"Is $20 really too much to ask for a solid, 1080p racing experience?"

It has basically become a running gag at this point that if anybody Jonah or myself come across mentions owning a PS3, we try to convince them to buy “Wipeout HD”. We feel we need to do everything in our power to get more people playing this game. Many people get scared off by a $20 price tag on a downloadable game, but is it really worth less because it’s not on a disc?

If you don’t already know, Wipeout HD is a futuristic racer available on the Playstation Network (PSN). I’ve always been an F-Zero man myself, as you can read about in another article. Even still, I’ve enjoyed Wipeout games from time to time, even if it was usually just a diversion for me in between F-Zero releases. After all, when the original Wipeout came out on Playstation, there was not yet a 3D F-Zero game.

After all these years, Wipeout never really clicked with me until Wipeout HD. I’ve always felt uncomfortable with the series’ floaty style of turning, and I never understood why most futuristic racers felt the need to have weapons. My time with Wipeout HD has caused me to change from cursing the series for not being more like F-Zero, to celebrating its many differences that set it apart.

The tracks all have boost pads that behave exactly as you’d expect. There are also weapon pads. Driving over them will randomly give you an item from the game’s arsenal. Hitting your opponents with these weapons will not only slow them down, but also shave off some of their health bar. If a racer’s health is completely depleted, they are dead for the rest of the race. This can be a real blow in a tournament. Weapons have another function, though. If you are low on health, you can actually choose to absorb your weapon, instead of using it, to restore a portion of your health. Managing the choice of whether to use or absorb weapons makes for some interesting gameplay. Games like Mario Kart use weapons to the point where the actual racing becomes more of a joke. Luckily, I rarely get frustrated by the weapon use in this game.

The L2 and R2 buttons will allow you to air brake; a necessity for hairpin corners. An interesting (though a bit hard to use) feature is the side-shift. By pushing the L2 or R2 button twice in rapid succession, you can actually strafe your ship to the left or right a bit. This in combination with standard turning can lead to some complex maneuvers. Another cool feature is the “Barrel Roll”. No, not our podcast, it’s another maneuver! By hitting left, right, left (or vice versa) while in mid-air, you will do a barrel roll and gain a speed boost as soon as you hit the ground. Unfortunately, this will spend some of your health. It’s a similar concept to F-Zero X and GX’s health-depleting boost mechanic, only with the requirement of being in mid-air.

My biggest complaint with Wipeout HD is that there are only 8 tracks (plus reverse versions of each). That doesn’t sound like a lot, but there are also 4 different speed classes that give each of these tracks a very different feel. Turning in Wipeout is an art. I would say this game has a moderately steep learning curve to really excel at it. The different speed classes make each one of these turns require a different kind of finesse to take. The reverse tracks don’t even feel the same at all. Unlike mirror versions, often found in games like Mario Kart, reverse versions are a drastically different experience, even requiring a few alterations to the track for it to even work.

The single player is divided into honeycomb-like groups of races of various kinds. Each one of these “honeycombs” contains Single Races, Tournament Races, Time Trials, Speed Laps, and Zone Mode races. Each of these is represented with a hexagon. Get at least a bronze and every hexagon around it will be unlocked to play. Get enough points overall and you’ll unlock the next “honeycomb”. This is one of the only racing games where I’ve found time trials to be addicting. Shaving a second off a record can be extremely satisfying.

Most of those modes are pretty self explanatory, so I will just mention the ones that might not be. Speed Lap is merely a challenge to a get as good of a time as possible on a single lap. Zone Mode is one of my favorites. Zone Mode starts out slow, but forces you to constantly be accelerating. The longer the race goes on, the faster you will get. You far exceed that of the highest class’s speed if your survive long enough. There are no weapons to absorb. You simply play until your health is depleted. Once it gets into the really high speeds it’s incredibly intense. You’re then graded on how far you got before you died.

The game has a very customizable online multiplayer. Queue’s of tracks can be setup for a tournament, you can adjust your speed class, and can even toggle off weapons if you so desire. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any support for voice chat at this time, but hopefully that will get patched in.

Custom soundtracks are supported. You can either use a folder or playlist. You also have the option for random or sequential selection and can even set it to pick up where it left off on a track in the next race. One of my favorite aspects about the custom soundtrack support is that you can toggle on real-time effects. For example, extra reverb is added when in a tunnel and a cut off filter comes on when you fly through the air. It really makes your music feel like it’s part of the game.

The graphics are simply beautiful. The game runs in 1080p and is a constant 60 frames per second. Even when playing online and local multiplayer, I have not had any frame rate issues. There are lots of little graphical touches that I find very impressive. One of my favorites is the time trial ghosts. There is actually a little hologram projector projecting the image of the car with the best time. It really adds to the immersion. I’m still holding out for a new F-Zero, but it’s literally impossible for it to look this good on the Wii as Wipeout HD does on the ps3.

Don’t let the twenty dollar price tag scare you away from this game. I’ve put more hours into it than some of the full, sixty dollar retail games I’ve bought. This is a very refined game and the more time I’ve put into it, the more I have enjoyed it. Buy it, love it, hop online and we’ll race all night.

Tags: 1080p, custom soundtracks, f-zero, ps3, psn, racing, Wipeout, Wipeout HD

This entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 10:41 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.