WipEout HD

WipEout HD is essentially an amazing port of Pulse and Pure from the PSP games. HD sports eight tracks, twelve hovercrafts, and five different modes and more for just twenty dollars. HD is worth every penny and packs more action than twenty dollars worth of. You would have to be a fool to pass this deal up.

From start to finish, WipEout is pure eye candy. Great lighting, small details on both aircrafts and tracks, and overall the best looking downloadable game on the market should be a great technical showpiece for the PS3. HD runs at 1080p, 60 frames per. second with no frame rate drops. Liverpool Studios dropped the resolution when the action becomes more chaotic just slightly for a much better experience.

Musically, the WipEout HD soundtrack is predictably great. Nine songs from the WipEout PSP games seems a bit low, it certainly would not hurt to put in a few more tracks from past games. Thankfully, you can upload your own music to the game. Sounds of your crafts engine and drifting are top notch. A nice touch within the game when entering a tunnel with your craft results in the background music echoing. The same goes for when your craft is dropping down a ledge in a stage, but with a more dramatic effect. It's the little things Liverpool gave this iteration that adds to the overall experience.

Other little things Liverpool supports is your screen size, preferred control (motion sensitivity with options to how sensitive you want them), HUD types, camera, mapped controls, in depth guide, pilot assist, in depth leaderboards, etc. Although, pilot assist is more of a distraction than helpful.  The pilot assist forces manuvers of your craft out of crashing into walls, but over does the job. Drifting close to edges in HD is essential in certain tracks, and the assist will take up valuable time while doing so. Sure it's great for beginners because it practically drives the game for you, but you will want to ditch the assist once you get used to the controls.

The tracks are one of the best parts of HD, the porting process shows substantial changes graphically and look like a whole new track. Although, it is disappointing there are only eight tracks (reversable too), but that's nothing DLC cannot fix. It would be cool if the DLC had WipEout XL or Fusion tracks in the future.

WipEout is a pure arcade type experience, so don't expect a storyline like F - Zero would give you. The campaign consists of eight divisions with each of the challenges you are asked to complete progressively harder as you enter higher divisions. In expert mode, you'll be thrashed by the brutal A.I. with weapons constantly destroying your ship throughout the race, it's sure to be a fight for a certain boost or weapon pad. Even absorbing the weapons for energy will still be a hard fight against them, but when you come out on top, it's incredibly satisfying. The same goes for Time Trials, shaving off those milliseconds are huge self esteem boosts when trying to get that gold medal (or trophy, leaderboard spot). Crashing into a wall can easily result in starting over the whole race for a speed lap or time trial later in the campaign. Zones is also an interesting mode where you race through a track several laps to see how many zones you can acheive until your health reaches zero.

Trophy support increases even more longevity of the game. HD is easily the hardest game so far to get the platinum trophy (get all trophies in the game). WipEout's online mode is fun, and the real action appears in eight player tournaments. Alot of trophys are achieved through the online mode, which is a great thing so that you have something to work for with all your efforts. One downside, you cannot tell if that person ahead of you is using pilot assist or not and you cannot filter out the assist.

WipEout HD packs over forty plus hours of gameplay if you want to beat it 100%, online modes, trophy support add more to that. It cannot be stressed enough that this is a must have for your PS3. HD is sure to satisfy veterans and newcomers alike.