Wipeout HD & Fury
The first review I’ve wanted to do for a while now has been a really good, $20 PSN title on the Playstation 3. Wipeout has been a product of Psygnosis since the original Sony Playstation 1. Psygnosis wiki entry has more information. Wipeout HD is a remake more or less of the two PSP titles that were released, Wipeout Pulse and Wipeout Pure. Wipeout HD has redone the visuals to maximize the PS3′s power with stunning 1280x1080p60fps. While not quite true 1920×1080, rarely do games output that resolution in this current generation of consoles. It is great to have a fast paced racing game that meets some of the brutality of the Twisted Metal series with weapon addons that let you destroy or hamper the advancement of the other racers and the difficulty of Nintendo’s F-Zero franchise.
The game starts off with all units unlocked (with the Fury DLC) and allows you to unlock more skins for the ships, and while the skins don’t have any differences in stats is it nice to see 7 skins total, even if 1 is sort of repeated for a new ship model. Each of the twelve teams have a different style ship which varying stats to try and create a balanced gameplay experience while still not forcing the player to choose the “best” ship. As you play through online races or the campaign, you gain loyalty towards the team you were playing as allowing you to unlock those extra skins. At 4000, and 8000 loyalty for a team you basically have unlocked all the skins for normal Wipeout HD gameplay. The DLC pack of Fury requires the player to play through some, if not most of the campaign to unlock the other skins. I think when I was around 60/80 medals in my Fury run and I had unlocked everything, though it is entirely possible the extra skin unlocks happen when you beat a certain race or event.
The models and shaders used in the game are phenomenal. A lot of people claim that some of the bigger AAA budget titles out there have some of the best graphics but I disagree, sure 720p30fps isn’t bad and completely acceptable but until 60fps becomes a main stay I hold any game that can run at higher resolution and higher framerate to be better graphically. From my understanding it takes a lot more horsepower or optimization to run games that high and keep a stable framerate. With Wipeout HD the game will dynamically render at 1280x1080p all the way up to full 1920×1080, only reducing the render output of the horizontal pixels to maintain that silky smooth 60fps.
Some of the really amazing features of this game is the ability to play custom music from the PS3′s HDD and the ability to take photos while paused, to set up some amazing shots. I’d almost say there is a mini-game in just how robust the photography is, allowing more or less saturation, motion blur, aperture adjustments, shutterspeed, brightness, and contrast.
I want to also point out, if you like old school arcade games were the goal isn’t exactly a linear story or anything but rather just trying to get the top score and have your friends or others try and beat that, then you’ll probably love Zone mode and Detonator mode, which I feel is almost worth $20 by itself. Zone mode while isn’t the most entertaining to everyone, especially with the more casual crowd, I feel that you really get a good idea of how beautiful the game can be. Zone mode is an unlimited lap mode that is set on whatever course, forward and reverse (though not available reverse on the 4 zone courses from the Fury DLC). If you manage to like zone but wanted just a bit more action and an ending that doesn’t involve blowing up, detonator might be up your alley, as you get 14 laps to try and destroy 1 bomb and several mines per lap. The player has to navigate their ship with auto-assist off and to destroy the mines and bombs before running into them. This adds a lot of chaos to a possible already rather hard mode for some.
Bottom line, with $20 some may wonder; “how far can my dollar go?” Well, quite a ways, though it might be best to expect to spend $30 here as the Fury DLC brings A LOT to the table in terms of only being $10 more. There should be a demo available on the PSN but if you can’t find it on the NA store you might need to make a PAL/Euro PSN to get the demo. Honestly I wouldn’t bother with the demo, it should be a pretty easy decision as to if you’re going to buy this game, either you like racers or you don’t. A couple youtubes should give a better representation than a limited demo experience.
Here are some screenshots from the photo mode while I was playing detonator mode;
Ryan
