Wipeout Omega Collection is a remastered collection of the PS3 game Wipeout HD along with its Fury expansion, and the Vita game Wipeout 2048. Starting up the game, you’re presented with a barebones menu, where you can select which of the three campaigns you want to start; alternatively, you can play online or multiplayer.
Wipeout 2048
Wipeout 2048 is the remaster of the Vita game and it had looked amazing on the handheld. This remaster gives it a much higher resolution and runs at 60 FPS, so it is noticeably smoother in comparison. The graphics, while still looking good, has flat textures at times, betraying its handheld roots. These imperfections are only noticeable while you’re waiting at the starting line as once you’re racing with the scenery flying by, you won’t be able to tell the difference.
The controls are simple, so simple in fact that there’s no tutorial apart from hints during the loading screens. X is used to accelerate while L2 and R2 are used as airbrakes to help you with the tight turns. These airbrakes are needed since you’re going at such a high speed that you won’t be able to make turns if you don’t rely on them. A few tracks have sharp turns and U-turns so mastering airbrakes is a must to not lose speed or hit the sides. In events where weapons are allowed, then the Circle button is used to absorb the item pickup to restore health, or Square to use the item.
Tracks have speed pads that boosts your speed when you go over while and on events that allow weapons, there are item pads for pickups. They’re separated into offensive and defensive items, with a different pad for each so you can consciously decide which one you’re prefer. The items are basic and nothing too creative, from missiles and rockets to shields and speed boosts. Events that allow weapons are usually chaotic as your opponents nearly constantly fire weapons at each other.
The best thing about Wipeout is the speed at which you’ll go. This is unparalleled and is what the game series always does best. You’ll crash against the sides early on but once you get the hang of things you’ll be amazed at how much you improve and be able to get perfect laps at higher and higher speeds. There is a driver assist toggle, which if you decide to use it, will automatically divert you away from the sides to prevent hitting them. It's not recommended since you won’t improve this way and also it penalises you as it slows you down anyway, wrestling control away from you.
The campaign is the bulk of the single player content and is separated into 2048, 2049, and 2050 seasons. Each season has the ship going faster than the previous one. In each season, there are a variety of events. There’s the basic race, where you aim to get first. Then there are time trials where you aim to beat the time limit. Races will then allow weapons, split into either getting first place or hit a score target by successfully using weapons. Finally, there are Zone events, which replaces the graphics with a neon minimalistic style. Your vehicle is always accelerating, starting of slow but goes faster and faster until you crash.
Progressing through the campaign is mostly easy, as the requirements are not tough. They’re usually getting into the top few places of a race, or achieving the lower time limit. The Elite Pass though, is another story and will require the best placement which is definitely tough. You gain experience points with the things you do in game, from going at high speed to hitting opponents. As you level up, you’ll unlock new vehicles to use.
So while the game starts off easy, it soon becomes difficult… because of its unfairness. It’s cheap and either uses a significant amount of rubberbanding, so that as soon as you pull ahead to first or second place you immediately get smashed with weapons and drop back down to last. Or your vehicle is significantly outclassed so you’re at a significant disadvantage. It’s frustrating and can be terrible when it’s so bad in certain events. The unfortunate thing is that there are times where you’re able to pull ahead and then pass the event with less effort than previous attempts due to sheer luck.
Weapons also seem to no work on opponents as effectively as they work on you, adding to the unfair feeling of the game. One thing you’ll learn as a player is this is not Mario Kart, so you do no fire off your items as soon as you pick them. You can usually pass most events through focusing on perfecting your racing skills and strategically using your items. This is even more so when the AI can be extremely aggressive, repeatedly knocking into you and firing weapons with precision aiming. It’s very satisfying when you finally win after persevering.
There are ten tracks and as the game is designed for you to keep repeating the tracks in order to learn its turns and speed pad placements, the game will soon end up feeling repetitive. The campaign is short too, taking around three hours to beat the main path but many more hours to pass the optional events and get the top position in them.
Overall, Wipeout 2048 is a great game. The racing is fun and fast (finish the campaign and then go back to the first few events and you’ll be surprised at how good you’ve gotten and how fast you’ve been going). However, there is a steep learning curve that the game does not ease you in, so it can be extremely frustrating. It’s not helped that many events require a dash or pot of luck to get through.
Wipeout HD
Wipeout HD is a remaster of the PS3 version of Wipeout HD, which itself was pulling content from the PSP games Wipeout Pure and Wipeout Pulse. The controls are exactly the same as the other two games in the collection. That is, X to accelerate, L2 and R2 to airbrake for tight corners, Square to use an item and Circle to absorb the item into health. When items are allowed, there will be weapon pads on the tracks, although unlike 2048, there’s only the one type that gives both offensive and defensive weapons.
The campaign is comprised of 87 races split over eight events. At first, only the first event is available. Each race has three targets, with a medal for each: Gold, Silver and Bronze. They’re worth different points each. The aim, in addition to getting gold medals for all the races is to get enough points to unlock the next event. Early on, the next event will have a new track, with its races comprising of a mix of the new and old tracks. Unfortunately, by around the halfway point, you would’ve have raced in all the tracks and you’ll just repeating the same ones again and again until the end.
The races are split into various objectives, with time trials, lap targets, races, tournaments and zone events. Time trials and lap targets are self-explanatory, as you are required to achieve a specific time. Races pit you against eight opponents; tournaments are four or eight races back to back where you gain points based on your position in each race and the one with the highest number of points at the end wins. While zone races has your vehicle constantly accelerating until it’s so fast you are forced to crash. Once your vehicle’s health goes down to zero, the race ends and you’ll have failed the race.
There are only eight tracks in the game, and unfortunately as you can tell, when you couple that with four unique racing styles over 87 races, there’ll be a lot of repetition. This sets in by the time you’re halfway through the campaign and it definitely feels like they’re reusing the same tracks way too much. The good news from this is that you’ll definitely learn the layout of the tracks, with its speed pad placements and turns, which is key to beating the harder races. The earlier events has a slower speed for the vehicles to ease you in, but as each new event unlocks, the speed gets faster and faster.
Thankfully, the game contains difficulty options for all the races, going from Novice to Skilled to Elite. This is great as you can breeze through on Novice, which is mostly quite easy. Once you’re familiar with the controls and have more confidence, then you can go for Skilled. Skilled provides enough challenge without being too difficult, while Elite are for the best players. On Elite difficulty on the later harder races, luck can come into play on whether you can get the gold medal for it or not.
The campaign is short, especially if you play through on the easier difficulty. It takes around four hours to beat all the races with the bare minimum requirements. Play on the harder difficulties and you’ll be spending hours on it. While the races start to all feel similar to each other in the second half of the campaign, zipping through a track you’ve played multiple times at a faster speed does give it a different feel. This is because the timing of when to turn and brake changes significantly. You start to appreciate the track designs and the nuances in the control scheme that allows you to achieve maximum speed boosts, whether from speed pads or barrel rolls.
The last event in the campaign has the highest vehicle speeds and this is also the more significant difficulty spike in the game. In your first race in this event, you’ll constantly crash against the sides or use boost at the wrong time, getting out of bounds and losing your place. Opponents bunch up together and are super aggressive. They’ll constantly block your way or hit you from behind right after you’ve passed them. If you didn’t already think this, then at this point you will wished the game didn’t have weapons as it can be very cheap and unfair at times.
Overall, despite its repetitiveness and high difficulty, Wipeout HD is still a good game. It would have been better if there were at least two more tracks in the campaign to help break up the monotony, or they cut down the number of events so you’re not repeating each track so often. As it is, it can be too repetitive as you’re playing each track too often and too much, made worse with the multiple tournament races where you go through all the tracks back to back. The game has a tough difficulty but this is mitigated with the easier Novice difficulty so that you can still finish the campaign.
Wipeout HD Fury
Wipeout HD Fury is the third and final game in this collection. However, this was originally an expansion for Wipeout HD, so there isn’t as much content as the other two games. It adds four new race tracks available to be played in all modes, and four new zone mode exclusive tracks. These tracks are taken from the PSP game Wipeout Pulse. It also adds three new game modes.
As it is an expansion of Wipeout HD, the controls are exactly the same. X for accelerate, L2 and R2 for airbraking, Square to use an item, and Circle to absorb an item. Apart from the new race tracks, the biggest draw here are the new game modes. The first is Eliminator, which has you racking up points by hitting enemies with weapons. You gain a big chunk of points when you eliminate an enemy, and the first one to the target wins. It gets really hectic in higher difficulties as you’re speeding at such a fast speed along with everyone else, so more than likely you’ll crash into something.
Zone Battle is similar to Zone, except that you are facing against other players. Your vehicle will automatically accelerate but going over speed pads will fill a bar. You can use the bar to either boost up your current zone level, or deploy a temporary shield. The first one to reach the target zone wins, so it isn’t really too much different from a normal race except you get faster and faster as time goes on.
Lastly, Detonator also has you constantly accelerating but your vehicle permanently has the cannon weapon. The aim is to shoot the numerous mines scattered along the track to gain points. You clip only has fifteen shots which will automatically reload upon becoming empty or it can be manually reloaded. Going over speed pads will fill a bar that can be used for the EMP weapon, basically sending a shockwave that breaks all mines in front.
The single player campaign has 80 races to complete, with three difficulties of Novice, Skilled and Elite. Novice is great to fly through the campaign as it’s separated into eight events, where each subsequent event is only unlocked once you have done well enough in most of the previous event’s races. It takes around four hours to complete on the easiest difficulty, and a lot more hours on the hardest difficulty. Just like with Wipeout HD, there’s a significant difficulty spike in the last event since the fast speed makes everything hectic as you have to juggle between managing the enemy placements, your weapons as well as your vehicle along the track.
The campaign has not only the new modes but the original ones too. The three new modes are fun at first although each has their own flaws. Like HD and 2048, you play each track so many times that it becomes extremely repetitive. The Eliminator mode is annoying in that it’s based on a points target, rather than a time limit, so it can drag on and on depending on how luck you get with item pickups and the actions of your opponents. While Detonator has you doing fourteen laps of the tracks, so it can take a while to finish properly.
While this expansion technically has eight new tracks, since four are exclusive for zone races, you’ll end up repeating the other four tracks ad nauseum. It even had the audacity to do a tournament race consisting of eight tracks back to back… by repeating each track twice, further highlighting the overall repetitiveness of the game. The campaign needed much more variety and it’s a missed opportunity how it doesn’t have any of the new modes using the existing tracks from HD. If it had done that, it would have broken the repetitive nature of the game a bit more. With that said, the design of the new tracks are visually amazing, with its use of eye-popping neon colors.
Overall, Wipeout HD Fury has solid gameplay and tracks but just like the rest of the collection, it is hampered by its repetitiveness. The new tracks are nice but are too little, we needed more quantity. The developers really should have put in the extra effort to add in the extra backgrounds to convert the currently zone mode exclusive tracks to be allowed for the other modes as well. The new modes are fun but in single player on higher difficulties, the same frustration and reliance on luck remains.
Overall
Wipeout Omega Collection is a great collection of games. The fast paced racing is unique and one of the best. Bundling all three games together allows a total of 22 normal tracks and 4 additional zone exclusive ones, which helps bulk up the variety of content. This was the perfect opportunity to redesign the single player campaign to take advantage of this higher number of tracks but unfortunately, it retained each game’s individual campaigns which reuses the tracks literally twenty times, becoming a chore to play through. Apart from that, the graphics and music are awesome and it’s definitely fun despite the repetitiveness.
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