PAX 2008 hands-on: WipEout HD
It's been a long time coming, but WipEout HD is, we're assured, almost with us. Now improved and 100% epilepsy free, the game was available to play on the PAX show floor at Sony's booth. With idle hands leading to all sorts of terrible things, it seemed only right that we put them to work on something constructive by taking a futuristic hover car for a test drive.
It's easy to forget just how pretty WipEout HD is, seeing as the last time we saw it was at Leipzig 2007. The art style is so strong and works so well in HD -- we saw it draw many people passing by to stop and watch. Screenshots are one thing, but the game in motion is a joy to behold. Even whilst close up to the screen, the game looked sharp, with aliasing being almost imperceptible on some levels. Though, having said that, it was more visible on other levels, but never was it a distraction from WipEout HD's overall visual quality.
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Tired of gray and brown current-gen titles? WipEout HD more than compensates by assaulting your eyeballs with as many different colors as humanly possible (no wonder it failed the epilepsy test). One level in particular starts off completely white, with a tidal wave pulsing through every so often. Every time it passes by, the colors of the environment change, each one bold and saturated, as is the norm for the series. Potentially distracting, this made playing through the level a joy as it constantly fluxed and changed around us.
All this is compounded by the silky smooth framerate, which never wavered no matter how hard we tried to trip it up. Even the crashing animation looks stunning, with your craft splitting into glowing chunks and exploding in a burst of light. Obviously, we crashed on purpose just to check out what it looked like. Obviously.
As for gameplay, there's not much that's new here. As the name suggests, it's any WipEout game you've ever played, but in HD. Controls are still rock solid (we didn't try SIXAXIS controls, but the option is there if you're feeling masochistic). Powerups are the same and even most of the tracks can be found in previous iterations of the game.
One aspect of the game that has been added in since we last saw it is a split-screen competitive mode. A huge boon for the latest entry in a franchise that has been a popular party game over previous console generations. The implementation is well thought out too, with the ability to select either horizontal or vertical split screen. Really, horizontal's the only real choice, but it's nice to have the option.
It's kind of scary seeing games such as this, alongside PixelJunk Eden and Ratchet & Clank: Quest For Booty, being made available for download. This game easily has the graphics and gameplay of a full Blu-ray title. WipEout HD is a game we were looking forward to grabbing from the PSN Store over a year ago. While our desire for the title dwindled as it faded out of the public eye, seeing it again in full force has us hyped all over again. Now if only we had a solid release date ...
