.
While Queen of Speed had the hallmarks of being mediocre, G Force looked to have insatiable promise. Drayton Manor advertised G Force as a world first, which was cheeky considering that the first X Coaster (as it’s called) was in the same poster advertising the fact no others existed.

G Force looked to expand and exploit the untapped potential of the X Coaster. Sky Wheel at Skyline Park in Germany helped the cause, but G Force’s freestyle layout looked to move the idea on a country mile, with an inverted lift hill, ‘Cuban Eight’ inversion and an unfeasibly abrupt airtime hill.

As the ride grew, so did the realisation that the drawings weren’t left to artistic interpretation – G Force really was as wild as it looked, and by July operatic boy band G4 opened the coaster to typical Drayton fanfare.

G Force, though, is so dull even tofu would refuse to sponsor it. G Force definitely isn’t a bad coaster, but in terms of expectation vs delivery, it fails to deliver, much like Alton Towers' Air.

And, unless the name was a superb streak of irony, the ride also fails to deliver in terms of name vs expected forces.

Another coaster that was off the scale of mediocrity this season was Sequoia Adventure, Gardaland’s S&S Screamin’ Squirrel. Assuming that the ride had a remit reaching beyond fitting into an extraordinarily small footprint, it failed to wow the crowds with the vertically zig-zagging mostly-inverted layout.

To its credit, though, it managed to rack up column inches in a way only S&S could manage; with a spectacular breakdown that stranded riders on the precipice of one of the vertical turns facing downwards.

Speaking of S&S and downtime, two words that recently have been anything but mutually exclusive, Thorpe Park also opened the much-lauded S&S combo; Slammer (Sky Swat) and Rush (Screamin’ Swing), the latter of which opened (as scheduled) in the summer.

Neither Slammer or Rush really push the boat out in terms of originality; Slammer goes around in big circles, while Rush swings back and forth.

Yet, despite this relative simplicity, both have had monstrous teething problems, with Slammer in particular having a dreadful start to the season with several high profile breakdowns, two of which stranded riders 80ft in the air for 15 minutes, once actually upside-down.

Other highly anticipated spin rides included the two new Huss Topple Towers at Bellewaerde and Walibi Lorraine. The rides represent the first new Huss ride for a million years that haven’t relied on making an existing ride bigger (Huss Giant range) or adding novelty cars to an existing spin ride (Booster, Fly Away).

The rides were as Huss intended; family orientated. But, the unusual combination of a fairly intimidating presence and only moderate thrills meant the rides only received a lukewarm reception.

One manufacturer not known for resting on its laurels, meanwhile, is Vekoma, who opened their second ever Booster Bike, this time at Flamingoland. Velocity is the larger sibling of the original Toverland ride and is joined by the larger-than-normal Zamperla Disk’O, Navigator. Continues...