WipEout: Pulse - PSP Review

Following on from 2005’s WipEout: Pure, the series continues on PSP with WipEout: Pulse, but before the full review, a little background info. The WipEout series first appeared on the original Playstation way back in 1995, and quickly established itself as a fast and furious style racer/shoot ‘em up, where players piloted futuristic craft around various tracks, using power up’s such as shields, and firing missiles and other weapons at each other, all while trying to finish first. This unique blend of racing, shooting and flying remained fresh for many years, and the jump onto PSP was both inevitable and welcome. In fact, a WipEout for PS3 is in the works as well. So then, onto the review.

There are some games on PSP that feel like they belong there. One is the WipEout series. This is because everything just feels right, and it feels as polished as any game. The controls are kept simple, which is fortunate as your travelling so damn fast that you don’t have much time to look behind you. One key difference between other race games is that because you are flying you can’t just turn left or right unless it’s a very slight turn. For tight corners and U-bends you need to use the airbrakes (L1 and R1), which does take some getting used too, but once learned, they actually make it much easier than braking totally, and then accelerating away again. It keeps the cornering smooth and means you don’t lose much (if any) speed, gaining vital seconds in the Time Trial races.

Graphics look slick, smooth and really make the game come to life. Actually, the improvement from Pure is marginal, because the effects were so good to begin with. The key changes to the game will come a little later on in the review. The colours in game are bright and the best effect is the engine jets spewing out plasma, or whatever it is, which is proportional to your acceleration and speed. Another thing I’ve noticed is that the game has never lagged, even with 8 different ships on screen, the action remains as high tempo as ever.

Sound is the only area of the game that could still be improved, as while the music in game is great (it’s a mix of techno and futuristic drums, which actually sounds far better than how I just described it), the voice over which announces your upgrades or when a rival is about to fire is too quiet and blurry, so you rarely hear about the imminent rocket which is about to blow you out of the sky. Thankfully, in addition to the audio warning, there is a visual one as well. A tiny icon of the weapon being fired at you appears above your ship so you know what’s coming.

As with most racing games, there are multiple teams (twelve, although you can download additional teams if you want) with respective strengths and weaknesses. For example, some ships will have good acceleration but a low top speed, or an average balance of both. This keeps the game fair and it also makes it more enjoyable if you prefer one type over another. I have always gone for a nippy car/or in this case ship, with good handling/turning and acceleration, but that’s just me. Think of it this way, in real life terms; would you rather have a Lotus Elise (agile, but not as fast) a Ford GT (powerful, but less nimble round corners) or a Porsche 911 (a balance of both). You also receive loyalty points for racing with a team, although I’m not too sure of the reason for this.

The game modes are vastly improved over Pure, and it shows when you start playing. Some changes are subtle and some are completely new modes. In Pure, it was more of a direct port from Playstation with few new elements, still a good game, but it was designed to be very safe and felt more like a testing ground on the new hardware. Pulse however is very much a new game. There are 12 new tracks, which can be played forwards or in reverse, and most tracks now have a magnetic strip on the track which keeps your ship glued to the track, enabling loop-the-loops in the tracks, as well as 90 degree vertical and horizontal sections which is just amazing to play, although it might make you dizzy if you don’t concentrate, or if you concentrate too much. This alone makes the tracks much more varied than before, and add to this 2 new weapons, 3 new game modes (Speed Lap, Head-to-Head, Eliminator) and you have a sequel well worth purchasing even if you already own Pure. There is also online play available if you have Wi-Fi access, custom music in the background if you have music stored on your memory card, in-game screenshots, Pulse really has got so much content and features crammed into it, it’s amazing that the game doesn’t suffer in other areas as you might expect. In some games, you might lose a feature which has been replaced by another, but that’s not the case here.

So, overall, Pulse is an excellent game and surpasses Pure. It doesn’t do anything drastic in terms of actual game play and it doesn’t change any of the key elements; they have kept it straightforward yet challenging, fast but manageable, and the numerous and more importantly, substantial, tweaks and additions in Pulse make the game even better than ever before. WipEout: Pulse comes highly recommended to everyone, and if you’re already a keen WipEout fan, you’ll love it.

Rating: 9/10