Furiously awesome. (Yep, you heard me).
So here's the short of it: This expansion pack essentially Wipeout HD 2. In fact if it were a standalone product, it would actually be a more feature-rich game than HD was, so for almost half the price it's worth a purchase based on economics alone. But what really sells this package is not just that it's more Wipeout HD, but that it's better than the original game in every respect; The tracks are better designed (and look amazing); the new ships handle better (and look way cooler); the new music is lightyears better than the original ones (though eventually you'll probably still migrate back to your own custom tracks).
The new modes are fantastic fun. Detonator basically takes Zone Mode, gives your ship guns, and places an ever-increasing number of mines ahead of you, and just like Zone, it starts off pathetically easy, then very rapidly forces you to crap yourself repeatedly until you die. It's a lot of fun, and very different from any other mode.
Zone Battle is a bit more familiar, in that it has the word Zone in it. However this mode arms you with two new moves: press square to do a Zone Boost, which - depending on how many speed pads you've gone over (you add 0.3 to your boost meter every time you hit one) - you will skip through that number of Zones, while also recieving a boost and leaving behind a floating barrier (If you've played Wip3out then these will be kinda familiar) which if opponents hit, their boost meter will deplete, and they'll slow down and take some damage. If you press circle you will deploy a shield, allowing you to fly through the barriers with no penalty, and you will also regain some HP (shield, hull?). It's a great mechanic because unlike in a standard race, you almost always have the option of deploying your shield, so there is a far greater focus on split-second timing, and if someone drops a barrier right in front of you, it won't feel as cheap as say, someone bombing you in the original HD.
Finally Eliminator. It's certainly not new to the series (debuting in Wip3out) but it's certainly welcome. It's pretty obvious what this one is about, but it's still fresh, and really fun. How Fury differentiates this mode from Wip3outs implementation is that firstly, at any time during the race you can press L1 to flip your ship 180 degrees and blast people with weapons that usually only go forward (like rockets or, well anything thats not mines and bombs). Yes, I know what this looked like in the videos (gimmickly and clunky - why not just make weapons fire backwards when you look backwards a la Wipeout 2097 or Wip3out) but in practice it works fantastically, it's fun and it makes Eliminator mode more than a simple addition of mechanics.
In fact, that's what makes the whole package so great. It's not just "Here, this stuff is new, check it out!" followed by modes that, at least on paper could have been as underwhelming as the difference between time trial and speed lap (not a lot). Each new mode or feature that has been added is because it was something that was missing from HD, not just an arbitrary evolution of the existing formula but something completely new and different. Even the god-damn menu looks fresh, it's not just a new splash of paint but an improvement over the original.
So, in closing: Forgive my gushing, and go buy Fury. It's not just more Wipeout, it's better Wipeout.
