Do You Want to Play a Game?
With no major film studio theme parks in the UK (although that could soon change), means that very few opportunities will arise where a ride will be based on such an intellectual property, so when the announcement was made that the New for 2009 coaster would be based on the Saw franchise, it was quite unexpected and also quite worrying, these were 18 certificate films, that whilst not be everyones taste, were in the publics eye, from Billy the puppet, to the "games" themselves.
As with many of the developments at Thorpe Park, land had to be infilled (the days where Colossus was on the waters edge are now all but forgotten) and as such it is located just on the outskirts of the Lost City area beside Samurai, a top scan ride.Following the same strategy of the Disney parks, Merlin bought a medium priced coaster (a Gerstlauer Euro-fighter) and spent the rest of the budget on themeing it (as well was the associated rights costs.) The type of ride was nothing new to the UK market, with Speed opening at Oakwood in 2006, and Rage at Adventure Island opening in 2007) but with a steeper "beyond vertical drop", this time 100 degrees.
It is this beyond vertical drop that draws you in. If you are coming in from by Colossus, it is noticeable but the track is slightly obscured, but if you are coming from by Loggers Leap, you can see part of the ride in all its glory. This is though the first trick of the ride, the lift hill is actually a third of the way around the coaster.
The entrance to the queue is slightly obscured by the shop and first impressions of the queue are not great. Not too far into it, it starts a cattle grid type queue, whilst it doesn't look too out of place from the Saw Universe with mock barbed wire and electrical cables, as with most cattlegrid queues, it is not a comfortable environment, but maybe that was the idea? Afterall, the Saw franchise has always been about making its victims/players appreciate the finer things in life.Thankfully, whilst it continues to an extent, the cattlegrid does get better, with just one or two backtrackings as the queue slowly winds itself to the back of the ride before it continues back to the station building. As with most queues though, there is not much to keep you company. The station building exterior is excellently themed as Jigsaw's lair from the films and littered around the queue are some of the traps from films of the franchise. Saw is one of the few rides without a ride soundtrack as such, instead, it is more of a running commentary of a police mission to raid Jigsaw's lair. It is a different approach and it does hold your attention slightly, with the total loop being around an hour, the trouble is, the audio is quite quiet and you have to concentrate if you really do want to listen to it. Finally, like with Megafobia at Oakwood, not a lot of the ride is actually viewable from the queueline. You get glimpses, but they are literally nothing more than that. It is a queueline that can be quite a chore, especially if you are on a busy day, but thankfully, the queue does seem to move fairly quickly, so you are never in the same spot more than once.
Once you are ready to enter the station, the themeing becomes more like what you'd expect from the Saw franchise, with red writing on the walls saying "Let the Games Begin" and the suchlike. The soundtrack changes too, with gun shots and every now and again, Jigsaw calling the "Thrill Seekers unworthy of life", and a couple of traps from the films once again.Once you've handed in your bags, its time to begin. The station looking now something very similar to the interior of Jigsaw's lair is full of trinkets, diagrams that get missed easily in this section of usually fast moving queue. In a bid to improve capacity, two cars of eight are loaded at the same time. There are rows 1 and 2 (car 1) & 3 and 4 (car 2), if you ever get the opportunity, go for rows 3 and 4. The reason for this becomes clear in the next section.
The car now takes a bend to the right, and this is the only difference between the two cars. If you are in car 1, you just see and hear Billy the Puppet on his tricycle laughing/cackling away, before you continue through the building. However, on car 2, this is more inline with the films, with Billy the Puppet setting out the games rules, by again calling us Thrill Hunters unworthy of life and likes to warn us of what will happen if we lose, before he starts cackling away again.
Still inside the building, the train now continues traversing a corner, before two giant pendulum axes come into view, swinging quite fastly, with giant spikes located just underneath. This is now where the most surprising part of the coaster is and no matter how many times you ride it, you know its coming but its very hard to pinpoint just when. The surprise is a small but sudden, vertical drop. As you hit the crest of the drop, you rise up into the restraints before falling back into the seat at the bottom and turning to your left. The car now rises up gradually as "crossbows" are loaded and fired at you (air cannons) before you once again fall into darkness (not as steep this time) before emerging into one of the rides inversions, an inline twist over a mutilated body, that spurts with blood (read red water) as you pass over. This is now where you leave the station building, and where the themeing all but disappears. This is also where you get the best view of the ride for a long, long time. As the car hits the brakes and does a 180 degree turn to the left, there is now only one way to go, up the vertical lift hill.Just before you make the ascent, Billy the Puppet shows up on the TV screens, saying in typical Saw fashion, "Game Over" (meaning we've lost!) and starts his cackling once more, without further ado, the train now makes its ascent up the 100ft vertical lift.
As with most vertical lift hills, its a strange sensation, not entirely comfortable, but not entirely uncomfortable either. As we crest over the top, you get a nice view over Thorpe Park, before the beyond vertical drop kicks in, and you come flying out of your seat into the restraints. Ultimately, you cannot tell the 3 degrees extra from Speed at Oakwood, but the sensation is fun nonetheless. As you pass under some blood soaked saws, the car now enters its second inversion.The usual Euro-fighter tricks come into play now, for such a "small" coaster, they are actually intense, much more so than what they appear. As you go through this Immelmann loop (think of it as a half loop combined with half a corkscrew element) the G forces are strong and get thrown into your restraints as soon as you enter and leave the element. As you continue, the coaster now turns into a very overbanked turn, where your feet are higher than the rest of your body, whether you count this as an inversion is entirely up to you.
At the very bottom of the hill, is where the rides onride photo is taken, before a very sharp rising banked turn to your left follows. There is a slight rest bite that follows, as you enter a brake run, thankfully, very few times these cause the car to slow down, which means the next part of the ride, is similar, but a lot more powerful to the dark inside drop.
As we re-enter the station building, a Billy puppet to your left, says "Congratulations, you are still alive".
Compared to an awful lot of UK coasters, Saw feels like its of a good length. At virtually 2 minutes long, its nearly twice as long as Nemesis at Alton Towers, and only one of two coasters at Thorpe Park that feels like it is a substantial ride (the other is Colossus, sorry Nemesis Inferno fans!).
One of the biggest complaints about Saw, is its roughness, which I beg to differ. Saw the Ride is not a rough roller coaster, it is an intense/ferocious "little" roller coaster, like what most Euro-fighters are. Yes, a couple of the transitions are not as good as they could be, but they are not that uncomfortable, and only lasts a couple of milliseconds. Unlike Nemesis Inferno and The Swarm, Saw is not a ride you are meant to ride over and over again.
Finally, the themeing as previously mentioned is great for a UK, especially with the station building. It is a shame that we lose all but a couple of pieces of themeing once we are outside, considering what we have just experienced, but this is a flaw with most themed outdoor coasters, hats off to Thorpe Park and Merlin for attempting something risky and it paid off.
In brief, Saw is a fantastic ride at Thorpe Park and is one of the best coasters in the park, it is also the one with in theory, the worst throughput of the park. Resulting in queues often 45 minutes or over, but it is worth it. You are getting a decent length coaster, themed very well with some very intense elements, something which the other Thorpe Park coasters cannot offer
The Good:
- Excellent themeing in the building
- Good length and ride duration
- Explosive airtime moments
- An intense coaster
- The surprise vertical drop in the station
- Fits in with the Saw theme
- The 100 degree drop
- Very different inversions
The Bad:
- More intense than it looks
- Experience slightly hampered if in Car 1 at the station
- Slower moving queue
- You cannot tell the extra 3 degrees on the drop
- A few transitions not as great as they could be
The Verdict:
4/5
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