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Dan Richardson
For our WipEout HD review, click here.
When WipEout HD was released it was the flagship title of the Playstation Store- full 1080p visuals, 60 frames per second high speed action with ridiculously addictive online multiplayer and leaderboard support. For the same price as a DVD movie, WipEout HD offered a huge amount of content- more so than many full price titles. Studio Liverpool have just released an expansion to the original game, but is it worth the upgrade and live up to the original game's high standards?
Fury takes the original game, beats it around the chops, calls its mother a whore and proceeds to inject it with copious amounts of rage inducing narcotics. The whole game has been revamped- everything from the opening credits to the pause menu has been spruced over to include the new fiery appearance. The main menu background is now an awesome array of flaming particle effects wrapping around the classic WipEout ship designs and the menu navigation has been simplified even further for ease of use.
Beyond cosmetic updates the expansion packs in a significant amount of meaty goodness. The seemingly incredible amount of ships and tracks bullet pointed in the package’s blurb is truthfully quite deceiving. The quoted 13 ships are actually just remodels of the existing designs, some with added battle armour for the new game modes. The “8 new tracks” are actually just 4, with the remaining 4 just being mirrored versions. You won’t really care though, since the new ships look awesome (and are even faster) and the tracks meticulously well designed. It really is a fantastic thing that the camera mode returns for the new package, since without it the stunning scenery (which surpasses the architecture seen in the Star Wars prequels) would just pass by in a blur.
Alongside the new tracks and ship designs are much needed new game modes. Eliminator sees all eight racers attempt to destroy each other- each successful hit grants the attacker points, and each kill gives a large bonus.This is s shift of focus for the game and takes it in a direction similar to the battle modes in Mario Kart. The winner of the mode is the one to reach the allotted point target first, but since the mode isn’t actually a race you’re able to flip your ship 180 degrees and shoot those behind you. Needless to say things get incredibly chaotic and the mode is a huge amount of fun in both online and split screen multiplayer.
The second new race is Zone Battle- basically the old favourite Zone mode but with eight ships competing. Competitors have to race to a specific zone count by boosting through zones- players collect boost energy every time they go over a speed pad, which they can either use to skip through zones and overtake the competition or heal their ships. It becomes a real juggling act when you have to balance your ship’s health, your position on the scoreboard and piloting the craft through increasingly difficult speeds. To make matters worse, every time the opposition boost they leave behind a shield which saps your own shields when touched. Again, this mode is chaos online and is really addictive.
The final mode is Detonator- an event which completely changes the wipEout formula into something reminiscent of a side scrolling shooter but from the normal racing perspective. It is easily the simplest of the three modes, since racing ability doesn't factor in at all and it is single player only.Players have to navigate the track in a manner similar to Zone mode, but the track is strewn with mines and explosives. You are given infinte ammo and the ability to charge a large secondary weapon. While it sounds fairly stupid, it is actually fun and insanely challenging- especially when you try to beat other scores on the leaderboard.
The new modes are complemented by a full new campaign, which rivals the original’s in terms of difficulty, length and replayability. All challenges have leaderboard support and the new campaign is integrated with the old one nicely. It is also nice that if you preferred the original game's aesthetic and music, you can simply swith back to it at will from the options menu. The same section now also allows you to track your racing stats- everything from how far you have travelled in total (around 30,000 Km for me) to how many of the Arcade Perfect trophy races you have won.
When you take into account the facelift, new tracks, new ships, new modes, new music and a full new campaign with new trophies, you really are getting your money’s worth out WipEout Fury. It takes the original game and makes it something that could legitimately be released on a disk for full retail price. If you don’t own WipEout HD, now is the time to buy. If you do already then there’s no excuse not to give Fury a whirl. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
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