GOONL!NE

Developer: Studio Liverpool
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
Also on: N/A [PLAYSTATION 3 Exclusive]
Console Played on: PLAYSTATION 3
Rating: PEGI 3
Price: £11.99 @ PlayStation Store

Everybody dreams of what the future will be like.

We all thought 10 years ago that a night race in Formula One was the future with headlights on the Ferrari’s and McLaren’s.

And look what has happened 10 years later.

Granted, no headlights on the cars, but we have our night race in Formula One in Singapore last week with Fernando Alonso winning (and I’d personally like to say Felipe Massa, you idiot XD)

So, just imagine the future by 50 years, not 10 years. Racetrack’s which define the word “anti-gravity” along with floating ships which race through at the speed of light with neon lights blasting out everywhere.

And unlike Formula One, you get weapons, speed boost, shield’s, auto pilots.

Does the future sound that bit better then the one 10 years ago?

For a game which you’d think is worth something around the region of £19.99 considering the amount of stuff in it, you get your money’s worth with £11.99. You have got 12 teams and 8 tracks (16 if you count the reverse) with a single player campaign which comprise of events with cells in within each level, reach the certain number of event’s you need to win a medal in and you go onto the next level after it, each cell consists of either an event like a Single Racer, Time Trial, Speed Lap and Zone’s mostly.

However, there ain’t just a campaign mode, there is amongst other things Racebox which is more of a local multiplayer type with up to two players playing in Racebox on the same PS3 in split screen but it can be used as a single player type as well with all the race types and circuits from the campaign in there too as well as the teams making Racebox a Arcade Mode basically.

The final big mode for WipEout HD is 8 player online and it’s region free. You can play Europeans, Americans, Japanese, everywhere basically with either Single Racer or Tournament mode’s for anybody hosting rooms in the game with voice chat supported.

WipEout HD feels great to play, if your new to WipEout and haven’t played any of the games since it’s debut on the PlayStation, it has a new Pilot Assist feature which will help you avoid hitting the barriers although it wont help you all the time needlessly if you use the speed boosts in WipEout HD too much. Turn it off and well, you’re on your own.

But it ain’t just the gameplay modes which make for the £11.99 tag on the game, you can a couple of great extras in the game. How does trophies and a photo mode sound? There are 38 trophies in total with a fair bit of trophies to get from the hard to the easy such as reaching Zone 75 in Zones to merely using Photo Mode in the game.

As for Photo Mode, this can be accessed at any time during an event by pressing the Start Menu and going into it. There, you can use so many options to take a photo and depending on how well you are at taking photos, real life or in games (Project Gotham Racing 4 or Forza Motorsport 2 are a prime example of it), you can churn out some pretty good photos like the ones above (and infact, all of the pictures in this article, all of them were taken by me). It’s nice and easy to use so you’ll find real easy to use right away.

WipEout HD has been a long time in the coming, unveiled at last year’s E3 before being delayed for so long up until the end of September when the game got released but to see it’s taken this long to get it ready and play well but to make it look stunning too, thats another.

The game is absoutely stunning and that’s no over exaggeration. At 1080P at 60FPS, you can go wrong. Everything in WipEout HD all the way down from the ships you race in, the tracks you race around, it simply is amazing.

And the best thing is there is no slowdown, no framerate drops, nothing. It stays a perfect 1080P, 60FPS (True 1080P btw, not upscaled 1080P just to point out) every single second you are playing the game and that is simply incredible and thats just on a standard television alone.

Okay, it cant go up to 1080P or HD at all but even on a SDTV, it looks incredible so anybody, including me, who lives without a HDTV, dont worry, it still looks as great when it was released, in particular with Zones.

Look at them craaaaaaazy colors go!

And as per usual for every WipEout game, you get a basic experimental soundtrack with it. HD includes Kraftwerk, Mason, Staunton Warriors and more, you basiclly get a great soundtrack with the game which matches up perfectly as a whole with the game.

Final Thoughts: WipEout HD is simply without a doubt the best game on the PSN. I simply can’t find anything wrong with it. Okay, there is the Pilot Assist which makes it a bit too easy, even for newcomers coming into WipEout if they never played the series back in it’s PS1 and PS2 days.

Plus the fact that mostly all of the content for the game is used from the WipEout games on the PSP, WipEout Pure and WipEout Pulse for the PSP.

None the less, it still makes it the best PSN game right now and at £11.99, you can’t go wrong.

Gameplay: 9 – It is a absolutely brilliant joy to play, it’s incredible.

Presentation: 10 – Wow…it’s the only word you can say for the game, incredible. Plus, top notch music and more.

Lifespan: 10 – It will keep you going for a very long time with online and trophies.

Overall: 9/10 – If you have a PS3 and you can only get one game from the PSN, make sure it’s this. Absolutely fantastic, this is a game you NEED to get for your PS3.