"How awesome is Wipeout HD? So awesome!"

Anybody who has kept up with our podcast knows that we here at WingDamage really enjoy Wipeout HD. Before the Fury pack was announced, Jonah and I often discussed how great it would be if Wipeout HD were to get DLC, especially if it included more tracks. Thankfully, Studio Liverpool had hidden mics listening to our conversations and decided to grant our wishes at a ten dollar price point.

Though ten dollars might seem steep at first glance for a single DLC pack, a quick look at what Fury brings to the table will help put your mind at ease. The pack adds eight new tracks on top of the previous eight (not including reverse versions), thirteen new ship models, three new game modes, a new eighty-event campaign (the original campaign had eighty-seven events), revamped menus, and new trophies. This effectively doubles the content of what was originally a twenty-dollar game. To put it simply, you get a lot of bang for your buck.

The three new game modes are a great addition to the game and could very well have been their own DLC pack. I’ll start with my favorite. In my discussions with Jonah, I often talked about how cool it would be if they somehow turned Zone Mode into a multiplayer mode. I didn’t have a good idea of how it should work, but I knew it needed to happen. Studio Liverpool created an incredible innovation in the racing genre with Zone Battle.

The original Zone Mode had players racing on a track by themselves for an infinite number of laps, constantly reaching faster speeds with each new “zone” until they finally died from crashing too much. It was brilliant, but lonely.

Zone Battle supports eight simultaneous players. The mode ends when one player reaches a set number of zones. There are no conventional weapons, only boost pads. Besides getting a slight boost, riding over them will fill up a bar. The more pads you run over, the more of the bar you will fill. Pushing “square” will use the bar to not only perform an additional boost, but skip zones allowing you to travel faster and be closer to your goal. You’ll skip more zones if your bar is more full.

It doesn’t end there, though. Using your boost will place a barrier behind you that causes devastating damage when hit. Fortunately, if a player passes through the barrier at the very start of a boost, they can pass through it unharmed. Hitting “circle” will use your bar to regain some of your health as well as generate a temporary shield.

If you die in this mode, you will simply be set back to a previous zone, thus making you slower and farther away from your target. This mode is fantastic. I’ve never played anything quite like it. Even though you are directly competing, your position on the track means absolutely nothing. The entire concept is quite mind bending in an absolutely positive way.

In an effort to not leave you on a downer, I will get my least favorite mode out of the way now. Detonator involves racing fourteen laps on a track while shooting as many targets as possible. You are equipped with a rapid fire cannon that reloads and has ricocheting bullets. Driving over pads will fill a bar that can be used to perform a shockwave attack. This is the only mode in Wipeout HD (regular or DLC) that I have voluntarily killed myself in after getting a gold medal. I found this mode extremely boring and was disappointed every time the new campaign forced me to play it.

The final mode is Eliminator. Despite normally not liking weapons in racing games, I actually enjoy Eliminator quite a bit. Though the mode’s purpose is to destroy your opponents, the mode still takes place on the game’s normal tracks. Hitting the “L1″ button will allow you to perform an instant u-turn, though you will be at a stop. This makes following behind somebody nerve-wracking, since they could flip around and shoot you with missiles at any point (assuming they have them).

One of the things that makes this mode shine is that health is awarded only upon completing a lap. Absorbing weapons will only grant a temporary shield. This forces people to make sure they still make enough forward progress to live and also helps the mode to stay balanced. Points are awarded when you damage your opponent, but you’ll get the greatest amount if you get the kill. Unsurprisingly, dying will cause you to lose a portion of your points. The first player to reach the point quota wins.

I was a little disappointed by the new ships. I was under the impression they would be thirteen completely new ships. Instead, they are thirteen new versions of the existing ships. The new models give all the ships much more complex shapes. They’re also much cleaner looking, making the old models look like “junkers” by comparison. They have some minor stat adjustments, too. They really do look nice, they just aren’t as much of a change as I thought they would be.

The tracks, though new to Wipeout HD, are actually taken from the PSP entries. Four of them are “Zone only” while the other four are available for all modes. The Zone tracks are more spacious since they’re designed for high speeds and honestly not that interesting. However, the other four tracks were a great addition and I’d love to see them port more tracks from their back catalog in the future.

All in all, if you liked Wipeout HD and want more content, there should be nothing holding you back from buying the Fury DLC. It is essentially a sequel in DLC form for half the price of the original product. I would love to see more companies handle DLC this way. For ten dollars, Fury is a steal hands down.

Tags: dlc, ps3, psn, racing, Studio Liverpool, Wipeout, Wipeout HD, Wipeout HD: Fury

This entry was posted on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.