slicknixon

^ Given the choice between BBW and Loch Ness I would definitely keep Loch Ness and get rid of BBW. However, with the number of high-thrill coasters at the park, BBW should be replaced with another family-friendly coaster. Seeing that in the last 5 or 6 years, the park has been concentrating on the addition of highly-themed attractions that rival Universal's and Disney's, it would be great to see maybe an indoor. Maybe another ride themed to a brothers Grimm story or a "sequel" to BBW. It would be great to rampage through another Bavarian village but with even more theming. Now that I think about it, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole plan was to rebuild the ride the whole time.. think about it. They waited until the last minute to announce that they would be getting rid of it, and the reason is most likely because they couldn't afford the high-maintenance requirements of the old ride for another decade. However, you would think if they were, they would have announced that they were rebuilding the ride instead of simply removing it. Guess I'm just an optimist.

The thing that sucks is that you have to buy one of the crappiest camcorders in the world to get the Flash Pass.

^ Forgot about that one! I had the dreamcast version and then when I sold my Dreamcast, I got the Playstation port. That game was pretty meh.

I loved Okami! Sounds like very experimental gameplay though.. hope it works!

For those who don't know, this won't be the first console game based on WDW. There was a little known Capcom gem for the NES called Adventures in the Magic Kingdom. I have a copy complete with the box and instructions. ^ the space mountain level was a real pain in the arse.

^ lol yeah, but that was announced last year and as soon as it was I knew I'd be buying it.

@Robb - harsh truths, i know lol It's just that I want to be optimistic about this game getting released as I am a huge fan of the Wii and WDW and anything that combines the two will be gold to me. Seeing that there hasn't been many other huge game announcements lately and the fact that the gaming industry has been suffering from sales losses lately, I wouldn't be surprised if this gets green-lighted as an attempt to tap into a previously successful (KH) yet new market for gamers on the most successful current-gen system.

I agree that some of the art represents ideas that could potentially fail, but the real thing to get excited about is the fact that the game has been confirmed to be in development stages which, judging from the dates on the sites seems to have been leaked yesterday. Any fan of Disney's games should be excited about a new Disney game that isn't based on a particular movie or license because Kingdom Hearts proved that the company could endorse games for the "hardcore" gamer as well as the kiddie games by allowing their licenses to be used in game development. The end result with KH was a masterpiece that was so great because of so many characters that the gamer could relate to and easily recognize no matter who they were.

Keep in mind that concept art is usually nothing like the final result. Judging by how extreme this art is and knowing that is being developed by Disney themselves, you can bet that it will be almost nothing like this. I can picture a futuristic setting with mutant animatronics and all that, but I picture it as the Disney licensed characters all being the good guys like in Kingdom Hearts (save for the villians) and the "bad guy" is some futuristic order of evil. Judging by the picture with the castle on top of the hill and the one with Spaceship Earth and TOT, I'm betting that the idea is that evil forces have captured Disney World or something like that and there is a captive being held in the castle. Of course, who knows. It's hard to get the idea of a game from only the concept art but you can rest assured that there will be nothing in the game to tarnish Disney's image. With that being said, it's almost certain the game will be totally different from what we see here.

The game is being developed by Disney Interative Studios and is tentatively titled Epic Mickey. here's the wikipedia entry: Warren Spector's project, "Epic Mickey" is a video game in the works. The game is being developed by Disney Interactive Studios and is described as a steam-punk title. Tony Pulham, a concept designer for the game stated that the game is expected for the Wii, no information about the games release on other consoles has been given. Concept art for the game (by Fred Gambino) depicts "darker" Disney than we're used to seeing. Some characters shown in the concept images include Horace Horsecollar, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and a steam-powered robotic version of Goofy. Seeing that Robb has worked for DIS before, I'm surprised that he hasn't heard of this game nor does he seem interested in the concept. I think the game has potential to be great and will somewhat change the image of both Disney Parks and the Wii as strictly kids/family fare by mixing a normally family oriented subject and making it into a mature fantasy game. If the concept art is representative of what the final product will be, I'm sure there will be many people pleasantly surprised at Disney. Seeing how popular the Kingdom Hearts games were, the game will surely succeed if it is any good and I feel that it will do nothing but good for both companies. Bring on the surreal potential masterpiece.

My two year old daughter has been obsessed with Yo Gabba Gabba since it started airing and this year I've started brainwashing her to be a theme park junkie like her dad so this TR will benefit me greatly. Thanks dude!

here's my full review: The thing that makes this TR so special is the fact that if you were to find the greatest park in the world to visit on the 4th of July, why not visit the park in the heart of Americana, Kennywood. Kennywood represents American history and tradition more than any other park in the US due to it's historical significance in both it's location and it's preservation of historically significant attractions. From the uncle sam on stilts to the fireworks finale, this TR documents the greatest holiday that could possibly be spent at any park. Each coaster was shot with excellent photographic skill complete with the signs, facades, and station shots of each attraction at the park. Not only were the coaster shots amazing, but the scenery shots around the park really bring the full park experience into the TR. Some of my favorite shots were the fountains and Lost Kennywood shots which many people forget to take. To end it out, the night-time shots, fireworks and infamous "Goodnight Heart" make an unrivaled closer to a truly artistic photographer's vision. Photography - 10/10 Park Completeness - 10/10 Captions - 9.5/10 (informative) Overall: 10/10 - the greatest photo TR of all time (on any site)

Quite possibly the best and most complete Kennywood photo TR of all time. A+

i thought Kennywood was supposed to make a big announcement today..

^ I have heard that SFA has improved tremendously this year but you guys did go early season and also at park opening. There were times when I was there in mid-summer and the park was jam-packed with city-folk (of the scary DC gang variety) and made the experience very unenjoyable. I specifically remember one instance in which i was standing in a 1-2 hour line for Superman ROS and halfway through the queue, group after group of these city-folk pushed and shoved their way past me. A couple guys physically put their hands on me and pushed me out of the way to get past. There was even security standing at the entrance fully aware of this activity! After leaving the park after that incident, I decided that it's not worth going to SFA ever again. It's a shame because it wasn't really the park's fault (other than the security management) but i just don't feel safe there.

SFA is worth it for the credits if you don't mind standing in line surrounded by gang members while they constantly push through you to cut in line. If you only have time to do one thing in MD go with my previous suggestion of Trimper's at Ocean City. There's only 2 credits, but the other rides make it worth it. Sorry, but i cannot suggest that anyone go to SFA unless they are really desperate for the 5 lousy credits there.

Rehoboth Beach, DE has a nice little park on the boardwalk called Funland.. mostly kiddie rides but a really nice haunted house if you're a fan of dark rides. Then, about another hour's drive down coastal highway will take you to Ocean City, MD where you will find Trimper's which is IMO the best small seaside park in the country and it is a must stop. Not to mention, it is rumored to be in it's last season due to increasing property taxes. Trimper's has two well-maintained bill tracy classics; The Haunted House on the boardwalk and The Pirates Cove walkthrough. There's also a classic Funhouse, Aladin's Lamp, a Toboggan coaster, classic flats such as a Matterhorn and Himalaya and an indoor section with all kinds of neat kiddie rides from the 30's-60's era and a 1902 Herchell-Spillman carousel. Also, if you've never been to Ocean City, it's a top notch coastal resort town with tons to do including a 2 1/2 mile boardwalk, over 300 restaurants and plenty of affordable (bayside) lodging. It totally beats any of the jersey seaside resorts IMO.

You forgot the log flume. Dude, you can't be serious. Trimpers is 100x better than JR. Personally, I'd rather ride the Toboggan than the Wildcat not to mention Trimpers has the Haunted House, Pirates Cove, Aladin's Lamp, classic Himalaya, decent bumper cars, 1902 Herschell Spillman carousel, countless vintage kiddie flats, the only stationary zipper in America, and Marty's Playland for good measure. I mean every man is entitled to his own opinion but that's a lineup that's not easy to beat IMO. Especially by Jolly Roger...

Seems to me that the company who bought the park for a mere $25 million have no idea how to make the park succeed because they simply saw a cheap opportunity to venture into the industry and swept it up only to change everything that was saving the park from being a complete failure. Sure, they had licensing issues to work around, but they could have first of all kept the actual music theme of the park intact. The thing that really makes the park seem so damn stupid is the fact that it seems like they are trying to keep the music theme alive but their creative team obviously know nothing about music. They said they wanted to turn the park into a family friendly park and the way they went about this was taking out anything that made sense with a music theme. CSI Live? Adrenaline Rush? (kids on inline skates). And what the hell is up with music on Time Machine? It's like 5 second sound bites of like 10 different songs in each ride. It just doesn't make any sense. My guess on that one is that it was cheaper to buy licensing for 5 second clips of multiple songs than simply 1 full song. But back to "Monstars" (god, my eye twitches just typing it) what in god's name made them think this was a good idea? Why didn't they just change the theme of the ride and buy licensing for different music? They wouldn't have had to do much to change the "LSD" theme into simply a rock song-themed dark ride like it was really meant to be. So they had this decision to make. They could change the theme or spend most likely 3 times the amount of money to turn it into a completely different ride, which is not only inferior to the original, but inferior to most theme park's dark ride standards. I think when it's all said and done, they wanted to change the park as much as possible in hopes that the reason for the park's initial failure was it's primarily "adult" theme. Well most of us know that this abomination is most likely not going to see a 2010 season and to be honest, I was hoping it wouldn't have made it for a 2009 one. I was kind of hoping I could say that I'd been to a park that was only open for a single (short) season, and that I could tell my grandkids about it, and could talk it up like it was something great (OMG Led Zeppelin THE RIDE, An ACID TRIP DARK RIDE!!!! etc.) but now I will have to tell them about the idiots that tried to revive the park by making it a retarded disgrace. But at least we'll get a laugh at how stupid they were to name it FREESTYLE MUSIC PARK!! (LMAO Grandpa!!)

Same here. Can't believe the idiots spent more money to get rid of Nights in White Satin and put in this piece of garbage. I'd rather ride a Scooby-Doo Mansion.

I went there almost every other year since I was a kid and hadn't gotten back there the last two years but now that I have a family of my own, it's a totally different experience. I saw qualities in the park that I had never seen before.. The friendliness and like-ablility of the staff especially showed today from the supreme friendliness of the kiddie-ride ops to the echoing bark of Bumper Car Jack. Also, I don't know if it was because the weather was stunningly amazing or because I hadn't been there in a while but the park just seemed so vibrant and alive today, and all the quirky signs and scenery throughout the park and in restaurants etc. seemed to have been re-painted and restored since the last time I remembered them. Also, my two year old daughter loved it so much, she cried for half the ride home because she didn't want to leave. I think I am now officially obsessed with my next closest hometown park (Knoebels is Pennsylvania's hometown park afterall.. really.. it's on the front of the park map! (definitely beats More Flags, More Fun and makes more sense too!)

Just got back from taking the family to Knoebels and after reading the last few pages of comments I've suddenly realized something. Why bicker about Six Flags when paradise is only a short drive away? Why even care if SF might not ever achieve true "family experience" status? You will never beat the experience of an old park like Knoebels and after coming home from a day there, it seems like chain parks don't even matter anymore. Therefore, i hereby forfeit from this argument and give my side to the supporters of Six Flags because they ultimately have the better argument which is more parks and more rides for everyone (and more places for them to go so they stay out of parks like knoebels.. lol jk ) I think we're going to be spending a great deal of our summer weekends up there this year. I'm even thinking about doing a complete photo park tour including every attraction, restaurant, shop, scenery etc. and I think I'm going to start working on it the next time i get up there. Today was just so amazing and I really wish I would have taken more pictures.

fixed. and if there's inspiration from HM in Jersey Junkyard, then I'm Bruce Vaughn. in other words, COLDPLAY SUCKS AND RADIOHEAD RULEZ!!!! *edited in Modified Bear for good measure

So maybe the locker policy speeds up dispatches. But at what cost? The company needs to change their reputation for the best in the next couple years and enforcing a mandatory locker policy that costs money (no matter how minuscule) is going to make people mad. I think we sometimes forget as enthusiasts that 99% of the money that is made is from the GP. Most people see extra costs as a hindrance no matter what the reason. Do you honestly think that most Americans are going to think twice about the speed of loading/unloading being affected by the extra money they are forced to spend? No, they're going to see it for what it is, a sham.

I do not hate SF. I personally only wish for them to open their eyes and see what it would take to increase attendance and make more money to save the company. It's like they are either blind to the reality or they are just fooling themselves. I mean do they seriously think they are going to get a "Disney" image by adding a $5 million water battle ride? Although Salvation is a step closer the reality is that they can't pull it off by simply building new rides and claiming that security has improved. I've said it before, the biggest thing keeping families from going to Six Flags are the amount of trouble-makers. In some parks like SFA, the security seems to be too afraid of the GP to kick line-jumpers out of the park. The people that do this feel the entitlement to do so, and come back to the park for that very reason. I don't see this changing simply because of the sheer amount of this activity that occurs at these select few parks. The families that were disappointed with their trip to one of said SF parks are then less likely to visit a good SF park. Although those comments are from the GP, it is the GP that will ultimately decide the company's fate. If they don't pull off the family image thing, I predict that the company will fail. And personally, I feel that it could possibly be out of their hands. But last year, as I waited in 2 hour queues for Superman ROS and Batwing at SFA and stood there as 10 different groups of city kids pushed past me and a security guard stood there and watched this activity occur, I couldn't help but place blame on the park management and ultimately the company itself, resulting in a grudge that lasts to this day. This grudge exists among many other former SF-goers outside the "GP". Oh, and also how many times have you heard "nickle and dime you" from the GP regarding Six Flags? It's because the reality is you can get a better park experience from many other parks for the same price or cheaper, and some of those parks really are Disney quality (Busch anyone?)