Wipeout Pulse Review (PSP)

Age rating:

3+ (PEGI)

What is it?

Futuristic racing game, with lots of lovely weapons.

Is it fun?

Yes.

Is it worth the money? £22.99

Yep, every penny.

Why?

Like anything in life, practice makes perfect. So given that Wipeout Pulse is the 8th incarnation of the futuristic racing series does the same analogy hold true? I’m pleased to say it does. Everything that was good about Wipeout Pure has been built upon in Pulse with the following additions:

• More tracks – 12 new ones
• More teams – 12 teams in total
• New Mag-strip track surface – Tracks can now have loops and super sharp turns.
• New weapons – Repulsor, shurikens and cannon
• Team loyalty system
• Adjustable AI difficulty
• Custom soundtracks
• Custom ship skin creator – via wipeout-game.com
• New tournament structure
• Photo mode – Take your own pretty pictures, as I did for this review
• On-line racing

Yep, on-line racing is there for the first time. Now I get my butt kicked on-line as well as off line and I can see just how slow my times are via the wipeout-game.com site Yay, I think. It is a welcome, if slightly overdue addition to the series.

The adjustable AI (easy, normal and hard) opens up a lot more of the game to most people. In the previous games, increasing the difficulty by increasing the speed resulted in few people actually completing all the tournaments. Now, at least, the Wipeout tourist setting (aka easy) allows you to experience the whole game. However, it doesn’t prepare you for the harsh reality of on-line racing though. For that set the difficulty to hard. Well, technically you need an evil setting (aka human) to be fully prepared.

It’s not all sugar and spice and all things nice in Pulse. To my mind the balance of time trials to races during tournaments is a bit off. There are simply too many time trials and not enough races. I like races, time trials are just boring. Also enough with the Zone races. I know this was quite a cool addition to Pure but Studio Liverpool had gone a bit OTT with the number of Zone races you have to complete. Tons of them, again with the boring.

It seems Sony have decided to start squeezing every last drop of coin out of Wipeout. How? Well, the previously free downloadable content for Pure now costs money in Pulse. These expansion packs vary in price from £1.99 to £3.49 (4 have been announced – Mirage and Icaras are available now). It’s another case of micro transaction infestation.

Finally, it’s a Wipeout game without any CoLD SToRAGE music. Bad, bad, bad. At least I can now create a customised soundtrack (something also available in Wipeout HD) with lots of my own CoLD SToRAGE tracks, so it’s not all lost in a savage pit of mire.

In summary: The best Wipeout game so far on any system.

Screenshots:

Wipeout Pulse is available now on PSP

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