continuing the trend of the last two reviews, here's another entry in the wipeout review series. you know the drill, this is a continuation of my wipeout reviews from cohost, if you haven't read those, here's links to my backloggd for you to catch up with. once you're done with the required reading, come back so you can continue.

1. wipE'out"
2. Wipeout XL
3. wipE'out" 64
4. wipEout 3
5. wipEout Fusion

well hey, we're nearing the end of this series. we've only got two more (real) wipeout games to go, and here's the second to last, Wipeout HD. weird name, but i guess this was the first ever wipeout on an HD system. and oh man, does it look the part. for a PS3 game, i think you could easily pass WOHD as a modern game at this point, it looks excellent even to this day, and especially considering the system it was stuck to. the PS3 was infamously VERY difficult to develop for, so i applaud Studio Liverpool for making this work as well as it does! not to mention, when in single player the game runs at a consistent 60 FPS, which is a rarity among PS3 games, especially ones that look this good. i know i'm focusing on the graphics a lot right now, but that's for a good reason, they deserve the spotlight. every time i boot up WOHD, i always forget just how good it looks, and it consistently blows me away.

but you know what they say, graphics ain't everything. how's the videogame part of this videogame? i'd say it's pretty good, overall. this is the first wipeout to play on a console with analog triggers, funnily enough, so we now have analog airbrakes as a new feature. have i ever utilized them? well... no. wipeout's a little too fast for me to warrant using something as technical as analog airbrakes, so i just don't even bother. still, i have some friends who say it's impossible to go back to the older games because they don't have it, so i guess it makes enough of a difference for some people to notice. the grid setup from Pulse returns as well, and i think it works excellent here as it did there. now that i think about it, a lot of the music from Pulse returns as well. not that that's a bad thing of course, i've gone on record saying Pulse has my favorite OST in the series, so i take no issue with this. once you hop into the racing mode, however, you notice that reusing old stuff is a bit of a theme with HD. every track in the game is a rehash of tracks from both PSP entries, and that's... a little lame. not to say that it's lazy, they remade all these tracks from the ground up and they look excellent! it's just that... coming directly off of playing both Pure and Pulse, i was kinda ready for something new. that said, the revamped visuals do almost make them feel like new tracks. it's like going from playing Cheese Land in Mario Kart Super Circuit to playing it in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. they're definitely the same tracks layout wise, but the new coat of visual paint makes it feel very fresh all the same. the only thing i wish they did was branch out a little further than just the PSP games, i think getting remasters of even older tracks would have been awesome, like Mega Mall from WO3 or Qoron IV from WO64.

and hey, good news! unlike the last two entries, i was able to get the DLC working this time! i'm improving! :D Wipeout HD Fury is an expansion pack for HD that adds 8 new (returning) tracks, 13 new ship models, 3 new game modes, 6 new music tracks, and a new and fresh HUD that goes for a 2012 Droid phone commercial look, as opposed to HD's normal blue-and-white color combo. on top of all that, Fury also adds a big ol' set of new grid challenges, which i'm always happy to see. funnily enough, the only physical release of WOHD was a version of the game that came prepackaged with Fury on the disc, but it was only released in Europe unfortunately. in terms of new stuff, those new game modes are actually fairly unique. Eliminator returns from WO3 and i still don't like it all that much, but there's two modes completely exclusive to HD Fury, those being Zone Battle and Detonator. Zone Battle is pretty much just competitive Zone, try to outspeed your opponents and see who survives the longest. Detonator is also Zone adjacent, but your speed increases each lap, not each zone. instead of survival, you're going for high score, and this requires you to hit targets on the track to gain points. it's pretty fun from what i played, and is probably my favorite of the three modes.

um, hm... i'm having a hard time thinking of stuff to discuss here, since... i kinda already went over a lot of things in HD, since they're mostly taken from Pure and Pulse. the soundtrack is excellent, the tracks are pretty great, i like the grid, uhhh... the game's pretty- agh, wait i already said that. Wipeout HD is exactly what it says on the tin, it's Wipeout... in HD. it's an excellent rendition of everything that it's trying to remake, but there's not much in terms of original content here. that said, i think HD is the definitive way to experience all of the content from Pulse, because now it's in a game that actually controls, and it looks pretty on top of that. if you were thinking about checking out the PSP games and happen to have a PS3, i'd say give HD a shot, it's a great sampler of what those two had to offer.