Racing fans have an obvious need for speed that propels them down tracks and against their competition while hoping to cross the finish line faster and farther ahead of their opponents. For Sony, one of their franchises that exemplified this concept has been the WipEout series, the futuristic racer with weapons and anti-gravity courses. It’s been two years since WipEout Pure was released in time for the launch of the PSP, and now portable owners can get their hands on the latest installment of the series with WipEout Pulse. But does Pulse offer the same adrenaline rush that fans have come to expect from WipEout games?
Unlike previous WipEout titles, Pulse doesn’t force you to go through slower speed classes, keeping virtual training wheels on your ship before you get into serious competition. Instead, it throws you into the deep end with a new Grid system that is further broken up into race cells, with each cell containing a separate event. Clearing a cell opens up additional events in that grid until you hit a certain amount of completion points based on your cell process, at which point you unlock the next Grid and have the option of moving to the next racing setup. There are seven different events found within Pulse, each with their own qualifications applied to them, including whether or not weapons and power-ups will be available in the race. These range from single races, head-to-head matches and tournaments over the course of several tracks, to time trials and speed laps against the clock.
Two modes do stand out from the others, and first up is Zone, which automatically accelerates your ship along a track that’s mined with speed pads. Every ten seconds you survive without wrecking your ship equates to passing a zone, and you’re tasked with clearing as many zones as you can. The other mode is Elimination, which isn’t a race for first place or positioning. Instead, you attempt to win the race by eliminating a certain number of opponents faster than your competition. Of course, that means taking everything from quake shots to rockets and cannon fire to wreck fellow racers as they sprint around the track while avoiding destruction yourself.
Like every other WipEout game before it, Pulse demands a heavy price from players. The first is that you need razor sharp reflexes. Any one of the eight ships that you can select is capable of moving more than 500 kph and will frequently receive additional boosts thanks to the speed pads or acceleration power-ups that are scattered around the tracks. The result is a breakneck pace that will frequently propel crafts into walls, off the edges of tracks and into other competitors. That can be a daunting prospect, particularly when you realize that you’ve got a couple of hairpin curves or blind man’s turns that you just don’t see until they’re right on you, and you’ve got milliseconds to respond properly. What’s more, the computerized AI will frequently be breathing down your neck, fighting you for position and trying to gain every edge they can down the track.
I feel the need … the Need For Speed!
Fortunately, the allure of Pulse is that the learning curve to gain these Zen-like responses for success along the track is relatively tolerable as long as you hang in there for a little bit. In fact, you’ll probably find that you’ll wipe out (no pun intended) on a race track at least once or twice the first time that you access the course. However, once you’ve restarted after pinballing off the walls a couple of times, you’ll probably find that you’ve instinctively started to memorize exactly where these problematic sections are, and before you know it, you’re making adjustments with your airbrakes to avoid them on your next runs. It’s this twist that makes hurtling down the 12 tracks engaging, and keeps you playing over and over. Whether it’s flying over the elevated raceways of Tech De Ra, twisting and turning through Moa Therma, or curving along the upside down track of De Konstruct, you’ll find yourself hating, then adjusting and finally enjoying every curve the tracks have to throw at you.
However, the largest detractor to the racing experience is the limited number of tracks that you’ll go over. Pulse only features twelve racetracks within the game, and while the tracks are reversible (delineated by the terms White and Black), you frequently retread the same tracks over and over again, particularly in the earlier grids. As a result, the challenge that you face dramatically decreases as you memorize these courses, even on higher difficulty levels, as you fly around corners with minimal effort. Whether it’s knowing where every shortcut is, or exploiting the new mag-strips that attach your ship to the track during loops and vertical drops to constantly hit the best racing line, you’ll probably discover after two or more grids that the challenge comes in adjusting to the game mode placed upon a specific track than the tracks themselves. This will probably apply even to the downloadable tracks that will be offered for the game, although they weren’t available on the site at this point.
This is in addition to the weaponry that is sometimes skewed in the AI’s favor. For example, you may receive a quake shot to disrupt opponents every eight or ten weapon pick up grids. However, the computer will frequently receive and unleash these powerups on you and everyone else. During one race, I fought my way through five separate quakes, two of which were fired off back-to-back by the AI. Now, while that’s radically unbalanced, at least Pulse provides a certain amount of competition thanks to its AI. Pure’s computerized opponents were somewhat brain dead, but Pulse’s competition will ram you, trigger their bombs and mines in a way that you can’t help but collide with them, and boost at times to make things competitive instead of simply rubberband-like.
Yours for a shipment of plutonium, if the price is right…
As a quick aside, what’s up with the Auto-pilot in this game? It’s designed to be one of those triggered elements that intelligently drives your ship down a course for a few seconds, picking the best racing line to help you establish a lead or maintain your progress. However, the Auto-pilot won’t acknowledge any weapon pickups if you happen to cross their path, will sometimes avoid speed boosts (even on straight sections when it can take advantage of them) and will sometimes lead you into a wall. You’d expect it to be somewhat better than this, and during some races it can be useful, but it appears to be one of those 50/50 elements that can either help or hinder your progress. Sometimes it’s just easier to absorb that pickup for energy than triggering it.
If you can overlook the course issues and the item elements, you’ll find an incredibly deep title, however. First of all, Pulse tracks everything you do, from the number of songs that you’ve heard during the game to the number of times that you’ve played a specific course and used a certain weapon. This doesn’t wind up affecting any unlockables; that’s dictated by the loyalty system, which is based on the number of times you use a certain ship within an event. There aren’t significant extras to be found within this system besides new skins for your ships — speed or handling adjustments would have been great — but it’s a decent idea. Pulse also provides the ability to create customized races and even customized grids that you can embark on with parameters you define. Players can take pictures of their performance thanks to the included Photo Mode, and send those images to friends or post them online. Finally, Pulse hosts online play for up to eight players via Ad Hoc and Infrastructure play, and both run smoothly without any hitches or problems whatsoever.
Pulse also manages to pack an eye-catching and ear-pleasing presentation in as you play each race. The racers are slick, angular beasts that streak along the curves of every track, energy trails streaking behind them. As they are trashed in the midst of races, they explode in a shower of sparks and burned out wreckage, providing an immediate underscore to the old adage that speed kills. The courses themselves are striking, with many of them taking place through the corridors of futuristic cities or industrial corridors, making the races feel vibrantly alive and pulsing (again, no pun intended) with the speed of every competitor. This is bolstered by the excellent sound production on the title, which is excellent. From the cheering of the crowd to the expository explaining every track, the few dialogue tracks that are included are well done. What’s more, while not everyone may enjoy the great tunes by Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin, Dopamine and other techno artists, players have the option to add up to 30 tracks of their own from their memory stick, making their own playlists.Closing Comments
As the latest installment in the WipEout franchise, WipEout Pulse holds its own quite well. It features the same punishing reflex-based gameplay, high speeds and engaging flair that other games in the series have trademarked. While it’s unfortunate that the game doesn’t radically reinvent the series or vastly expand upon the play, WipEout Pulse is still an extremely enjoyable title for racing fans, and WipEout fans will definitely love blasting and braking around its courses for a long time.
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Tags: Sony PSP by Mikey
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