A Road Trip to RememberWipEout PSXThere was a little bit of a theme of fantasy racing games in the 90's. On the 29th of September 1995 wipEout for the Playstation hit the competition globally and it was one of the first to do so on the Next Generation consoles at the time. Unfortunately it was overshadowed by Sony's rivals Nintendo and their hit Mario Kart, which was released two years after. In my opinion, WipEout was a far better game and here are my reasons why...
GameplayAs anyone who has played this should know, WipEout is set in the future. Being set ahead of our modern society gives game developers a chance to create vehicles that can travel at insane speeds. This gave the game a unique fast gameplay unlike it's racing rivals, a little bit like how Sonic the Hedgehog was a fast paced take on the Platformer genre.
Not only do you travel at an exciting thrill of a speed but when in the first person (bonnet) view the camera tilts when you turn like a motor bike simulator and with both combined with the unique race track design you really do feel like you are on a roller coast ride.
With the intense speed if the F3600 vehicles comes some difficulty to those who are at home with most fantasy racing games or driving simulators. Braking and going around corners takes a little bit of a getting used to. I remember throughout my early ages of gaming, being around 4 or 5, I could never corner without crashing all of the time but by the time we got the PS2 and I played it on their since the console was backwards compatible I had mastered the space roads.
As I said before it is a roller coaster ride but you only get the real effect when you can with in and out of the corner effectively.
The only flaws is the depth. There isn't much of it. There are only a small amount of tracks and hover craft and completing a series doesn't take long. There are only 2 classes of racing, one for beginner(ish) and one for the more experienced player once you unlock it. This leaves us with a very lonely title screen and it looks a little embarrassing. And it was not like they could blame the consoles small memory size because Gran Turismo (though it was released after) had 140 cars and 11 race tracks.
SoundWipEout for the PS1 has, in my opinion, one of the best sound tracks ever to feature in a video game. With the advantage of a disk system over it's console rivals the sound quality is not far from what it is today. The hovercraft sounded great, the voice acting was as well (you have got to love the accent) and most importantly the music sounded amazing.
There are also certain points in each track where the music has a different effect. In one there is a tunnel so the song is echoed in others there is a space section where the music goes all weird and space like.
The sound track highlighted the best electronic and big beat tracks of the 90s up to 1995 and they threw in a few composed by the team themselves. The well
selected artists included Orbital, The Prodigy and my favourite artists The Chemical Brothers.
With this killer soundtrack on top of everything else great about this game really puts the cherry on top. I can be dancing away to this combination of great music you don't really get that with most video games, even with games like Final Fantasy and that has amazing music for different reasons.
See this is again another example of this game's unique yet effective approach to a racing video game and boy I hope we can all be dancing to the Chemical Brothers again in 2052!
GraphicsThis is quite possible the only downfall of this game other than the depth. The graphics don't really live up to the console too well, with the PS1 being CD based. To me the graphics were comparable to that of the Nintendo 64 and even the top games on the Nintendo looked better. There are still some cinematic scenes in the course like this one section in the Russian course which just looks so great on the console but in general it just seems it was rush and only certain bits were really focussed on.
Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Gran Turismo 1 and 2. They are just a number of games that perfected the consoles graphics and there is a bit of a disappointment that WipEout didn't do so.
This doesn't bother me too much though because the graphics are overwhelmed by everything else great about this master piece of a game. If the graphics were 16-bit and like F-Zero I wouldn't mind (as long as the music quality was the same). I guess this goes to show that games should be about gameplay and not beauty which is something that seems to be fading away these days.
Though Call of Duty has bad graphics and gameplay!OverallWipEout is one of those games that i can just keep coming back to time after time. Even if it has crappy graphics and it is short I can still have fun re beating it. The multiplayer experience is fun to play with you friends so even if you are fed up of beating the Ai again and again at least there is still something to do. This game will stay in my history book of video game experiences because it is one of the best I have played. I highly recommend this game to those who have enjoyed F-zero or pretty much anyone who enjoys racing games whether it be Mario Kart or Forza Motorsport. Once you get past the cornering and crashing you will be in for an exciting thrill.
That's all to really be said on this game. This may not of been one of my longest reviews but I feel everything necessary was mentioned. Have a nice day and let's just hope that in 2052 we are driving hovercraft at the speed of sound while listening to The Chemical Brothers!
Graphics
7 Sound
10 Addictive
9 Depth
7 Difficulty
6
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