The New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has teamed up with German company VR Coaster to add a virtual reality experience to its Big Apple roller coaster starting Feb. 7. This development will make the 4,777-foot long Big Apple coaster the longest in the world to be equipped with VR. For an extra $5 in ride fees, riders will be able to don wireless VR headsets once they board the coaster; the storyline will take them to an alien research facility in the Nevada desert where an extraterrestrial specimen has just escaped, and as the ride begins, so does a search for
Watch how Virtual Reality Transforms Roller Coasters
Running and building new roller coasters is a daunting experience, requiring tens of millions of dollars of investment. In the case of Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, the roller coaster they built there achieves equal speed to a Formula 1 car… just for 16 people accelerating 0-241 kph (150 mph) in less than 5 seconds. Once you experience that, you want to experience more and more. In a bid to get Virtual Reality Experience (#VRex) to the mainstream market, American theme park operator Six Flags is literally re-inventing the wheel. The company is creating VR content for its roller coasters, and has recently rolled not one, but