Less Than Lethal
Fatal Inertia EX isn't quite a knockout, but it's nowhere near as terrible as you may think.
Published: June 22, 2008
Oh Fatal Inertia, what a troubled existence you've had. First you were announced as a PlayStation 3 launch title. Then you got delayed. Then you got switched to multi-platform. Then you become a 360 game, with the PS3 version vanishing into the ether. Now, you've emerged from the void as a PlayStation Network download, and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, you're actually a better product for it.
The metamorphosis from disc-based launch title to downloadable late-comer meant that KOEI Canda's first game had some time to bake on the 360, and nearly all of the major issues that people had with the game on that platform managed to get corrected for the EX re-release. The game is faster, it runs better (and it's based on the Unreal Engine 3 no less), looks nicer and actually delivers on its original promise. No, it's not an absolute must-have, but the price is right, the gameplay is different enough that I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel, and in truth it's a worthy hold-over until WipEout HD finally gets here.
That's not an entirely fair comparison, but it's one that people will surely make whether or not I try to dissuade them from doing so. WipEout and Fatal Inertia are, at best, kissing cousins. They share very, very little aside from the fact that they both feature hovercraft, so while I'll happily take the game as a stopgap solution to my decided lack of hovercraft racing games, I do think the two can co-exist quite peacefully. Hell, if EX does well enough (and I honestly hope it does), I'd love to have two different flavors of hovercraft racing on the PS3.
If you happened to play the original version of Fatal Inertia on the 360, you'd be forgiven for thinking this just a quick and dirty port to its platform of origin. The first iteration of the game was a clunky, poorly controlling, stuttering framerate mess of an experience. Yes, you could tell there may be something there underneath all the technical issues, but it wasn't a stretch to say it was buried under a shell of crap that most couldn't be bothered to chisel away.
Luckily, the development team has done that for you. The actual game itself is largely unchanged, but the way it's presented, from the silky controls that now give you the sense that you're controlling a machine that is entirely unbuckled from the track (yet sports enough differences between manufacturers to be varied in actual handling among race and craft types) to the increase in sense of speed to some level designs that, at times, can be downright pretty. This is a game that has benefitted in every way from user feedback, which says plenty about the development team's ability to react to constructive (and not-so-constructive) criticism of their first effort.
Part of Fatal Inertia EX's appeal lies in the way it handles physics. As I mentioned before, you never really feel like the craft are bolted to the ground in any way, and much of this comes from the fact that pitch constantly comes into play. Nudging the nose of the craft up has a pretty pronounced effect, and when participating in some of the speedier Velocity races (where you are given a near-constant stream of power-ups that are used as speed boosts), it's possible to get a sense that you're actually flying rather than gliding. During the Magnet Mayhem races (where you actually are given a constant stream of magnets that you can fire in front or behind you), if you manage to get enough mags clamped onto one side of your ship, you'll actually feel the craft listing in that direction.
The metamorphosis from disc-based launch title to downloadable late-comer meant that KOEI Canda's first game had some time to bake on the 360, and nearly all of the major issues that people had with the game on that platform managed to get corrected for the EX re-release. The game is faster, it runs better (and it's based on the Unreal Engine 3 no less), looks nicer and actually delivers on its original promise. No, it's not an absolute must-have, but the price is right, the gameplay is different enough that I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel, and in truth it's a worthy hold-over until WipEout HD finally gets here.
That's not an entirely fair comparison, but it's one that people will surely make whether or not I try to dissuade them from doing so. WipEout and Fatal Inertia are, at best, kissing cousins. They share very, very little aside from the fact that they both feature hovercraft, so while I'll happily take the game as a stopgap solution to my decided lack of hovercraft racing games, I do think the two can co-exist quite peacefully. Hell, if EX does well enough (and I honestly hope it does), I'd love to have two different flavors of hovercraft racing on the PS3.
If you happened to play the original version of Fatal Inertia on the 360, you'd be forgiven for thinking this just a quick and dirty port to its platform of origin. The first iteration of the game was a clunky, poorly controlling, stuttering framerate mess of an experience. Yes, you could tell there may be something there underneath all the technical issues, but it wasn't a stretch to say it was buried under a shell of crap that most couldn't be bothered to chisel away.
Luckily, the development team has done that for you. The actual game itself is largely unchanged, but the way it's presented, from the silky controls that now give you the sense that you're controlling a machine that is entirely unbuckled from the track (yet sports enough differences between manufacturers to be varied in actual handling among race and craft types) to the increase in sense of speed to some level designs that, at times, can be downright pretty. This is a game that has benefitted in every way from user feedback, which says plenty about the development team's ability to react to constructive (and not-so-constructive) criticism of their first effort.
Part of Fatal Inertia EX's appeal lies in the way it handles physics. As I mentioned before, you never really feel like the craft are bolted to the ground in any way, and much of this comes from the fact that pitch constantly comes into play. Nudging the nose of the craft up has a pretty pronounced effect, and when participating in some of the speedier Velocity races (where you are given a near-constant stream of power-ups that are used as speed boosts), it's possible to get a sense that you're actually flying rather than gliding. During the Magnet Mayhem races (where you actually are given a constant stream of magnets that you can fire in front or behind you), if you manage to get enough mags clamped onto one side of your ship, you'll actually feel the craft listing in that direction.