RampagingRex Productions

23/05/2025

Here's my on-ride video from Steel Curtain's media day today! After its year-long refurbishment, the coaster is ready to reopen this Saturday. It was great to get back on Curtain after so long, and it's still as intense as I remember! Season passholders can ride starting tomorrow, and everyone can ride starting on Saturday. Steel Curtain is running great and I'm so glad it's returned to Kennywood's ride lineup!
Thanks so much to Kennywood for inviting me out today!

22/05/2025

Got a new video for you all tonight! As I'm sure you've all heard by now, Six Flags America is closing for good after this year. The park has received a lot of criticism from enthusiasts over the years and is frequently considered to be the worst Six Flags park. I visited back in 2019 and I didn't think it was as bad as I had been led to believe. It certainly pales in comparison to other Six Flags parks but taken on its own I thought it had a strong ride lineup with a few standouts. Here are my thoughts on the closing announcement, as well as on the park itself and which coasters may be saved.

It's been the subject of jokes and ridicule for years as the worst Six Flags park, but does Six Flags America really deserve to be shut down?! Now that news ...

11/05/2025

Got some shots of Steel Curtain doing test runs earlier today! The whole structure doesn’t really sway anymore, so hopefully all these new supports did the trick and it will be much more reliable. Grand (re)opening day is May 24, with passholders getting to ride a day early on the 23rd. Anyone planning on being there?

02/05/2025

Earlier today news broke that Six Flags America in Upper Marlboro, MD would close permanently after the 2025 season. First opening as Wild World in 1982, the park became part of the Six Flags chain following the big Premier Parks acquisition of the late 90's. Six Flags America has long been the punching bag of the entire Six Flags chain, with a lot of enthusiasts viewing it as nothing but a park of hand-me-down rides. With this in mind, I visited the park back in 2019 with low expectations, and I was pleasantly surprised. The park had a strange layout, and some areas definitely felt empty, but the lineup of coasters was solid and I had a nice time here. Six Flags America is home to a multitude of unique roller coasters, including Batwing (the last remaining Vekoma Flying Dutchman), Firebird (B&M's first-ever coaster), and Wild One, the oldest operating coaster in the US if you count its relocation. The park definitely had room for improvement and plenty of room to expand, but now that's definitely not happening.
The land is being sold for housing redevelopment, as the land is worth more than the park that sits on it. Sound familiar? It's AstroWorld all over again! Hopefully most of the rides can be relocated, but I fear we've seen the last of Roar and Wild One, the latter of which will be an absolute shame to lose. The death of the Vekoma Flying Dutchman is likely near, as I highly doubt Batwing will be relocated. Thankfully, the closing of the park was announced ahead of its final day, so we've avoided a Geauga Lake situation, but that still leaves only a few months for us all to plan trips and get any potential last rides in.
So enjoy these photos from my visit in 2019. I'll try to make one last visit to SFA to get as many photos and videos as possible. Regardless of what you might think of the park, it's never a good thing when an amusement park closes. An area loses a source of tourism and local revenue, and countless people will lose their jobs. It will be sad to say goodbye to this park, which I feel never quite reached its full potential due to Six Flags' hesitance to invest in it. Have you visited or will you make one final trip to SFA? Better start planning soon; the park closes after November 2.

29/04/2025

Knoebels 2025 opening weekend!!!
I made my grand return to Knoebels this past weekend for the start of their 99th season. Knoebels is without a doubt one of the most unique amusement parks operating today. With free parking and admission, as well as a pay-per-ride system, the park feels stuck in the past, but trust me, that is a VERY good thing. During my two-day visit, I participated in an ACE event led by ACE Eastern PA which included ERT on Phoenix Saturday night, as well as carousel ERT the following morning. Knoebels has always been very welcoming to enthusiasts and this was no exception. I think I walked away with nine Phoenix rides after the hour of ERT. I may have just found my new favorite flat ride in Rock-O-Plane, which was rescued from the recently closed Joyland in Lubbock, TX. Being able to control the inversions was unreal and I’d gladly do it again on a future visit. I rode a ton of unique flat rides, played a lot of Fascination, and drank a bunch of Birch Beer (IYKYK). Knoebels’ 99th season is off to a great start, and if you’ve never visited I highly recommend it. Whether you’re an enthusiast or not, Knoebels is not to be missed.

17/04/2025

Here's a "then-and-now" comparison showing Steel Curtain during initial testing in 2019 versus this past Saturday. You can really notice all the new supports that have been added when you look back at the 2019 photo. Hopefully they do the trick and the coaster can run reliably.

13/04/2025

KENNYWOOD OPENING DAY 2025!!!
Coaster season is back as Kennywood is open for its longest season ever! This is the earliest the park has been open in decades and even though it was pretty cold, it was an excellent day to start the season. First off, huge respect to the Kennywood maintenance team for having everything ready to go on opening day. I don't think I saw a single closed attraction at all today, and that alone made it worth the visit.
The big new addition this year is Kennywood Junction. The former Thomas Town has been rethemed to fit more in line with the rest of the park, and I thought they did a fantastic job with this. There are references and easter eggs (both literally and figuratively) for longtime Kennywood fans, and the whole area is full of 1940s-style signage that evokes the era the Gimbels Flyer engines were first installed here. Gimbels itself has been restored to the best it has looked in my lifetime, and I'm a fan of the new logo they've created for it. The second engine is the "Kenny Express", and it's not hard to tell that this is just a repainted Thomas. I wish they'd have restored the second Gimbels to one of the other former paint schemes, but I suppose this is also fine. Unless you knew it was Thomas previously, I don't think anyone would guess it and the park did a good job trying to hide that. The Olde Kennywood Railroad has returned with new narration that covers the park's history, as well as various artifacts from the park along the train route. I hope they add more as there's still plenty of space, but this is a good start. The remaining rides have all been rethemed as well, my favorite of which is the Fire Bustin' Brigade which features the logos of various local fire departments on the sides of the cars. I consider Kennywood Junction an improvement over Thomas Town for personality alone, and it will be interesting to see if they add anything more to the area.
Elsewhere in the park, Steel Curtain has received an absurd number of new supports, probably enough to build a whole other coaster. After seeing just how much they've added to the support structure, it really makes you wonder how Curtain was able to operate at all before. It almost gives me some confidence that maybe it will be reliable now, but that remains to be seen. I'm gonna guess a memorial day weekend reopening, but who knows?
Despite the cold, it was a great opening day. The park looks great with all the Easter decorations for their new Egg-celent Celebration, and I cannot emphasize enough how happy I am that they brought back Jeeters, who is now my favorite park mascot. This will of course be the first of many Kennywood visits for me this year, and I'll be back next weekend for some more coaster excitement!

11/04/2025

I almost ran out of time for this one! Kennywood's 2025 season starts in only a day, but I still have to do my annual recap of the previous season! 2024 was a good year for Kennywood overall, and even though we didn't know it at the time, it was the park's last year as a Palace Entertainment park! This year will be the park's first under new owner Herschend Family Entertainment, so I included my thoughts on the sale at the end of this video. Hope you all enjoy, and to all my local friends, I'll see you on Saturday!

It's almost time for Kennywood's 2025 season to begin, but first I nearly forgot to recap the previous season! The 2024 season was a smaller-scale one for Ke...

07/04/2025

One week. Who's ready? I know I am!

04/04/2025

Since we're getting closer to Kennywood's opening day, and hopefully closer to the grand reopening of Steel Curtain, I thought I'd share some photos I took in late 2018 and early 2019 showing the coaster's construction. Hard to believe it's been nearly seven years since construction started on Curtain. I remember the long nights I spent on roller coaster forums, speculating with countless others over what the new coaster would be. In hindsight, there's no way anybody could have predicted what we got, and watching the coaster go up over the following year was nothing short of astounding. I couldn't believe that my home park was receiving such a massive investment. I ended up just barely getting onto Kennywood's media list in time for Steel Curtain's media day, and I still consider it the greatest day I've ever had in an amusement park, but I might do a separate post about that.
Of course we all know now about the myriad of problems this coaster has had over the last few years, but cross your fingers because those might finally be at an end. The addition of dozens of new support columns might just be what Curtain needed to be reliable. We'll find out in the first month or two hopefully.
See you all on opening day. New video goes up on the YouTube channel next Thursday. Be there.

22/03/2025

Here it is! After nearly a year of work, my Earthworm Jim 3D video is finished! Unlike the previous two games, there are no ports to talk about. This time, the subject is the game's troubled development, and how many people consider it one of the worst games of all time! But is it REALLY that bad? Hop on in to my latest (and longest) video and let's complete the Earthworm Jim trilogy!

The worm has (re)turned! After having two of the best games of the 16-bit generation, Earthworm Jim stumbled his way into 3D on the Nintendo 64 after years o...