The Anti-Gravity League has just started, so all your favourite teams are present (Feisar, AG Systems, et al) and many of the ships are similar to those you will have piloted before. You even get to race on grass and dirt at one point. Where many of the latter day titles featured high-concept futuristic landscapes inspired by neon-heavy Japanese design, because WipEout 2048 is set beforehand, there’s a much more organic feel to the surroundings. Graphically, there’s a touch of the retro in there too. Indeed, by using, among others, tracks from Orbital, The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy (along with a bit of deadmau5 and the drum and bass madness of Camo & Krooked). Thankfully, WipEout 2048 delivers on this front in spades. Tracks by Orbital, The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy captured the zeitgeist of the time, and no WipEout should be without such radio-friendly house dance fare. The music was very much a part of what made us all want a PlayStation originally, and seems totally at home on the PS Vita. There were two things that worked with the PSOne edition that were not necessarily always present sheer gutsy playability that anyone, not just hardcore gamers, could tackle, and banging choons.
In the interim years, we feel that the WipEout series had lost its way at times, some versions were way too tough, some graphical embellishments were unnecessary and distracting. I dunno, ultimately I suppose I have to admit I got more hours of enjoyment out of Wipeout, even if it doesn't loom as large as F-Zero for me.In a nutshell, the gameplay feels like it did back then, and that is no bad thing. But unlike the F-Zero franchise, I liked the sequels as much if not more than the original. I remember you had to wait a couple months after launch for Wipeout to release. After playing both Wipeout and Jumping Flash, I stepped aside to let someone else play, and I grabbed a pre-order voucher and took it to the cashier to pay a deposit. When the kid finished, I stepped up and checked out what other playable demos there were. I watched a kid play Battle Arena Toshinden for a bit, which looked stiff as fuck but no doubt graphically impressive at the time. Then like a month before launch, I went into my Toys R Us and they had a Playstation demo kiosk set up. Never gave any serious consideration to owning one.
When Sony announced they were doing a CD-ROM gaming console, I automatically assumed it would be in the same ballpark as the CDi and the 3DO, i.e. The original Wipeout (along with Jumping Flash) was the reason I stopped ignoring the Playstation. I didn't play it much after mastering every race, and I never really got into any of the F-Zero sequels.
It was the first video game I played in like 7 years, and I played the fuck out of it for like two weeks straight. If not for F-Zero, I might never have come back. Like just about everyone else around my age, I was an obsessive gamer in the '70s and early '80s, and then hitting puberty was the end. ugh.į-Zero (along with Super Mario World) is literally directly responsible for me getting back into gaming after I finished college. F-Zero does suffer a lot from the last game in the franchise releasing for the GameCube, because I'm sure if the rivalry between the two series continued both would be on much higher highs. Personally, before the release of the Omega Collection I'd have replied with F-Zero without thinking, but after the former fused together the last two games while ironing out its issues and in the case of 2048 massively improving it, I think I might give this one to Wipeout. Not too long after the release of the original F-Zero, PlayStation owners could get their fix of anti-gravity racing in Wipeout, an incredibly stylish arcade racer with great visuals, amazing speed and controls that rivaled Nintendo's franchise until both died in the 6th gen (Wipeout kinda stayed alive with HD/Fury, 2048 and the collection, but it was clear that the franchise was already past its prime).īoth series also distanced themselves quite nicely as time went on, with F-Zero doubling down on incredibly deep mechanics, unforgiving gameplay, ridiculous speeds and tight controls while Wipeout focused on fast combat racing, with much floatier physics that really made you feel like you were piloting a ship.