Wipeout HD
Wipeout HD is my most expensive purchase over the playstation store yet and you'll hear me say it a lot, but its worth the money. With a 9.3/10 from IGN I knew this game would probably be good but it was better than I expected.
The controls are simple enough to be able to pick the game up quite quickly and play, however you may need if you want to be serious with it to remember some button combinations. You can fly with either the arrow keys or the analogue stick. On PS3 I definetly go with the analogue stick as it feels more natural to move and frankly easier to fly. This is probably because I play most of my games with the analogue stick.
You press X for thrust (accelerate) and [] to fire your weapons you pick up along the track. O is to "absorb" your weapon meaning to repair your ship but sacrificing your weapon and triangle is to switch views. R1 is to look behind, L2 to airbrake left and R2 to airbrake right. Deeper than that some button combinations can make your ship do different things, like Left Right Left, or vice versa makes your ship roll when in the air and giving you a speed boost when landing. In Wipeout HD you can also turn on motion controls which could frankly be better and probably are not used by the majority of people.
There are only 8 tracks in the game but a whole range of different ships. The game runs in 1080p at 60fps and looks awesome. All the 8 tracks are taken from Wipeout Pulse and Wipeout Pure on the PSP however thats no biggie, just made the tracks more suitable for 1080p :). \
The online for the game is smooth and features support for voice chat, and of course I suck at online. It is 8 player online that is smooth and I have not encourted much lag... well I say I do over the headset when I lose.
The trophy lineup is also good for this title featuring around 30 trophies which are very hard and includes a platnim... once again I stress these trophys seem hard, well for me anyway.
Overall Wipeout HD is very much worth the 30 buck investment and even better if you gameshare. I wish the developers gave us a few new trakcs. I find nearly no other problems than that, apart from the 8 tracks however you can race them backwards expanding your options. If you have a PS3 and are looking for an arcade game to buy, this is your game!
Conclusion:
Your old and most favourite vehicles and tracks but in HD.
Menus- 8.9/10- Slick design and easy to read
Graphics- 9.0/10- Graphics good but not as amazing as it could have been
Sound- 9.5/10- Techno tracks suit wipeout HD, ability to import custom music
General Playability- 8.1/10- Easy at first, gets hugely frustrating later
Replayability- 8.5/10- Some races you'll want to replay, some you'll need to.
Final Score (not average)- 8.9/10- A solid and smooth game.
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Well that was my first review I guess! Next time I'll be doing a review of Flower and the MGS Pack of LBP and maybe Battlefield!
Until next time,
Ben.
