The combat is fast and simple you fly over one of the weapon strips on the track to get a weapon, and now all you have to do is find a poor soul to use it on.
On the combat side of things, you have a very nice assortment of missiles, guns, mines and other weapons that will do great damage to opponents. The controls for WipEout Pure are very well done, and for anyone who has played the original, they will quickly bring back fond memories. Overall, howeer, this does not impact the game too much in a negative way. While this can make for some pretty intense showdowns between you and the game's AI, it also can get pretty annoying, as you never feel that you really have a fair chance against the computer. I had a blast with this mode, but it was not without its flaws and suffered from what is known as "rubber band AI," which means that no matter how well you do or how far away an opponent may appear, they are never fully out of the race and can always catch up to you.
Tournament mode will be the main mode of play for most gamers, where you fight your way through a series of races and place well in order to move on to the next group.
My only problem with this mode is the lack of courses: there are only four tracks right now, which is a little disappointing, but hopefully we will get some more in the near future, via downloadable content.Ĭomplementing Zone mode is the standard array of race modes such as Single Race, Time Trail and Free Roam modes. Zone mode is fantastic and a real blast to play, especially when you get burned out on the standard race modes and need a change. The goal is to get to the highest level possible before your ship bursts into a ball of flames. Since you have no way to recharge your shield, you will take too much damage at some point and explode. As you continue to work your way up to higher zones, your ship starts to fly around the tracks at incredibly high speeds, which makes controlling it increasingly difficult. The goal is to get to new "zones" of the track, and when you reach one of these new zones, your vehicle's top speed is raised by a little bit. In Zone mode, you have no power-ups on the track, which means that there is no way to recharge your power shield, but there are speed boost areas that will help you blow past other racers for a few seconds. One of the best new additions to the series is the Zone mode, which is a great example of when less is more. However, just because WipEout Pure is about getting back to its roots doesn't mean that there have been no new innovations. What this all boils down to is that all of the elements that made the first WipEout so addicting are back. The weapon collection system has been altered, and you can run over weapon strips on the track and get new weapons and power-ups at the touch of a button. The tracks are also narrower, just like they were in the good ol' days. The ships now control much like they did back on the PlayStation version, which was one of the key areas of the game that was lost in the transition from 32-bit to 128-bit consoles.
Many of the new additions that made their way into Wipeout Fusion on the PS2 are now completely gone, replaced by many of the core gameplay elements from the first WipEout. Thankfully, Studio Liverpool has decided to go back to the game's roots and get the series back on track. While the PSX games where highly acclaimed, the PS2 version did not live up to the hype, and while still a good game, it differed quite a bit from the core gameplay that made the original WipEout so fun.
WipEout Pure for the Sony PSP is the latest installment of the WipEout series, a franchise which extends back to the launch of the PSX.