Play a VR video game on this real roller coaster
Regular roller coaster rides not intense enough for you? Try playing a video game inside a VR headset as you ride this train at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom.
- Webby Award honoree, 2x Gold Telly Award winner
Roller coaster fans, get your geek on.
Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, California, has added a VR experience to its Kong roller coaster. In Rage of the Gargoyles, you don a virtual-reality headset that lets you play a video game while riding the 2,170-foot track.
Inside each Samsung Gear VR headset is a Galaxy S7. Regardless of where you sit on the floor-less coaster, each phone is synced to the movement of the train so every person has the same experience at the right time.
Riders just need to look at the gargoyles in order to shoot them along the way, with the headset tracking movements. At the end of the game, players can compare scores.
Wearing the headset feels a lot more comfortable than it does on the first VR roller coaster in North America at Six Flags Over Georgia. That headset tightened with a Velcro attachment.
The version used for Rage of the Gargoyles features a neck strap, chin strap and a dial at the back that tightens the headset in place. There's also the option to ride the roller coaster without a headset.
As a VR rollercoaster newbie, I rode the train twice -- first with the headset and then without. The first run, for me, was scary, but mostly because there were giant gargoyles trying to attack. When you're wearing the headset, you can't see the twists and turns ahead so it's less intimidating and more like playing a video game while being thrown around. My second run sans headset was more frightening.
There's no additional fee to ride the roller coaster with the VR experience and it runs through to October 30.