The Wipeout franchise has been pretty loyal to Sony and the PlayStation consoles – making its first appearance on the original PlayStation all those years ago, then making its way through the generations to the stunning HD version on the PS3. No surprise then that the series has landed on the new PlayStation Vita console.
The real question is how Wipeout carries itself onto the new generation of portable – is it simply another tech demo for Sony to show off the Vita’s features? Or is this a solid game with plenty to offer?
Traditional love
There are no drastic changes – this is traditional Wipeout, through and through. That means speedy racing, twisting tracks, powerup pads, weapons and ruthless enemies to blast out of your way.
The game offers various modes of play – from traditional racing, to combat modes, time trials and multiplayer. Each mode has its shining moments of glory, and a glaring down-side. But preceding any opportunity to shine or fail, comes the excruciating loading time.
Sitting and waiting for the levels to load is a tedious process at best. A pity, because what comes after the wait is great.
Speed racer
The general gameplay is the Wipeout you’ve come to know and love – the tracks are littered with boost pads to give you that extra zip as you build up your speeds on the track; scattered around, should your game mode allow it, you’ll find green and yellow power pads that provide defensive and offensive powerups, respectively.
The levels, though, aren’t exactly Wipeout through and through. Gone are futuristic, colourful, neon-lit locales and instead you get a more sober design; city-scapes with tracks that branch off into natural environments and fly high up into the air, or cross over rusty bridges.
As you progress, you unlock different vehicles, each with a different look and different strengths. Once you’ve progressed and unlocked a few racers, it’s up to you to choose whatever approach you want to take, though I found, given the option, I stuck with the fastest hover-car over the bulkier, more combat-ready ones.
The visual design is quite remarkable, even if the more “realistic” look sometimes makes the track a bit difficult to navigate because of all the darkness and shadows.
Of course, there’s a good and bad side to that. You won’t have to worry about failed navigation for too long, because you’ll be able to learn the track paths pretty quickly – that’s the good news. The bad news is there are only about 10 or so tracks. It’s not a whole lot to work with, but the game does its best to keep things different.
It goes without saying that because this is a “futuristic” game, the soundtrack sticks to it’s decidedly techno heritage. Apparently the future’s backing music is going to be composed by Daft Punk and their clones. At least we can be thankful developers haven’t all latched on to Skrillex and dubstep just yet.
Extended play
The single player campaign is enough to keep you distracted with its various game modes, and there’s some replay value in trying to attain the “elite pass” on each stage – if you’re a completionist – but it’s moving over to the multiplayer where you’re bound to try and draw out as much value as you can.
Playing online, you can engage in an online campaign, where your main goal isn’t specifically to win every race. You can progress by doing whichever style of play best suits you – be it speeding, combat or fulfilling some other goal. I never got to explore it much thanks to a dodgy Wi-Fi connection, but it appears that the game automatically sets-up everything for you.
That is, you don’t get to specify what game mode you’d perfer to play. While playing locally, it handles in very much the same way – never really giving you much option or choice as to how you’d like to play with friends.
Another multiplayer feature is cross-over pay with Wipeout HD on the PS3, which aside from the touch-screen interface, is pretty much the only PS Vita-specific feature on show. Don’t expect the PS Vita to quite match the PS3’s HD version running at 60fps, though.
Conclusion
Wipeout is a great game, and definitely one of the PS Vita launch titles to get – it’s fun, fast and great to look at. But when it comes down to it, it’s a bit conflicted.
The game is suited for quick races and pick-up-and-play scenarios – yet the loading times paint a question mark over that purpose. If you’re waiting in a queue and want to speed up time by having a quick race – by the time the level has loaded, you may just be over the idea.
As a sit-down-and-focus type of game, there’s just about enough to keep you interested, but not on a very deep level. It’s unlikely you’ll sit for hours and hours, pouring yourself into the game; but there are enough different modes to keep you locked-in and interested for as long as your investment lasts.
Wipeout fans of old will definitely feel at home here, and gamers new to the series will find plenty to have fun with; just don’t expect to show anyone “how cool this game is” in a hurry – unless you want to stand around awkwardly as the game loads. True story, too.
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