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Wipeout HD Looks This Good. How Can I Be So Sure? Because I Took The Screenshot.

Wipeout HD is a rare game that has a stupid learning curve. There will be some of you out there who will just get it from the start. I was lucky to be one of those - I played a level, I got a gold medal, I come in the top 3 on 60% of the races I play online. I’m not being big-headed I’m just trying to explain that some of you will find it easy and the rest of you will crash, crash, crash. Seriously though - you’ll get better.

Wipeout (if you don’t know) is a futuristic racing game which could be described as the “love-child” of F-Zero and Mario Kart. It’s got futuristic ships, it’s got tight corners and it’s got lots of weapons.

I first experienced Wipeout on the PSP’s launch day a few years ago. Never having played the original Playstation versions I found it rock-solid from the get-go but I quickly learned racing is more about hitting speed-pads than it is about taking down your opponents. Once you get over that hurdle you’ll be an awesome Wipeout player.

Wipeout HD is a collection of tracks and ships from the PSP games (nothing new here I’m afraid) upscaled into 1080p. Don’t take this in a negative way because the game honestly looks outstanding. At the time of writing there are some freezing issues but presumably nothing that won’t get fixed ASAP. In fact when you overlook that, you realise Wipeout HD is probably one of the best looking games you’ve played on your PS3 so far. Sure other games like GTA4 and MGS4 all had great surface graphics but when you delved deeper you’d always find jaggies or problems with textures. Wipeout has no such problem, given that everything has a perfect amount of sheen. The world you race through is a phenomonal Brave New World universe. Coloured brightly it’s cutting edge-sci-fi.

Aswell as the graphics being outstanding, the sound is also handled in an extremely admirable way, with custom soundtracks not only supported but also being manipulated by the game. When in the tunnel your tracks will be lavished with reverb and then phased and flanged as you hit a jump. It’s quite satisfying.

Wipeout HD provides 3 main modes: campaign which has you earning gold medals by completing challenges; race box which has you competing against yourself and leaderboards to set a world record; and finally online play. The campaign and racebox modes are split into single race, tournament, speed lap, time trial and zone sections. All are pretty self-explantory apart from the Zones mode which pits you your ship with an ever increasing speed and only the ability to steer. The faster you get the harder it gets obviously and succeeding is all about seeing how far you can survive without crashing.

The campaign is large enough but with only 8 or so tracks on offer, it does suffer from repetition later on. Having said that, with trophies on offer and some clever AI the game will keep you hooked and there is always the prospect of DLC.

Which is where Wipeout HD comes into it’s own. It costs a mere £11.99 for the initial package and it’s easy to say that the game could be worth double that. If Studio Liverpool continue to enhance this PSN download with a constant supply of fresh tracks and gameplay modes I see no reason why this can’t be a constant time-consumer in many peoples PSN collection.

9/10.

Did Someone Say Lighting Effects?

Did any of you play Fahrenheit(/Indigo Prophecy)? Literally a masterpiece of technical art and storytelling, Fahrenheit attempted to tell a story in a way that no game has ever done before. And succeeded on the most part. I wish I hadn’t been so careless in my placement of all my reviews for now defunct website GamesMainFrame but I’m sure I gave the game a score close to both 8 and 10. It’s actually one of the few games I’ve played that ever got inside my head — a psychological thriller to say the least.

Why all this bigging up of Fahrenheit then? Well because same developer Quantic Dream are set to unveil they’re latest game today Heavy Rain. It’s already unbelievably hyped due to a demo that was made for E3 2006 to show off the power of the Playstation 3. “The Casting” as it was known was a 3D demo prototype showing character emotion and interaction. It’s something that’s been impossible in video games until this breed of consoles and games like Uncharted and Metal Gear Solid 4 have been the first ones to really showcase it.

While we’re told The Casting has absolutely nothing to do with the game as a tech-demo it’s visually very impressive; mainly in terms of the way the protagonists body flows. What you’re looking for in that demo is not the subtle problems with the lip syncing and her weird looking teeth but the way in which her eyes and whole body show emotion. Now imagine that same tech-demo polished and put into the context of an amazing story. Then you’re somewhere in the region of what I’m expecting from Heavy Rain.

Heavy Rain on Playstation 3 Is Undoubtedly Going To Look Gorgeous

It’s interesting that with all this hype we still remain totally in the dark about this game until 4PM (UK time) this afternoon but what we do know is that it’s going to be another “dark noir thriller” (similar to Fahrenheit; although it won’t be a sequel) and also that there won’t be free-roaming areas a la GTA but there will be a lot of life-like environments with living, breathing people.

Heavy Rain is floundering somewhere near the edge of my top 10 Most Wanted games but if it so much as matches the psychological intensity of Fahrenheit no doubt it will shoot to the very top.

Here’s an interview with director David Cage:

Excited yet? I am.

How Far Are You Prepared To Go To Save Someone You Love?

Oh my!

Did I Mention That Bionic Commando Rearmed Totally Kicks Ass?

Thank goodness for Sony making it easy to access the American Playstation Store otherwise I might be tempted to go and buy and XBOX 360 and Live subscription right now to get a blummin’ copy of Bionic Commando Rearmed.

Anyway, I downloaded the Bionic Commando demo this morning (best I could do folks!) and thought I’d share with you my thoughts and opinions on the game. The word “awesome” springs to mind.

Essentially for those of you who never played Bionic Commando on the NES (educate yourselves) it’s basically a 2D shooter where the main dude has a grappling arm. It’s a simple concept but it’s fucking awesome. The lead dude can’t even jump (which is a bit frustrating actually) so that leaves all the puzzling down to timing and skill as you get your dude to swing through the levels. It’s satisfying once you master the controls.

I had a few issues with the PS3 controller not always registering that I’m putting diagonally causing a few unneccessary deaths but on the whole it works.

There are also some extra missions thrown in on the main game (which I dunno if I mentioned is a HD remake of the original game with some tweaks thrown in for freshness) including a sweet ass VR Missions section that totally adds a good few hours onto the game. Basically these are like training missions causing you to swing and slide all over a stage in a time limit. You are then rated on your performance.

That’s all I can really say about Bionic Commando Rearmed because I haven’t actually got a copy of the game to have played enough to tell you more. Thus, my question to you is - as a Brit who has an account that can access the US store — what kind of credit card would I need to be able to buy said game from said store and is it feasible?