If you haven’t seen it before, Wipeout is a TV show where contestants compete against one another on crazy obstacle courses. These courses are often set up over something gooey or wet in order to maximize hilarity. As zany as the courses are, the real stars of the show are the wipeouts the contestants always end up taking. While the first Wipeout was released for the Wii, Wipeout 2 hits just in time for the holiday buying season and brings motion control to all of the major platforms.
Wipeout is loosely based on a Japanese game show Takeshi’s Castle which was re-edited for North American TV and known here as MXC. The whole premise of the game is having this completely over the top, larger than life obstacle course which several contestants race through to see who can get to the end with the best time. There are not too many TV game shows that have the potential of translating to a video game well but if there was one it is Wipeout. Even better is that Wipeout 2 features motion controls.
Our review copy came for the PS3 so we’re playing with the accurate and too often overlooked PlayStation Move.For those of you that do not have a PS Move controller; fear not. Wipeout 2 features a full control scheme with the Dualshock 3 controller. The Dualshock controls even make use of Sixaxis. I’ve owned a PS3 for a few years now and I can count the number of times I’ve used Sixaxis controls on one hand. With the standard controller, the gameplay feels like a very basic platformer. This game is truly designed for the Move. You’re going to get the best experience using it so if you have one, set it up and use it!
I found this a little bit weird but you control your forward movement along the course with the T button on the Move controller. Its analog nature allows you to control whether you run or walk with how far you press the trigger in. It takes a little getting used to. Conversely, the Move button on the top of the controller acts as your brake or reverse. If you need to stop in a hurry this is the button you will want to use. The rest of the controls are pretty simplistic. Flick the Move controller up to jump, flick it down to crouch. You can do these controls while in motion but you have to be careful with your grip on the T button. It can be a little hard to maintain whatever velocity you are trying to achieve when you are flicking your wrist up, down and side to side trying to control your character in the air. If you’re a heavy thumbed gamer like myself you’re going to have issues here. I sure did.
The problem with either set of controls is that they are too imprecise to be fun. The character movement is so loose that you will inevitably wipe out several times on each course. I realize that’s the name of the game here. You don’t want to simply run through each course untouched every single time but these loose controls lessen the fun of things. The rag doll physics featured in the slow motion replays aren’t good enough or varied enough to be fun for long. You’ll tire of them quickly whether playing alone or with friends.
Wipeout touts a summer and a winter episode. Each episode has five different courses to run through. The difference between the summer and winter episodes isn’t significant. One is snowy, the other isn’t and both offer many of the same obstacles. Even from course to course, these rounds change only marginally. There’s far too much repetition here. The TV show has a wealth of material to work with. It is a shame there isn’t more and this really detracts from the fun you could have. Scattered in each course are rings that shave time off your overall score. These are strategically placed to provide a risk/reward scenario. In single player these are almost completely unnecessary because you’ll be far enough ahead of your competition anyways. The AI opponents offer little competition and there appears to be no setting to adjust the difficulty.
While you can play through the entire game in single player, play time can be measured in minutes to get through all the levels. What is the reward you ask? You get new characters to play. Other than costumes, these characters offer no dialogue or abilities that are apparent. The real draw here is to play this one with your friends and even then the novelty is going to wear off far too quickly to be worth the $50 price tag.
Wipeout 2’s comical, cartoony look unfortunately doesn’t mask the fact that everything is sub-par in its appearance. There is nothing here that tests the PS3’s hardware to any extent. Textures are flat and inconsistent. Take a look at the grass textures on the character introduction screen with Jill Wagner. They are literally different in each third of the screen. It is simply sloppy. Character animations are limited, especially in the game cut-scenes. There’s some decent ragdoll physics which are on display during the slow motion replays of big wipeouts but even these are outdone by downloadable titles like Pain that come at far less of a cost than $50.
On the plus side, the frame-rate stays solid throughout the game. This is no feat considering nothing is really taxing the PS3 hardware here. I do have to say the cartoony look does work. It lends itself well to the goofy (in a good way) course and big wipeout crashes.
One of the best things about this game is it uses the actual voices of both of the hosts featured on the TV show John Henson and John Anderson are the main hosts but the game also features Jill Wagner as your, for lack of a better description, sideline reporter. Like the TV show the two Johns offer a stream of funny commentary with several one-liners. Unfortunately, the novelty doesn’t last very long. Only so many “balls” comments are funny and they certainly lose their lustre repetition upon repetition. Trust me, with the retries certain obstacles take you will be hearing things over and over and over again. Jill pretty much says nothing. There’s a few forgettable rock tracks taken from the TV show itself. Points for authenticity I guess.
If you are an absolute diehard fan of the “Wipeout” TV series then you might get some enjoyment out of Wipeout 2 for the PS3. That said I cannot emphasize might enough. Otherwise, Wipeout 2 failed to sustain any real enjoyment for me. The visuals are less than stellar, the sound is average and the controls seem to put a damper on the entire experience. Needless to say, I can think of better things you can purchase for 50 bucks
