Strapping a virtual reality headset to your face while riding a roller coaster? That's just crazy talk. For years, we've been telling people to keep their eyes open and to watch the track when they ride a coaster. That provides the visual cue your brain needs to help your body prepare for the drops, twists, airtime, and turns it will encounter on these high-speed thrill rides.
Yeah, people ride coasters in the dark. Or backwards. For some, not having that visual cue amplifies the thrill. But it's one thing to deny yourself a look at what's coming on the ride ahead. It's something else entirely to replace what you see with an alternate reality.
That's when so many fans who haven't experienced a virtual reality coaster turn green and start looking around for the nearest barf bag. But having ridden Six Flags' The New Revolution this morning, allow me to tell you this:
Forget everything you fear about virtual reality roller coasters. Wearing a VR headset on a roller coaster isn't a nauseating experience.
It's a liberating one.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the world's first steel vertical looping coaster, Six Flags Magic Mountain has transformed Revolution into The New Revolution, installing new trains with more comfortable restraints, repainting the track, and... oh yeah, offering Samsung Gear VR powered by Oculus headsets to all riders age 13 and older, at no extra charge.
Wearing the headset completely changes the experience of riding The New Revolution. No longer do you see and feel yourself riding this iconic coaster across a wooded hillside near Magic Mountain's front gate. Now, you're strapped into a single-seat fighter jet, battling aliens in an Independence Day-like dogfight to save the planet.
Nausea? Nope. The VR footage you watch synchs with the action of flying across the coaster's track. You simply feel as if you are experiencing the most life-like video game ever. I've yet to ride on a shaker seat or flight simulator that truly recreates the physical sensation of dropping more than 100 feet, looping through an inversion, and feeling the wind rush by at 55 miles per hour as you fly through one turn after another. You feel all that here, on a real coaster.
And yet... you don't see how far you are above the ground. You don't see the loop or the tunnel coming. You just see the action on the screen in front you, comfortably secured to your face by four padded Velcro straps. And with these new trains, you feel the physical ride much more smoothly than you ever would on any of those "jiggle box" (as my wife calls them) simulator attractions.
If there's a knock to be made on the ride by thrill fans it's that this doesn't really feel like you're riding a roller coaster. While you still feel those same physical sensations, changing the visual experience transforms The New Revolution into a different type of attraction. It's not a roller coaster. It's not a simulator. It's the best of both things — the real experience of riding a coaster with the storytelling capabilities of a simulator ride.
Here's the video:
If you've been wondering when the theme park industry would develop a fresh, new type of ride — it's here. Many of us have fallen into the habit of always looking to Disney and Universal for industry advances. But after enjoying Six Flags' Theme Park Insider Award-winning Justice League Battle for Metropolis last year, which melded interactive gameplay with a 3D motion-base ride, and experiencing The New Revolution this year, here's a crazy idea — the biggest innovator in theme parks today might just be Six Flags.
Update: The New Revolution opens to Six Flags passholders tomorrow and to the rest of the public on April 21.
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How did you split the Youtube screen to show both you on the coaster and the VR?
Thx..
That said, there are two pretty major downsides I can see on this
One is being handed this headset in July when it's 102 and after about 100,000 people have put it on before me. Just sitting in the seat sometimes behind someone in a wife beater can be wet and disgusting, I can't imagine strapping something on my face totally soaked in sweat and sunscreen will be enjoyable.
And two, not a fan on not being able to see the other riders and what they may attempt to do. If/when one of these comes off it's a pretty serious projectile, but I am referring more to loose items flying out. We know that people ruined the duel aspect of dragons by throwing stuff (and blinded a guy for life), I have to think the temptation for some to spit or throw things would be increased if they think they can get away with it.
I have been splashed before by bugs, spit, vomit, and hope-to-God-it-was-just-water intentionally and unintentionally on night rides where people did stuff like this. I'm not a neat freak, just aware of things bodily fluids can (and do!) transmit.
As for sanitation, Six Flags has people spraying the units with disinfectant between rides. And they've got hundreds of these headgear sets. We'll know how the experience is in July when we get there, but at least Six Flags appears to have anticipated the problems and objections with the headgear and is trying (at this point) to alleviate them.
Six Flags recorded the on-ride portion of the video. It created the split screen with the feed from the RPOV camera, mounted on the front of the train, and the feed from the VR app.
Anyway, good article, Mr. Niles, thanks for sharing your timely review! Now I can go back to reading all the scathing reviews of Batguy V Stuperdude - critics can be so funny sometimes: "It’s like putting your head in a beehive for two and a half hours" - too funny!
And the ride opens tomorrow for Six Flags passholders. No word yet on when it will open to all visitors. *Opens April 21 for everyone else.
I will be visiting both USH for Harry Potter and SFMM for New Revolution next week (on the same day, actually). To be 100% honest, while I'm more excited for Harry Potter I'm definitely more curious about the VR.
I am a VR Coaster convert. Galactica is an effective sensory experience and well told (if simple) story. @ThemePark pic.twitter.com/lmGMbTGBfX
— Ben Mills (@benjoelmills) March 24, 2016
I'm sure the tech part is impressive. But this just doesn't seem very practical. As Disney found out with FP+. Practical on paper, but just doesn't translate well to a theme park.
Keep in mind, the reviewer got to experience this in a vacuum at a preview event. It should prove to be like watching grass grow when summer lines are long ... now, we don't just have to secure the lapbars, but also a phone to people's faces.
I'll wait for the "real" reviews when this is tested under real theme park conditions.
I've been working professionally with VR quite a bit over the last year and, of everything I've experienced, Galactica is one of the best examples of what the medium can do. It's about as far away from a slapped-on gimmick as can be imagined - the designers have started from a place of understanding what makes Air (which has been plussed onto Galactica) work, and built a VR experience from there.
And I'd entirely echo Robert's thoughts about nausea. Air is admittedly a much smoother and more relaxing ride than most coasters to begin with, but VR actively *improves* the experience. I felt no queasiness whatsoever. If anything, well-crafted VR helps your brain process what's happening physically. VR creators have been exploring how to create experiences that work with the viewer being generally static, but a coaster offers freedom from that constraint.
On a more standard theme park note, the thing I'd celebrate most about Galactica is that it does what we've been asking for from theme park attractions for a while - it builds an experience around the joy of discovery rather than resorting to yet another generic fight/battle story. While it deploys a number of sci-fi tropes and a 'and then something goes wrong...' plot point, it does so with real joy - it's all about exploring new frontiers, more The Martian than Star Wars.
Interestingly, the one environment that I didn't find myself believing in was the last of those. VR (done well) is generally brilliant at convincing the brain it is experiencing what it is seeing. But it was just a jump too far for me to correlate the visuals of a hot environment with the feeling of rushing through the sky on a cold English morning.
I suppose that's a compromise designers will face when adapting existing rides into VR experiences. It'll be interesting to see whether Merlin can take things to the next level for Ghost Train at Thorpe Park next month, where the entire ride has been custom-built with VR at its heart. (And crucially built indoors, where it'll be much easier to manipulate the environment to fit the story.)
I also really love the fact that the headsets are optional. If I was a local who gets to visit a Magic Mountain a few times a year, I'd definitely do this on my next visit just to give myself something new to see. However, since I live all the way on the other side of the country from Magic Mountain, and have in fact never been to Magic Mountain before, this being such a landmark coaster, I think when I finally do ride it (whenever that is) I'll do it without a VR helmet to
be able to enjoy the fact that I am physically riding such a revolutionary (no pun intended) coaster. Then I'll make sure I have enough time to reride it later in the day, but this time with the VR helmet.
Simple: design the headsets so that they allow you to physically see the world around you, like any regular headwear, but also give them built-in sprayers to spray hallucinogenic gas in your face! Not only does it solve the problem, but it also guarantees that you'll never know what'll happen!
Eventually (long after I'm dead and my ashes have been dumped in PotC) we'll have Star Trek style holo-decks and we won't ever need to leave our homes.
Yes, it is probably a 3 years away from even beginning story boarding an attraction like this and 10-15 from being built, maybe quicker if used as an upgrade for Space Mountain or Rock n Rollercoaster. Rremember the Disney Quest Aladdin VR is 18 years old and the tech is far more advanced now. With all of the companies investing in AR and VR, it's now moving fast.
I want the 7 Dwarves Mine Train to while your swing through the ride watching the story. Or maybe MiB with another layer of amazing story. Or RnR with amazing headset sound while you ride through the LA freeway with crazy traffic by the signs. I'll be here to see it even after a 1 year wait for a Fastpass. But first, a Buzz Light year ride with both real and AR targets or an enhanced Toy Story would be simpler and fun.
BTW, the wait time was over two hours. I suspect this was due to all the advertising and hype (plus perfect early spring weather) and not so much the VR add-on itself. The process was quick and the line seemed to move like normal.
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