Futuristic racing fun, at a great price!
WipEout HD is a remake of sorts of some of the tracks from Pure and Pulse. So, if you have played those games before you are not going to see anything new per se. You will however, see these tracks in a new light (redone specifically for the PS3). It is without a doubt a very good looking game. Highly stylized-futuristic vive of the game has never looked better (that just doesn’t go for the tracks and vehicles, but for the menu system as well).
WipEout is all about speed and choosing whether you want even more speed (via boost pads on the track) or weapons, or both (if you are a really good driver). You get to test your skills in single races, tournaments, time trials, speed laps, and zone race. You also get to try out your driving skills online as well with up to eight players. When playing in single player you are given careers to participate in. Each career has a number of challenges. You mostly start out with two challenges (a single race and time trial). Clearing these challenges earns you points that unlock the other challenges in the career (clearing all and earning a set amount of points allows you to move forward to the next career and unlock vehicles or vehicle skins). Given the fact that you are playing 5 modes on each career can sound repetitive but they hardly ever feel repetitive (at least not yet). The challenges, well, they get hard quickly, and the eight tracks are switched enough through the challenges to make them still fresh. Frustration, if anything, will probably be what makes you stop playing this game (this game is rather unforgiving and expects you to know every turn and exploit every advantage given to you. If you don't? BROKEN CONTROLLER).
WipEout HD doesn’t have as good of a soundtrack as I had hoped (it's good but I'd rather listen to something of my liking). Luckily it allows for custom soundtracks (not via the XMB, however). The game has a built-in system that automatically detects what songs you have and lets you set the randomly. Even cooler is that the music you choose syncs with the game perfectly. The end result is that the music (no matter what you choose) reacts to what’s going on screen. Music will sound more distant when going through tunnels, will slightly distort with the sense of speed, and will be muffled by crashes or explosions (I personally find that cool and enjoy playing Muse while in my races).
There’s also a photo mode which allows you to record a snapshot of whatever you want, whether it be a nice block from an enemy shot to a shot of you crossing the finish line. The mode lets you mess around with some effects. You can mess around with colors and the sense of speed shown in the pic. Word to the wise, if you are trying to sell your friends into buying this game based on the sense of speed, take a pic of your vehicle and make it look like you were going faster than the speed of sound (they’ll probably be disappointed to find out you can’t really reach that speed in game once they buy it).
In the online aspect of things, I think single race and tournaments are enough to keep players entertain for a while. Also, it is nice to compare your records through records. Hopefully they'll toss in at least one more mode down the road but these will do for now.
Overall, $20 is a good purchase if you liking racing with a little combat attached to it. The challenges will keep you entertain for quite a while and the price of entry surely makes it easier to cough out another $5-$10 for any additional expansions (if they ever come).
Oh, you can play split screen. I’d rather play online though.
