Im GLAD they didnt "re-invent the wipeout formula".... why would they when the formula works.... ?!?
Loadtimes - 40secs for a race? ho cares, the experience is awesome - true Wipeout fans should love this game!!!!!
Wipeout 2048 Review
Game Emblems
The Good
The Bad
It's not a huge leap forward for the series, but Wipeout 2048 is still a thrilling racing game with an enviable sense of style.
The Good
- Exciting events that successfully mix combat with racing skill
- Smooth, beautiful visuals that give a real feeling of speed
- Deep multiplayer and campaign modes
- Killer soundtrack.
The Bad
- Frustratingly long loading times
- Iterates on rather than reinvents the Wipeout formula.
Wipeout 2048 is all about the familiar: the feel of the ships, the layout of the tracks, and the punch of a rocket. This is a game you've played countless times before and on numerous Sony consoles. But does that make it any less thrilling? Fortunately not. The mechanics of the floating speed racers have been sharpened to a fine point, with tracks that are intelligently designed to reward both racing skill and aggressive combat. The visuals are also as smooth as they are beautiful, providing breathtaking vistas for you to ogle during the frantic, twitchy races. If you're expecting heaps of innovation from 2048, you might come away disappointed. But as soon as you dive into the mammoth single-player and multiplayer campaigns to blast a few ships, you'll be having too much fun to notice.
Much of Wipeout's charm lies in its vehicles; sleek, antigravity ships that float above the track, possessing loads of acceleration and a full complement of weapons. By floating, the ships handle quite unlike a traditional, ground-based vehicle. They glide effortlessly over the surface of the track, unconstrained by the likes of friction. With little traction, guiding the ships around a circuit is tricky, particularly if you're new to the series. You may initially spend a lot of time careering into walls and crashing into other opponents.
After some lengthy practice and judicious use of your ship's air brakes around tight corners, you soon get the hang of it. But that's not to say things get easy--far from it. Races are gloriously twitchy affairs that require precision and concentration to win. And that's before you take into account different ship types; some are built for speed, whereas others are outfitted with heavy armor to make them better suited for combat. There are also numerous power-ups, such as homing missiles, mines, and speed boosts, all of which add a layer of strategy to the already tense racing.
A pilot assist mode is available if you're having too hard a time. It takes care of a lot of the air braking for you and gently eases you into corners, letting you dive straight into racing, without having to worry about developing your skills until later. If, on the other hand, you want to make things even harder, then you can race using tilt and touch controls. Tilting the PlayStation Vita left or right steers, while power-ups are activated using the touch screen. It's a responsive enough system, but it lacks the accuracy of the physical controls, which--given the twitchy nature of the racing--makes things far harder than necessary.
2048 features a new touch-friendly interface for its single-player and multiplayer campaign modes. Each event is represented by a hexagon, which is laid out onto a grid. Tapping on a hexagon lets you see what type of event it is and what you need to do to complete it. If you succeed, more events appear on the grid, as well as new vehicles, creating chains of hexagons emanating from that original event. It's a system that's easy to use, looks great, and provides an at-a-glance way to track your progress without resorting to dull tables or statistics. As for the types of events you can choose from, there are standard racing and time trial events, as well as combat events, where you have to concentrate on dealing damage to score points. The Zone events are trickiest, where you have to race around a garish, 8-bit-inspired version of an existing track and avoid hitting the walls until you've cleared the required number of zones. It's devilishly difficult but incredibly satisfying once you succeed.
By
Mark Walton, Senior Staff Writer - Reviews
Writer, riff maker, purveyor of fine foods. Mark currently spends his days trying to overcome his small (large) obsession with high-top trainers and mobile games. He's known to respond well to Long Island Iced Tea, falafels, and karaoke, but not necessarily in that order.
34 comments
Load times completely kill this game, for me. I got this game free with the new PSN+ downloads. The load times are ridiculous and make me so happy that I never bought this game. I can't get beyond it.
1 Like Waiting for better games I downloaded this and I can say at $35 this game is a steal. Having played the PSP and PS3 versions, this is a huge step forward for Studio Liverpool. Funny listening to these fans of HD/Fury. First off, they fixed the horrendous N64 controls from the PS3 version, allowing a hand break (finally) and acceleration comfortably and fluidly (for other button access) on the right shoulder. Great features like levels/experience and unlockables motivate you to keep playing. While it has some strange crossplay features with inferior predecessors HD/Fury, it feels like an effective reboot of this otherwise mediocre franchise. Hands down, this is one of the best portable games I've played.
@naf456 I know where I have been but I'm not sure about you. Wipeout 64, fusion, pulse, pure, hd and fury all had time trial, single race etc.
@TheFlush Where have you been for the past 14 years? Wipeout games haven't had modes like that since WE3 ?
Next time when you're reviewing a game, try to focus a bit more on the content and available game modes. Because in this game, all the usual modes like time trial, single race, zone mode etc. have been scrapped. There's only a single player campaign and a multiplayer campaign. Which in my opinion is utterly stupid and takes away much of my enjoyment of this game.
They stopped the umd on the psp because of the loading times. I thought there was little or no loading times when it plays on a vita card.
For GameSpot hard scoring system, it means this is a great game. Ps vita games will get better as developer get use to the new platform. And hopeful the make a powerful game engine like they did with iOS but with Vita there are better hardware so far.
What's with the load times?! Aren't these games now on game cards like the DS which supposedly load faster?
Really Gamespot!? This along with Uncharted getting a 7.0, I think your 360 is still on standby..
@Telekenesis123 As with the PSP, working out all the quirks on the Vita are simply going to take time. For example, Ys: The Ark of Naphistism, the loads times were horrendous for a game that took little to no processing power. However, with the later iterations, such as the Oath in Felgana that was both a larger and more graphically demanding game, the loading screens were seamless. I also HATE loading times and agree completely...I just hope they figure it out sooner than later.
Long load times is literally the reason why I did not buy the original PSP, is this going to be a continuing trend in the Vita? Long load times bore me, un-emerce me, and grate on my annoyance and tedium nerve. This is huge minus for me for ever picking it up, now I'll wait and see if more have this problem.
1 Like This game's loading times range from 15 seconds for Zone levels and 30 seconds for everything else. I got my Vita early from Amazon and this game was sold early at ebgames. The loading isn't that bad for races that can last multiple laps. That's just me though.
I will be getting this... if I decide to get a vita, if not I'll get it for the ps3 and play people on the vita.
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Wipeout 2048
Not Following
- Publisher(s): SCEA
- Developer(s): Studio Liverpool
- Genre: Driving
- Release:
- ESRB: E10+
Wipeout 2048 Navigation
