fire! “Oooh don’t run the launches too fast. And don’t give it anything too extreme to try and do!” It’s certainly a step backwards from the other iterations of the model, and totally lacking in ambition.

Personally I feel like Icon sometimes gets praise thrown at it, simply for being something different in the UK.
  • It’s the first LIM launch.
  • It’s one of our only inverting coasters with lap bars.
  • It’s the only rolling launch and part of a fairly small number of them in Europe.
  • It’s the only major Mack coaster we have.
  • It’s now also the only *ahem* “extreme spinning coaster” in the country.
That’s all well and good, and fair play on Blackpool for doing something different. But just because it’s different, doesn’t make it good. If that were the case, Furius Baco would be one of the world’s best rides.

I’m not trying to invalidate anyone else’s experience here. We all like different things. I will always try to understand different people’s perspective, even if I don’t necessarily agree with them (and likewise, I have some of my own views and ratings that I know I am in the minority on). But some of the praise and claims I hear levied at Icon leave me baffled and wondering if there’s some secret second Icon that I’ve not yet ridden!
 
RicketyCricket said:
Would love to hear their reasoning.

All for different opinions and whatnot but they must be on a wind up.
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I think I’ve found the person I was thinking of:
[Preferring Icon to Helix] is rather uncommon isn’t it! To be honest, I’m not mad on the inversions on Helix, that’s what ruins it for me. Too much hangtime, and I find the Norwegian Loop quite headache inducing. Plus, Helix is only really amazing at night.

In comparison, I’ve never had a bad ride on Icon and could re-ride it all day. I just adore the first launch into the top hat, and the weird airtime you get in the back in the element after the second launch. So good!
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I think that Icon is misunderstood. Yes it's clearly been designed to fit into that space. Yes, it has a slow launch. Yes it's not particularly themed. But I don't think any of this is the point.

In fitting in its space, we a get weird layout, hangtime and near misses that I find enjoyable on Icon. Blue Fire on the other hand seems to have a fairly cookie cutter looping layout. It also has a mid course brake run that saps out much of the fun I'm beginning to have on it every time I ride.

I see Icons launches as a means of propulsion to complete the layout. And a launch in this case is better than a lift hill. I don't see many comparisons between coaster lift hills - whoever has ever said "definitely X coaster is better because it has a more intense lift hill than Y"? I don't understand why anyone would expect a super intense launch in such a tight space. If you want a decent launch, go on an Intamin Accelerator. Icon isn't about the launches and never has been. Blue Fire has a a faster launch that still isn't mind blowing but then it's not being compared to Formula Rosa as that would be silly - it's launch is faster because it has a bigger layout to negotiate.

Theming? Well Icon's got a minor Japanese garden kind of theme that has nothing to do with anything. But it is Blackpool after all, a seaside amusement park. BF maybe better themed - but to a Russian Oil pipeline in an Iceland themed area? What does that have to do with anything? I agree that the queue line and station are more pleasant places to be, but I wouldn't call it immersive as its incoherent theme so it doesn't really help me enjoy it any more.

Icon doesn't really need better throughput. It's in an English seaside amusement park, Blue Fire is in a world class theme park resort. I don't think I've ever queued more that 20 mins for Icon. Although it's a nicer queue and it doesn't stop moving, I've never queued less than 20 mins for Blue Fire so I don't count this either.

I'd take Icon all day long. I feel like I'm hanging and floating all over the place on it and that's what I enjoy. On Blue Fire I feel like I'm riding an extremely comfortable bog standard looper.

I must admit though, with all that said, that they're both sadly the only 2 I've ever done. I get this feeling from both that this amazingly designed coaster type (and they are both beautifully engineered machines) could be put to fat better use than it is with either. Icon seems too small to fulfill its full potential, BF seems too conservative. I'd love to do Helix or Copperhead Strike. I also see no reason why a vertically challenged park like Alton couldn't commission a world class one as well.
 
Matt.GC said:
I think that Icon is misunderstood. Yes it's clearly been designed to fit into that space. Yes, it has a slow launch. Yes it's not particularly themed. But I don't think any of this is the point.

In fitting in its space, we a get weird layout, hangtime and near misses that I find enjoyable on Icon. Blue Fire on the other hand seems to have a fairly cookie cutter looping layout. It also has a mid course brake run that saps out much of the fun I'm beginning to have on it every time I ride.

I see Icons launches as a means of propulsion to complete the layout. And a launch in this case is better than a lift hill. I don't see many comparisons between coaster lift hills - whoever has ever said "definitely X coaster is better because it has a more intense lift hill than Y"? I don't understand why anyone would expect a super intense launch in such a tight space. If you want a decent launch, go on an Intamin Accelerator. Icon isn't about the launches and never has been. Blue Fire has a a faster launch that still isn't mind blowing but then it's not being compared to Formula Rosa as that would be silly - it's launch is faster because it has a bigger layout to negotiate.

Theming? Well Icon's got a minor Japanese garden kind of theme that has nothing to do with anything. But it is Blackpool after all, a seaside amusement park. BF maybe better themed - but to a Russian Oil pipeline in an Iceland themed area? What does that have to do with anything? I agree that the queue line and station are more pleasant places to be, but I wouldn't call it immersive as its incoherent theme so it doesn't really help me enjoy it any more.

Icon doesn't really need better throughput. It's in an English seaside amusement park, Blue Fire is in a world class theme park resort. I don't think I've ever queued more that 20 mins for Icon. Although it's a nicer queue and it doesn't stop moving, I've never queued less than 20 mins for Blue Fire so I don't count this either.

I'd take Icon all day long. I feel like I'm hanging and floating all over the place on it and that's what I enjoy. On Blue Fire I feel like I'm riding an extremely comfortable bog standard looper.

I must admit though, with all that said, that they're both sadly the only 2 I've ever done. I get this feeling from both that this amazingly designed coaster type (and they are both beautifully engineered machines) could be put to fat better use than it is with either. Icon seems too small to fulfill its full potential, BF seems too conservative. I'd love to do Helix or Copperhead Strike. I also see no reason why a vertically challenged park like Alton couldn't commission a world class one as well.
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I don’t think fitting into the space had anything to do with its blandness, the issue isn’t the layout the issue is the pacing, now whether that’s because it’s deliberately under powered we don’t know but it feels like it.

As for the “theming” I actually like it. Pleasure beach is not a theme park (and that’s fine by me, I have a soft spot for the amusement part aesthetic), and I really like the way the ride is stylised. Just wish it had something about it when it gets going!
 
The entire ride feels like that bit after the MCBR on some coasters where they just add some track to get back to the station
 
For me, Blue Fire is better than Icon. It is better track and train, it has far superior theming, a better queue line, better music and better operations.

As others have said, Blue Fire is far from perfect. It is a good solid fun coaster. Icon should have been so much more than it is.
 
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