Wow, been a long time since I posted anything, guess I’ve been busy. Been working on several projects along with doing a lot of gaming. With the new tv and HDMI cables the world of HD has engrossed me. Watching HD shows now and taking full advantage of my PS3/360. Lately though, it’s been all about the PS3. That will soon change with Dead Space, Gears 2, Banjo and Kazooie, finally purchasing Silent Hill…

Anyways, WipEout (and thats the last time I bother to capitilize that ‘E’) hasn’t really hooked me since XL on the PS1. I remember playing it a lot as a kid, but as a kid I didn’t really know how to play it properly or be very good at it. But then again, I don’t remember being bad at it either.

This one though, is gorgeous (of course) and plays just as well. I’m not sure really what even tempted me to pick it up, but I’m very glad I did. The tracks are marvelous and the overall setup allows for a lot of replay value.

It’s actually a fairly tough game, at least if you are trying to go gold on everything. Getting Bronze medals isn’t bad, but sometimes the Gold is only attainable via a certain ship and hitting every single boost pad in a track. This can make it frustrating, but it feels great when you finally nail it. It actually reminds me a lot of my Guitar Hero obsession. At first the game seems impossible and then you get hooked and just get better and better.

I don’t think it’s new to this Wipeout, but there is this tool called “pilot assist” which can be rather helpful, but also a bit of a pain. What it does is when you get to close to the edge of a track, it nudges you away from the side. In the slower races this is awesome because it helps you learn the tracks without getting discouraged from slamming into the sides and losing all your speed. Especially before you learn how to properly use the air brakes.

But, the problems come in on the faster tracks. When you’re moving at insane speeds that little nudge has a much bigger effect. As a result it’s almost impossible to effectively use the air brakes anymore because you’ll get nudged when not anticipating it and end up in the other wall getting nudged back again. In thinner areas this results in getting nudged back and forth in an endless cycle which results in a lot of frustration and more time spent going side to side than forward.

Although, I suppose it’s more of a beginners thing and it was nice not really having to worry about being flung off the edge of tracks where there were no walls. I’ve had to turn this off and kind of take a step back to learn the game the way it’s supposed to be played. I feel better about winning races now, although it definitely requires a bit of relearning on the air brakes and tight bends because it seems that the pilot assist was helping me more often than I realized.

Wipeout HD is a great game, tons of content, trophies to be collected, ships/ship skins to be unlocked and online racing. Well worth the $20 to any PS3 owner looking to have a good time.

Oh yeah, and it comes with a photo mode so you can take some awesome in game screenshots. Unfortunately you can’t send these over your network to your PC or else I would have used a photo of me rockin some tracks for this post, instead I resorted to the internet for one. On top of that, being able to create custom playlists and have the game use them instead of it’s built in soundtrack (which is actually pretty good) is a great feature as well.