Friday, January 22, 2016

Video games move out of the living room and into theme parks

A partnership between Cedar Fair amusement parks and Electronic Arts video games will bring the Mass Effect 4-D holographic experience to California’s Great America in Santa Clara and the Plants vs. Zombies interactive shoot-’em-up attraction to Carowinds outside Charlotte, N.C. Both attractions are set to debut at each park at the start of the summer season in the motion simulator Action Theaters.

The collaboration eventually could bring video game-based attractions to all 11 locations of the Cedar Fair amusement park chain, which includes Ohio’s Cedar Point and Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park.

“If it’s off-the-charts successful, we’ll find a way to do it at every park,” Cedar Fair CEO Matt Ouimet said during a recent interview.

Read the rest at
LATimes


Knott's News: Some new info here, Alterface will be handling the PvZ attraction at Carowinds and 3D Live will be contributing to the Mass Effect attraction at Great America.

Alterface just got done with the excellent Justice League: Battle for Metropolis at Six Flags and has some interesting interactive projection mapping tech that they've been showing off at IAAPA for a few years now. Read more about it below:


Click me to see Alterface PvZ project page

3D Live does incredible holographic stuff for concerts, much in the same vein as what you see for Harry Potter at Universal (pepper's ghost). Their involvement makes me think this Mass Effect attraction won't just be using a single screen but a layered scrim to really make it look like stuff is hoping out and interacting with the actor. To think I assumed they were using the term "holographic" strictly for marketing purposes.

Really, I'm much more excited now then I was before. I hope Knott's gets something like this in the future. Maybe not built on EA properties but something equally immersive.

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