Epilepsy is for Cowards
WipEout HD is everything you imagined it would be.
Published: October 7, 2008
After spending an unhealthy amount of time with my cramped hands clutching a PSP for my WipEout fix, being able to play with a DualShock 3 is an indescribable pleasure. The controls are highly configurable, and there are two different types of motion control available. One of them maps only pitch control to motion, leaving yaw to the analog stick or directional buttons, while the other maps the whole shebang to motion. The latter definitely takes some practice to acclimate to, and while I cannot claim to have mastered it, it does seem possible to use effectively.
Regardless of one's preferred control method, piloting the sexy ships of WipEout HD requires a great deal of finesse. As always, knowing when to use the airbrakes is a key skill, though the added nuance of analog control (defaulting to L2 and R2) changes things slightly. Double-tapping an airbrake will cause a side-shift. The loading screens will remind you of this side-shifting maneuver quite often.
The other thing that you will be constantly reminded of is the barrel roll mechanic. Barrel rolling is the same as in the PSP games: a quick left-right-left or right-left-right with whatever input method you choose will cause the ship to roll, sacrificing energy (which acts as health) for a speed boost upon landing. The energy cost is nullified on Time Trial and Speed Lap events by a constant recharging effect. Rolling while using the first person camera is disorienting, but entertaining.
Possibly the best gameplay change introduced in WipEout Pure was the absorption of powerups, which remains in WipEout HD. Rather than relying upon the pit lanes or health powerups of the older games, now it is possible to absorb an item rather than deploying it, replenishing a portion of the ship's energy. This makes it far less irritating when you keep picking up forward-firing weapons while in the lead, and it can make for a fun little tactical choice.
WipEout HD has a variety of trophies, including the ultra desirable Platinum. Good luck getting it though, because some of the trophy requirements are utterly Satanic. There are a lot of reasonable trophies which you can expect to acquire in the natural course of playing the game, but some of them demand very specific and grueling activities.
One of the easiest trophies is awarded for popping into Photo Mode and taking a picture. Photo Mode is accessible from the pause menu during a race, and it is a fairly robust tool that allows you to create screenshots. There are fixed track views and rotatable ship cameras available, and you can zoom in and out. Settings such as color saturation and exposure are adjustable, along with a few effects like depth of field and motion blur. The results can be quite impressive. If you get WipEout HD, you will never have a shortage of beautiful wallpapers for the XMB or your home computer.
WipEout HD is not without problems. The lack of original content is probably the biggest strike against it, with the clumsy online implementation a close second. If WipEout HD were a full-priced Blu-ray release, it would have been just a tad disappointing. As a twenty dollar downloadable title, however, it is a great value and an excellent slice of instant gratification.
