Rai Fox

Hercules at Dorney. The only ride I've ever outright refused to go on a second time. I've never been in such pain from a ride; I had to take a couple hours off until my head stopped hurting too much to ride anything else. On top of the pain, it wasn't even fun; the brakes on the first drop just turned it into a complete tragedy without any redeeming factors.

I miss that coaster! It was one of my favorites! What kind of masochist are you? O.o Hercules was by -far- the most painful ride I've ever been on...

I've never found any part of Phantom's Revenge painful at all.

They really do need to advertise better. I don't know of anyone who'd heard of this before I mentioned it to them, even people who are desperately waiting for a new RCT game. So many people that would love this, that don't know it's out there! I can probably pledge a little more myself, but we really need a lot more backers...

Ouch...well, at least you don't have to cancel completely! I don't think the timeframe will have too much of an effect, but you're really going to want to do your best to get to the parks on weekdays if at all possible, since weekends in August are the heaviest crowds at a lot of parks; Hershey can be absolutely terrible those days, in my experience - last time I was there I made the mistake of going on a Saturday in August, and got on 4 coasters and 1 flat. I've never been to Kennywood in August, so I don't know how bad it gets there...then again, I'm not sure I've ever been there when it didn't -rain- at least part of the day, so it's always been low crowds... Knoebels is efficient enough that even on busy days, I've never seen it get too bad, but a weekday is still best if you want to make the most of your time there.

Compared to larger parks, Morey's Piers is empty pretty much all the time. Nothing should be more than a 20-30 minute wait and that's on the busiest days so you're good. Oh, perfect! Sounds like there's no reason to pass on the chance for a few new credits, then. Thanks!

Well, first it has to come out. There's a developer's kit available now, but the actual end-user version is expected sometime in 2014, IIRC. On the upside, the final version is supposed to be considerably better than the developer kit (much higher resolution, etc), so it's going to be worth the wait, I think!

Hey all, question for anyone that knows this park. How bad does it get on weekends, as far as crowds? I've been wanting to get here for several years, and I'm thinking about sticking it on to the beginning of my annual cross-Pennsylvania trip this summer. If I do, though, I'll have to hit it on Saturday or Sunday, at the very end of June. I generally try to avoid going to any park on weekends in peak season if I can, but it might be the only chance I have to get here for a while, and I might just take it anyway. Good idea, not so good idea, or TOGO-standup-bad idea?

I always said nothing could compete with a HUSS Enterprise. I love a good, crazy modern flat ride - I'll do almost anything to get on a KMG Spinout or Mondial Top Scan, or Zamperla Power Surge...but in the end I'd always go back to the Enterprise. Then Kennywood built Black Widow. I'm not quite so sure anymore...

What a beautiful little coaster. If it rides as good as it looks, it's going to be amazing! I reaaaallly need to get down there ASAP.

You can walk through the park and ride rides without any special hardware setup. As far as the Occulus Rift, the headset only works on games that include special support for it, and TPS is going to, so yes, you're right there. If you buy the headset, it's guaranteed to work with the game - and that is going to be amazing.

I was already thinking I was going to want one, mostly for Star Citizen. TPS support for it makes it a must-buy now.

Absolute favorite moment, definitely Phantom's Revenge, the second drop into the ravine, at night. Pitch black, can barely see the track, just feels like it's never going to pull out of that dive...it's just amazing.

Not so much pay more to add more rides to the park, but there are apparently more expensive versions that come with more types of rides out of the box. It's sort of a strange way to set the game up but probably not that big an issue since even the number of rides in the platinum version will very quickly be dwarfed by the number of rides the community will be able to create with the editors, I expect.

Kickstarter funded, hmm? Works for me; I'll see what I can come up with to help out! Have to make sure this game happens! Wow, already a $2000 pledge... good start there!

Kumba's name means "roar." The sound is very much deliberate. And it's still one of the best coasters -anywhere-.

Well, I'm probably a bit biased; two of those parks I've had very bad experiences with in the last few years. However, personally, I'd lean pretty heavily toward Dorney. It does depend on what you're looking for though. Both SFGAdv and Hershey are better coaster parks, if that's what you're looking for. I doubt there's much point in me wasting any time going over how great the coasters are at both of those parks. Nitro is one of my favorite rides anywhere, and Hershey is just loaded with great coasters. However, operations at both of them have been miserable any time I've been to either park in the last few years, with sullen staff taking their time to load and dispatch any ride. They both lack for flat rides and run short, slow cycles on what they do have, when they're even open. Both are very, very expensive parks, and both have been badly overcrowded when I've gone, even out of peak season. Last time I was at SFGadv (for the crowded halloween season, admittedly) I was there almost open to close and only got on three coasters, waiting almost 3 hours for each one - and 45 minutes in line for french fries. No exaggeration there. Again, just my experiences, and take them with a grain of salt; they are both very popular parks, after all, so maybe I'd just had bad luck. Personally, I feel like Dorney is badly underrated. Ten years ago it was a pretty mediocre park as I remember, but I visited last year with low expectations and was incredibly surprised and impressed. It was well maintained, clean, and attractive, all the paint bright and fresh, every single ride in the park running, and running well. The staff was friendly - we had ride ops chatting, joking, and just generally being friendly with the park guests all over the place. There aren't nearly as many coasters there as Hershey or GAdv, but quite a few of them are very good, and like the rest of the park, underrated in my opinion. Steel Force still holds up well, Hydra is small but has a great, unique layout, and Talon is one of my favorite inverts. The park's not perfect by any means - food is..."okay"...it's still expensive, though not Hershey expensive, and depending on when you're there, are are well known problems with guests being bused in from the city and causing trouble. I have a hunch here most won't agree with me, and that I'm mostly playing devil's advocate compared to popular opinion, but I've been to GAdv twice, Hershey twice, and Dorney once in the last five years, and I've had one really great day out of the five of them, at Dorney, and it's the only one I'm planning on trying to get back to this year. Just my two cents!

You're going to have a great time with this trip. I do a trip across PA every year myself with some friends - Dorney, Knoebels, Delgrosso's, Kennywood, and a few days in Pittsburgh - and it's so much fun every year. Definitely make the trip into Pittsburgh if you can. Apart from great food (all the recommendations so far are worthwhile! My personal pick for food is Tonic - the maple apple burger *drooools* and the best drinks I've ever had), it's just a wonderful city; clean, pretty, and friendly. Kennywood is one of my favorite parks anywhere, too; it's got that irresistible small park feel but has a few really spectacular rides in with the classics. Just make sure you're watching park schedules that early in the season; I don't know about the PA parks in particular, but a lot of parks are running pretty limited hours in May, and the last thing you want is to get to a park and find out it's not open that day, or closing too early to get in everything you want. As far as Knoebels, if your family is up to it, try getting a campsite there instead of staying at a hotel; a cabin might be a fair compromise if your family isn't going to be willing to stay in a tent. Staying on the park grounds is amazing. There's nothing quite waking up to the sound of Twister's lift in the morning when they start testing...best alarm clock in the world. Then you get to wander into the park before it's open for breakfast at the international food court, and watch the park come to life around you for the day...

That looks great, and I love the idea of a "slightly more extreme" Himalaya. A well-run Himalaya never gets old as is, an improved one should be amazing. I can't wait to see what the Enterprise looks like! Really, every update on this park makes me grin. It seems like the owners and management are really putting in all the effort they can to make this place special. This is the kind of park we need more of; I'll take a little place like this over a Six Flags any day. It's a long way from me at the other end of the east coast, but I'm definitely going to have to make an excuse to get there in the next year or two...absolutely have to support this kind of place!

Not good at all. Definitely going to have to get there this summer, while it's still the same park.

First time I ever got on Big Bad Wolf, mid-nineties ish. Busy day, long lines, one train running, and that one train kept breaking down. Three hour wait. Worth it.

Star Shape? I'm so jealous Get pictures if you can!

That Tornado Wave looks amazing Is the one at Sea World San Antonio still the only one? I'm not likely to find myself out that way any time soon, sadly.

I'm starting to worry about being let down by this game, only because the teasers are ramping my expectations waaaay up. If it actually looks that good in action...wow. Just wow. I wonder if we'll be able to customize the lighting on our own flat rides to look that good? Looks like this game might be giving even my PC a pretty good workout.

That skycoaster looks fantastic. I loved Fun Spot when I was there a few years ago, it's incredibly exciting to see what it's turning into now. I'm more interested in getting back there now than I am in Disney or Universal!