WipEout 3

Wipeout 3 is still ahead of its time and I keep wondering how Psygnosis managed to give it the terrific graphical quality it bears for it is a 32 bit era tittle that looks as though it was designed to run on a 128 bit console. The game is quite speedy and smooth, there are enough lightening and translucid effects to please any FX fun and has some little details that help improve the overall visual experience such as the little seagulls that fly above the track of Porto Kora, Wipeout 3's first and iconic level. The ships look really nice too even though some of them can seem to be a bit blocky, fortunately, the designers opted to differentiate the machines by using colours that suit them really well. There are 8 tracks in total with their reversed counterparts and all of them portray a variety of neon and holographic effects that boost their futuristic look. The graphical engine will hold at 30 FPS unless there's a lot of action happening at the same time in a graphically heavy part of the track.

This is one of the first games that supported analogue controlling and vibration feedback altogether, a milestone for gaming. All ships have a dual-flap system to break that requires a lot of training to master and each flap, right and left, are assigned to the trigger buttons. Breaking with the flaps will not only slow the ship but also slide it to the flap side. The main four buttons are used for accelerating, changing the perspective, firing and discarding power-ups.The shoulder buttons are used for activating the boost and back viewing. There's and glitch involving the analog control: if it is turned on, the directional keys will not work to drive the ship.

The game has a few racing modes with four levels of painfully increasing difficulty :

*championship to unlock new ships and tracks

*arcade to replay unlocked tracks

*versus to play with other people, the game supports up to four players simultaneously by means of a multi-port accessory

*eliminator to attack and destroy ships.

All modes are lot of fun but the game falls short if the championship mode is not played as all the game's diversity depends on it. The versus mode includes all the others giving the possibility of progressing through all the tournament with the assistance of other players. The eliminator mode is the best by far as it is the most competitive of the three: it doesn't matter who does the most laps but who brings down the highest number of ships with the different weaponry provided by the game. The power-ups are varied; there are guided and unguided missiles, turbo boosts, temporal shields and energy deflectors, a temporal autopilot and the best two and coolest weapons of the game: the quake generator and plasma cannon. The quake generator will create a forward-moving wave of land distortion that will sweep the entire track damaging all the other ships and slowing them down; the plasma cannon is the most powerful weapon in the arsenal as it will eliminate any ship with its single-shot energy discharge. If you are playing on eliminator with a friend and you hear the computer voice saying "plasma" then you know your ship is doomed.

The sound aspect of the game is superb, every weapon and engine has a very delicate and futuristic ring to it. All tracks have different background sounds and effects that tell them apart. The computer voice is simply beautiful and you'll remember for the rest of your life her "plasma" warning.

The Wipeout series has always been about techno and trance music and its third instalment opens with "Xpander" by Sasha, which is the second most futuristic trance anthem ever composed after Vangelis' "Blade Runner End titles". Most of the songs belong to well-known DJs and musicians, some of them provided the game with more than one track being Orbital and The Chemical Brothers the most familiar. There are different songs, all of them electronic of the trance genre, that will provide the game with its ultra futuristic feeling and the best part of all of this is that you can put your Wipeout 3 CD into your sound system's disc tray and listen to songs without the need of your console. Simply perfect!

There neither is a plot nor a story to this game because they are not necessary and such lacking does not harm the wonderful experience of playing and enjoying it. If you are looking for a plot then it can be found in its racing tracks, music, sounds and artistic design.

The game artistic design is sober, elegant and a bit Japanese cyberpunky with an European perspective as Psygnosis is an English company. The only issue present in the game is the darkness of certain racing tracks, specially those with tunnels as running through them can be quite difficult and will eventually require some memorizing. Wipeout 3 portrays a Westernised view of the future with lots of concrete, metal and glass structures twisting themselves around parks and ocean coastlines: there are seagulls flying above the tracks and cherry blossom petals falling from the trees along the runways. Beautiful.

Graphics: 10

Control: 9.5

Gameplay: 10

Sound: 10

Music: 10

Story: 10

Art: 9.5

///------TOTAL: 10 (5/5 stars) [rounded]------///