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Retro|Spective 143: Wipeout

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    #16
    Originally posted by Brad View Post
    Might get that. Does VR and hotas too! I think wipeout and elite are the two best be games I’ve played. Would be nice to have a wipeout replacement on pc.
    I'm streaming it most nights from 9pm GMT. On the final stages of the campaign now so game play is getting a bit sloppy.

    Here's the most recent time trial I'm most proud of: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/711013747 I reckon I can end up shaving another 10secs away from that.

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      #17
      Had a blast this morning. It's good! I mean it's basically wipeout.

      For the first time though I see where the PSVR is far superior to thie Rift S headset. 120fps refresh rate on the PSVR vs 80fps on this. In this type of game you can tell.

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        #18
        I absolutely love Wipeout and still play 1-3 regularly. I do like the newer versions from the PSP onwards, but there’s just something about them that make them not as good for me. I’ve never heard of Ballistic NG (I don’t have a pc) but it looks absolutely amazing. I’m actually tempted to buy a gaming laptop just to play it

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          #19
          Originally posted by Armchair Critic View Post
          I absolutely love Wipeout and still play 1-3 regularly. I do like the newer versions from the PSP onwards, but there’s just something about them that make them not as good for me. I’ve never heard of Ballistic NG (I don’t have a pc) but it looks absolutely amazing. I’m actually tempted to buy a gaming laptop just to play it
          It doesn't take much to play it at all. A modern, low-spec, laptop could pump it out at 144fps easily as long as the screen is 144hz.

          You can even activate all of the original PSX texture rendering methods in the options if you want to make it look crap on purpose. They've left absolutely no stone unturned. Just read the reviews. I even unlocked the F-Zero X handling model cheat last night. lol. There's no reason why someone couldn't do an F-NG if they wanted to put the work in.

          I beat my Aciknovae record. 3m09s now, but I still borked a few corners so I'm not going to highlight it. More attempts penciled in for this evening.

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            #20
            How did I miss this thread? I must have been away. I'm a big Wipeout fan and always have been. I mean, since the first game came out. Not before that, obviously. I would have too much to write about these games and you'll all be bored so here's just a quick rundown.

            1995 - Wipeout - Incredible launch game that really set the tone for the PS1 and a lot of its branding. I remember being at club nights where they'd have Playstations set up to play. It changed the perception of gaming. The game itself was incredibly unforgiving. The merest tap on the wall would have you slamming to a halt but, once you mastered the controls and the tracks, it was like going into some other state. There was only one track that I couldn't do perfectly eventually (I think it was called Silverstream or something) because there was one bend that just didn't suit the handling. But on the Saturn version, the control felt a little different and it was possible to take that corner without hitting the wall. I loved how the Rapier versions of each track took place in a different time of day. I have a lot of love for the original Wipeout.

            1996 - Wipeout 2097 - This is the game most list as their favourite and it's easy to see why. The control was improved, became a bit more forgiving (it's still very challenging) and so it was a little more accessible and fun. The tracks look amazing and the music selection is perfect. They made more use of tDR design throughout rather than just being logos and manuals like with the first game so it also felt more cool and coherent. It's a fantastic game.

            1998 - Wipeout 64 - Built on 2097 but, if I remember correctly (and I might not) some of the tracks were reskins of tracks from both the first two games... I can't quite remember. It was okay but I never loved it.

            1999 - Wipeout 3
            - This is my favourite WO game. The design is incredible. It looks absolutely unique. Much colder looking than the previous WO games and really allowed that tDR artwork to take centre stage. The control allowed for analogue, which was new to the PS1 WO games, and that took a while to get used to but, with time, it became second nature. There was less visual variety in the tracks but the result was a sense of a whole journey across them. I love this game.

            But the Special Edition is even better. That adds a whole bunch of classic tracks all redone in the WO3 visual style. It's a perfect WO package.

            2002 - Wipeout Fusion - I imported this from Australia because they got the game there first. This game was a big disappointment. Now on its own merits, it's actually quite fun but it loses a lot of what made WO great. The main thing missing was any anti-gravity feel. Like F-Zero, the craft were locked to the track and it lost all sense of gravity and that made it a very different game. It didn't look great either. tDR's involvement had ended and the design from ships to tracks to branding just wasn't strong. I didn't like the tracks and it often felt like it wanted to be Pod Racer more than Wipeout. And it was buggy. Still, it introduced Zone Mode which would become a later favourite.

            2005 - Wipeout Pure - It's good. In many ways, a return to form. It looks great and generally felt good, trying to get back that AG feel and almost getting there... but not quite. There is a control/game system oddity that seasoned players will notice which is that, essentially, you're flying a tiny spot at the tip of the craft nose and the craft swings around that tip like a tail. Once you notice that, it's hard not to be really aware of it. It also introduced a barrel roll boost but the problem was that, firstly, it meant competing on time meant you had to barrel roll all over and that gets ridiculous quickly and, secondly, the control was frame dependent and the game did not have a consistent frame rate on PSP. So sometimes the barrel roll wouldn't register due to drifting frame rates. They gave us a whole bunch of free tracks for this game that, eventually, made it a wonderful package. But one downside was creeping in just a little - the combat got a bit heavier and that could get frustrating during some races, again due to quirks in the game system where, on some sections of some tracks, AI craft would tend to bunch up - get caught in the middle of that and you could be in trouble. But that wasn't too bad.

            2007 - Wipeout Pulse - Visually, this game is excellent on PSP and it builds on Pure in many ways. It feels good, although carries over the nose issue. It adds mag strips to tracks which take some parts back to Fusion but gives it a reason. And the track design is generally excellent. It's a good game. But that combat focus? It went up a notch here and, yet again, would happen at consistent parts of some tracks and there was a bit of a feeling that it wasn't so much a racing game any more - it was a combat game with a finish line. They offered paid DLC tracks that were all excellent but, whatever way they worked, the more you bought the longer the load times would get and the game got more and more buggy. I eventually stopped playing due to the bugs. One nice feature in this one, although one I suspect contributed to loading times and bugs, was that you could create your own designs to put on the ships. I made loads. Wish I could find some images!

            2008 - Wipeout HD - Tracks from Pure and Pulse but rendered in HD. You'd think that's a good thing, right? Most people do. It's a popular game. But I think the design of the details overtook the big picture design and I actually find the game to be quite messy. Keeping a clear sense of the track isn't all that easy because there is just so much going on. If you stop and have a look, some parts are beautifully rendered but totally wasted because you zip by them in an instant. The visual design and track design didn't go hand in hand, in my opinion. And the combat once more went up in priority and I just had little interest in that. I wanted a racing game.

            2012 - Wipeout 2048 - This had the same design issue as HD only worse. Individual elements are clearly made with love and look great but, when actually racing, it's very difficult to see what's what and where you're going. I didn't like the structure of the game, didn't like the combat focus and, when they added tracks from HD and Fury, they couldn't make them work with any kind of decent frame rate. So for me, this game was a disappointment.

            And that's my journey through Wipeouts over the years.

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              #21
              Pffft, I dunno. I've probably played the first couple. I've got the PSVR version, which I really should play.

              However, for me, Wipeout is all about The Designers Republic .

              As a fan of Pop Will Eat Itself, I spent ages at school age staring at the cassette inlay for "The Looks or the Lifestyle?", so a videogame with input from DR was amazing. I rebought the game, purely so I would have the artwork.

              I love how these guys think. Take a look at the classic original logo:


              If you look carefully, there are a few things going on here.
              The first thing to notice is that the logo is made entirely of partial number 8 in "Eurostyle Bold Extended" font.



              Why the number 8? It's like an LCD display on a digital stopwatch when all the segments are displayed:


              Finally, the little ' and " indicate the minutes and seconds on a digital stopwatch used to measure a race:


              Why Eurostyle font? It's because it's the classic Sci-Fi font!


              Note that bottom picture is Moon, scored by Clint Mansell, formerly of PWEI, with album covers designed by... The Designer's Republic!

              Source: https://imjustcreative.com/wipeout-l...ory/2020/02/17
              Last edited by QualityChimp; 20-08-2020, 11:17.

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                #22
                Eurostile Bold Extended.

                The " at the back of the Perfect Dark logo was a hint to the speed-running aspects of the meta game.

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                  #23
                  Anyone else get this mega Edge magazine when Wipeout 3 came out?

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                    #24
                    Yep, I had that. One of our local train stations was also covered in Wipeout branding and it looked great - the entire station was done with it.

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                      #25
                      The Making Of WipEout - Kotaku

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                        #26
                        They should have done a stamps collection for Wip3out.

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                          #27


                          #6 world for lap time. If I can string five of these together in succession that'd make for the world #1 in time trial. That's if I can concentrate hard enough and not buckle under pressure during the final laps. I get into the flow, but then excitement gets the better of me when I'm on the cusp of a break though, usually late into lap 4 - then I remember that I'm sat playing a video game and I'm potentially going to be really happy in a few seconds, forgetting my precise cornering lines before scraping the barrier and pinballing left and right all over the place... I'm playing at 165FPS and you only need to hit a corner a few frames too early/late to screw everything up.

                          It's absolutely exhausting, and so much stress. I'm sweating absolute buckets when playing. My t-shirt was completely soaked yesterday.

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                            #28
                            It's just so aesthetically pleasing to my eyes:

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                              #29
                              It's a beauty.

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                                #30
                                It's easy to forget where gaming was at the time.
                                The PlayStation marketing was brilliant as it tried to get away from the association of videogames as something kids do, but those kids were growing up:
                                "Psygnosis's magnum opus was geared towards a new breed of gamer. Graphics firm The Designers Republic was drafted in to help market Wipeout towards trendy club-goers with a passion for music. An exceptional soundtrack that included tunes by artists such as Leftfield and The Chemical Brothers did its cause no harm. Tim Wright, under the alias CoLD SToRAGE, composed the remainder of the in-game music.

                                An official soundtrack CD was released separately to promote the game, though its tracklisting deviated from the music that actually appeared in the title. The most notable absentee was CoLD SToRAGE, who contributed more to the game than any other artist. PSOne consoles running the game were set up in nightclubs to support Wipeout's launch, and a range of branded clubwear found its way on to the market."

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