Wipeout

"Ride the roller coaster of fun!"

Wipeout was one of the first games that inspired me to drop two hundred clams for the ol' PSX. After playing it at SOFTWARE ETC. in the Meriden Mall (Meriden CT!) I was hooked! Wipeout is a great racer that moves quickly along some crazy 3-D tracks! The weapons system is a great idea and the different courses offer a unique race everytime! This game was a beefed up version of the SNES classic F-Zero!
Although the graphics were amazing, Wipeout suffered from a few problems. Number one was the play control of the ships. The only two that seemed to be resonably controlable were the ships from the first time (AG systems I think) driven by Jon and Daniel. All the other ships were slow and hard to control. Another flaw was the awful music! It was rather bland techno not suited for racing. Finally, even though the tracks that are there are very good, I wish that there were more. For a more detailed breakdown:

Graphics=9.6 Wow! Everything moves smoothly and while there is slight rendering slowdown, it never inflicts on the game's performance. The ships all have a neat, futuristic design while the tracks and backgrounds have great lighting effects and detail. The depth of the tracks is really evident in huge ramps and jumps! The still shots of the drivers are kind of weird, but neat. A very well done visual game!

Sound=2.0 The basic effects, such as launching rockets and hitting walls all sound good. So why such a low score? First of all, you have to deal with a stupid Brit announcer who tells you what weapon you got, when the race starts, and all that. This is bad, but the worst flaw in this game is the awful MUSIC!! IT STINKS. It is techno garbage that does nothing to get you in the mood for racing. Dark fast music would have fit well here, but we get stuck having to deal with unlistenable electronic music. You can easily change the music rating by turning down the sound on your TV and listening to your favorite CD.

Playcontrol=8.9-4.5 It depends on what ship you drive. The ships that have tight control (mentioned above) have a great ''drift'' feel to them and handle with ease. The long one engined ships are awkward and offer terrible control. They can be mastered to a degree, but the small two engined ships give you the best control.

Challenge=8.0 The rapier class offers some really good, hard racing. After a while, you will be able to breeze through the tracks, but the game can be harder if you try to finish with other vehicles.

Overall=8.2 With better music and better play control, this game is a 9--two more tracks and it is a 10. The quality of this game is evident in the fact that the music utterly blows and it can still get an 8 overall-- A nice addition to any racing fan's library.

*BRU'S MUST GET OMETER*=8.7 A very good game worth looking into; just make sure you havea CD player and your favorite CD ready because the music will drive you batty!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/14/00, Updated 02/14/00