WipEout 64 ReviewF-Zero X, that simple, yet popular racing game that had awesome music and smooth, workable controls. It was only a matter of skill for those to win in those races, and not luck of the draw when you got a weapon like the "blue shell" that always seems to come before you finish the final lap, and Toad over takes you. No, F-Zero was all about how you moved your ship craft thingy jet and how smart you were to apply the boosters at the right time for the maximum efficiency and to cut those extra seconds. True, games like Crash Team Racing and Super Mario Kart added that element of surprise that always made a racing game fun, like how stuff would just happen faster than you can blink, and then try and comprehend how Neo Cortex is 15 feet in the air while Coco is driving backwards. It adds that factor that makes a racing game more than just racing. F-Zero X was to racing as was what Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! was to boxing, and it should be played by many.
So why am I not on the review page for F-Zero X? Why am I here on this Wipe-out 64 game? ....Or is that Wip-E-out...? Wip-Eout? Whatever it's called, I saw something in this game that was rather interesting. While F-Zero X focused mainly on the racing aspect, and Super Mario Kart and all the rest aimed to make racing interesting with gimmicks like weapons, this game seemed to make use of the two and tried to combined them both together. It appears to have a structure of F-Zero X and it's hover crafts and tight turns, while having weapons to destroy the other ships down with. Whether it did it well or not is what I'm about to find out.
There isn't a main story, but there is a fair amount of background story in the instruction booklet. It says here that someone called Pierre Belmondo was talking about how the humans were always grounded to the planet Earth, until one day they were able to crack the mystery of anti-gravity, and reach for the skies....and beyond. It even references itself from a book that doesn't exist from a year that hasn't been yet. Unless if you are reading this review in the year 2098, then apologies for any confusion. This was review was created 86 years ago, so you'll have to excuse me for when I talk as if it was back in 2012. Anyway, the instruction booklet isn't really an instruction booklet for a game, but more of a guide around the world that is set in this WipEout world, and it tells you want to do, but in a more adventurous way. I like a game that has creativity on all fronts. So I guess you drive and win matches as the game to be the best? That seems to be the case.
As the game starts up, you'll find there are four game modes. The Single Race, which is where you can race against 14 other crafts. There is an option to race with and without weapons if you wanted to. Time Trail, which allows you to race on your own to see how fast you can get around a track. However, you can keep going around the track as many times as you like until you feel like you've gotten the best you can. It's a nice feature that means you don't have to restart if you mess up on the last lap. You can just get to the end and try again. Then there's the challenge mode, which could range from trying to get to first place, finishing a lap in a certain amount of time, and destroying a certain amount of space crafts. These challenges are fairly hard, but they do get old after a while, and very repetitive. They are also very unforgiving in the error margin, especially when you get to the later ones. Then there's multi-player mode, where you can play with three other players. It's great to know there's multi-player in this game.
So here's how the whole thing works, as with any other racing game, you are placed around....the back. You drive through the course, collecting power-ups and driving through boost panels to give you extra speed. The powers can range from a shield, to a machine gun, to rockets, to even an autopilot system so you don't have to drive for a bit. A nice touch, but can be a little annoying at times. You have a health bar, and falling off the track or hitting the wall will decrease this, as well as enemy fire coming your way. If you get destroyed, you'll re-spawn back where you were, which isn't so bad, but as the game is fairly unforgiving, then you'll be losing vital seconds with every mistake you make. True, it's not one of those "one mistake and reset" sorts of games, but it's up there, and it's fairly luck based.
The graphics were pretty good. It was smooth and detailed fat the time. The explosions and effects that happen in the game aren't all as tied together and shined like the more popular games, but it's the roughness that gives it a certain quality to it all. The backgrounds aren't that bad, but it's hard to appreciate them when you're in a race where you need to pay full attention to. Sometimes, the graphics are a little buggy or they don't seem to work right. Sometimes you could send an attack to the craft in front of you, and the animation wouldn't spark, but the craft got hit, yet it didn't indicate it was hit.
The music seems to be lacking somewhat. The sound effects are nice and fit well with everything, but sometimes everything just happens all at once and several sound effects jumble up into a loud noise, and for some reason it's not the good kind. The background music can be masked by all these sound effects, and it's hard to appreciate it when you hear "woosh! Boom boom! Tititititit!!" from time to time. Then there are those golden moments when nothing is happening, and you can hear the music for what it is. It's ok, nothing special or anything.
The controls are fairly responsive. The steering in the game is fairly good and it's enjoyable when you get the hang of it, although at times it is very wavy and it can be easy to miss a boost pad. Sometimes it's easier just to tap the acceleration button than go at it with full force and hold down the R button for greater steering. Wait, its always better to do that! In fact, the controls seem very much like the F-Zero games, only a tad more slippery.
Overall I give this game a 7.7/10 It's a nice racing game to play, but it gets pretty old fast. If the sound was organised better then that would have made a fairly dramatic change to the whole game. The power-ups were nicely designed, but once again, the symbols for them are so different that it's hard to remember them and you just think "What power is it? WHO CARES ACTIVATE IT!" Etc., which means in the end, you'll just be mashing the power-up button all the time, hoping it's a good one. If you liked F-Zero X, then you'll enjoy this game, but don't expect anything completely original in terms of game play.
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