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Oct 20 2005
Wipeout Pure Review
PSP Game Review | Racing
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| Summary: Wow, this game kicks off the PSP launch in a big way
97
My first wipeout title was on 64. I played it with some friends and didn't have a clue what was going on, but it was fast and pretty. Years later I picked up Wipeout 3 (Wip3out to some) and was blown away but the speed, graphics, and hellsih difficulty. Now I was incredibly happy with the game not knowing that wipeout normally isn't that hard. That should tell you something right there. I decided to pick up Wipeout XL and to my surprise it was easier. It was also uglier (it was made before Wipeout 3). I'll get Wipeout Fusion one day.
Point is, I became a wipeout fan. The main reason I bought a PSP, regardless of how many games and umd movies/albums would come out for it, was for Wipeout Pure.
First thing you'll notice right away are the graphics. And I'm not even talking about the in game graphics. I'm just talking about the user interface! This interface has more in common with Wipeout 3 than it does XL. Wipeout 3 had this minimilst look to the user interface. It looked really cool but the text was so tiny it was a pain to use. Well this time the text is large and bold and easy to read. The colors are very sharp and look amazing.
Now for the actual game. This is super slick. Very bright and vibrant. Even night tracks are bright. Things are constantly glowing and beeping. Giant billboards are flashing stuff around every corner. Something is always pulsating and moving. The ships almost look as amazing as the tracks. They look a bit blocky but very slick and smooth neither the less. The special effects really show off the graphics. Explosions from bombs are huge, flames from the quake light up the whole screen, missiles bounce around like spinning tops in a maze, and so on and so forth. This game is beautiful.
There is some slow down sometime and the frame rate drops but it's so quick and sometimes you may even need the game to slow down so you can catch your breath.
Wipeout is a futuristic hovercraft racer. You have your acceleration button, your left and right air brake buttons (there is a special control scheme for air braking also), your weapon attack and asorb (to refill your shields as pit lanes were removed for the better from this title) buttons and a button to look behind. You can use either the analog or the d-pad for steering.
You hover at very high speeds around tracks that have huge leaps, super tight hair pin turns, banking corners, narrow tracks, straights with no boundaries (so you can fall off), a mid-air barrel roll that vies you a turbo boost upon landing (an exciting new move to the series I do believe) and other crazy stuff that no car could ever do.
To help win races you'll have to use weapons. There is a well balanced variety of weapons, like striaight firing rockets, an earth quake that travels the whole legnth of the track, energy bolts that take control of an opponent's ship for a variety of flippy effects. Anything to slow down an oppenent and slowly destroy their shields.
Doing all of this takes some time to learn. Being a vetern player I had no trouble getting into the swing of things. For a new comer it'll take a few races to get a hold of the controls and the physics of the game. The game is a lot more forgiving than Wipeout 3 that's for sure.
There are four main single player modes. And each mode is divided into five different speed classes.
• Single race: Just race for 1st place.
• Tournment: 4 and sometimes 8 and 12 races where the winner is deterimined by the points recieved from each win. Each rank gives you a different ammount of points. Get 1st place ranking and recieve 8 points, 2nd place, 6 points, and so on.
• Zone: Steer a craft around four unique tracks where the goal is to just survive. Sound easy? It's not when the spped is constantly increasing, beyond even the fastest race class.
• Time Trial: Race by yourself and weapon free (you get one turbo per lap) to get the best possible time.
There is also a free play mode but that's just for practicing (no opponents and no clock to beat) until you feel like quitting. There's also a multiplayer mode (upt to 8 players) for single and tournament races. You can also trade high scores. The first loading screen takes a very long time. After that it's not that bad. Nothing that really takes you out of the game and sometimes the break is needed!
My biggest complaint is the enemy AI. I not quite sure whie the developers chose to make it so that during the first lap your enemies are unnaturally faster than you. It does up the challenge but in an artificial way.
Sound effects are wonderfully done. Everything seems to fit just right. Zippy engines and explosions sound just how you'd think they sound. There's even enviromental noise going on. Really sucks you into the atmosphere of the game.
The music in the game is excellent as always. It's electronic dance music from artists like Aphex Twin, Freq Nasty, Photek, and more (19 songs in all). The soundtrack is on par with other titles in the series. There is one thing that this soundtrack has over any other though and I'll get to that into the REPLAY section.
Even if there wasn't any downloadable content this would still be rated high. But there is. Since the original launch there has been twice the number of tracks released, new ships, and classic music from Cold Storage (made music for all the games in the series) released. This is one game that keeps on giving well after the intial purchase. And this is on top of the unlockable content that came originally like secrect crafts, art (every individual gold medal you earn is a piece of art that you can look at in the progress menu), and new skins for the crafts. This game is bursting at the seams with content. I've never played any game that wasn't on PC that had this much to offer after the intial purchase. And did I mention that this was all FREE?!
This will always be one of the best games for the PSP. If you like racing titles then you'll at least like it, if not love it. And if you are a wipeout fan or just a futuristic hovercraft racing fan then you WILL love it no matter what. An amazing launch title that will last well beyond it's initial release. Thank you Studio Liverpool.
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