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So, another year, another pilgrimage to the US to visit family, visit theme parks, and visit cities I haven’t been to. The past couple of years were about visiting a few big parks that are in locations difficult to access without a hire car (Which is expensive up until you turn 25, hence I had been to other places like the parks in SoCal and Orlando in visits prior. This year was all about picking off the last few major parks in the US that I still had ambitions to visit....At this point now I’d say I’ve done all the ones I’m really interested in. I think its only really Lagoon and Kennywood that im somewhat interested in visiting, but I’m not falling over myself, and I think I want to start chipping away at parks in Europe and Japan next The first park however of the trip was Six Flags Magic Mountain. It was a bit of a crazy mission...My flight landed at 7am, and the park opened 10:30. I didn’t have any intention to do a full day since I figured I’d tire out (Which turned out to be true since I didn’t sleep on the plane) and I really just wanted to go in to ride Twisted Colossus and New Revolution. SFMM I’ve done a few times and I’m a bit lazy when I go (I think the last time I rode X2 was about 3 visits ago lol)...I should really pencil in a proper full day at some point. Ended up staying till about 4pm.I had to get a sim card and shops only open at 10 in the US, which meant I couldn’t get to the park early and do a dash for the first couple of rides to avoid the queues. I headed straight to Twisted Colossus. http://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/ride-2444-Twisted_Colossus Only a short wait. The queue is full of fanciful steam punk contraptions, faux steam pipework (In other words Home Depot PVC pipe painted bronze) etc. The duelling of the ride depends on how well guests load in, and operators will say “If you want to race the other train, you have 30 seconds to board”. From the station to the lift you go over a trick track with several small humps and twists. The long train carries a bit of momentum and doesn’t lose speed, so you get bucked around a bit, and it sets the tone for the ride. Pulling onto the lift the other train completing its lap on the other track pulls in parallel, and the lifts adjust speed so you go over the top of the hill together. The first drop is crazy in true RMC style, very steep, and keeps getting steeper so feels very out of control and you are flung out of your seat. From there is a low to the ground “speed hill” with a quick moment of airtime, and then you go uphill to the turnaround (more air again...a recurring theme basicaly at the top of any hill or drop or incline...they squeeze in moments of air wherever they can it seems) The high 5 that follows (the two track bank 90 degrees in towards each other) is pretty cool, but not that close together. The track drops again, into a great visual moment where you go over an airtime hill, with the other track travelling upside down overhead...Sure beats the dueling moments they had on Dragon Challenge at IOA! You then head into a zero g roll, with the other track underneath...again, another great dueling moment, with only a bit of low clearance netting separating the upside down and right way up tracks. You then cruise up a double-up, and are flung around a wild outward banked turn that flings you out of your set. Awesome because its actually done at full speed, so completley different feeling to an El Loco. The track drops around and changes colour from blue to green as you line up for the 2nd lift and round too. Drop and hill are just as good the 2nd time around. The high 5 is even crazier because the track has to reverse bank back and forth to get itself lined up to be banking towards the other one, so heaps of twisting the train negotiates effortlessly. After this is the top gun stall, which is probably my new favourite inversion, similar to a zero g roll, basically you twist over, and the track follows a long inverted arc that is just enough to hold you in your seat, before twisting back upright from the way you came. One last airtime hill under the other track, the double up,and then you turn down into a 2 part brake run a bit like the one on jet rescue. Wow, its easily one of the worlds best coaster, perfect mix of airtime, speed, inversions, and I really think racing coasters are great fun and there should be more of them. I immediately went for another lap. After that I did a quick single rider queue lap on Green Lantern . Just as limit pushingly intense as I remembered, with unusual forces because of the way it goes backwards, then immediately forwards down the drops. On the final hill I got a double flip too! I then stuck out the 90 minute queue for New Revolution, to see what the fuss was all about with VR. The wait sucked balls, a major humanitarian disaster with limited shelter and no water. SFMM were missing out on free money by not having a roving vendor selling cold drinks to people waiting, so they have no right to complain if their per cap figures are deficient. If you want to ride it without VR the quickest way would be via the single rider queue. The trains are basically very patriotic. SF seem to be really playing to their local market with this sort of theming on a few recent additions. But dispatches are still very slow, and they give too much capacity over to Platinum flashpass users. Once you are onboard, you loop a lanyard around your neck, rotate a click ring on the back of the plastic head strap to tighten, then tighten a cord under you chin. Each seat has a QR code in front of it, and you look down at your feet then bring your head up gradually till the camera on the samsung spots the QR code, and cues the correct footage for your seat (Since obviously the back seat will go over the top of drops faster than the front seat, so the footage compensates for that. The graphics itself were pretty PS2, but the concept itself wasn't bad. It was basically an independence day knock off, flying around a city fighting alien spacecraft, dodging falling skyscrapers, diving under freeways. In a nod/knock off of the original movie, when you do the vertical loop, you do it under the primary weapon of the mother ship, so have a chance to deliver a shot straight up when the track goes vertical. VR is a cool concept, but i think they really need to work on a better way of doing operations, say with multiple preshow rooms where they can get guests sorted, rather than handing out headsets as you walk into the station and explaining individually in an ad-hoc manner. Even TVs in the queue with instructional videos to hammer in the process over the 90 minute wait would help right? I think VR could work on a purpose built coaster better too...You could basically build a kiddy coaster but make it feel like you are going 100km/h. I was getting a bit tired and hot, so did one last lap on Twisted Collosus for the day, and got a perfect duel with both trains neck and neck. The only dampener was that the ride broke down whilst i was in the queue, and when it was up and running again they kept letting flashpass people through, rather than halting that temporarily (or at least holding them for a few minutes), they should have focused on clearing the people towards the front of the standby queue who had waited patiently through the breakdown. Overall, both solid experiences (Though Twisted Collosus way ahead!). In future I'll have to make sure im well and truly early at SFMM to have a better day.