It’s rare that downloadable content adds more than the original batch of content but that’s exactly what Studio Liverpool have done with Wipeout HD. The original was an incredibly intense spectacle of futuristic racing and full-on visuals. To be honest Wipeout HD was a brilliant salute to the series so far and they really didn’t need to build upon it. But after five minutes with Fury, you’ll be glad they did.
Despite all the extra music tracks, courses and ship liveries, that are all stellar, the beef of Wipeout Fury is within the three brand new modes for the series. The first is Eliminator, this is essentially Road Rage (Burnout) but for Wipeout. Every bit of damage you do is added up and you’ll race endless lap after endless lap until someone reaches the target. You’ll easily spend the most time with Eliminator but that’s probably because these games take an age to finish. Luckily the variation in weapons and ability to switch your ships direction provide lasting depth. Matches will become incredibly epic and tense towards the final stages especially when engaging in some local spiltscreen multiplayer.
The second is Detonator. Visually similar to Zone, Detonator lets you endlessly fly around the track shooting various mines and bombs that are scattered across the stage. You’ll gradually speed up from lap to lap as more targets litter the track resulting in an ever increasingly challenging mode. The initially lacklustre feel will soon become deceptively challenging when the mode becomes the incredibly frantic shooter that all shooters should have evolved into.
The final mode is Zone Battle, a multiplayer spin-off of the original Zone mode with seven other racers on the track. Along the way you’ll pick up energy from the various pads on the track which you can then convert to either health or to a slight boost in your zone speed. Slightly complicated for people to just jump in but that’s kind of the feel for the whole expansion when compared to the original set of modes.
Rather than just survival (Zone) or finishing first (Single Race) you have an overwhelmingly long list of rules to observe before jumping into the action. I guess you can’t really criticise the developers too much as they already had the simpler modes covered and Fury isn’t meant for new players to jump into. It’s kind of hard to see where they will take the franchise from here but if they keep conjuring these unique and innovative modes, I’m game.
Wipeout HD has turned me into an avid fan with it’s striking visuals, frantically fast pace and constant evolution but Fury is a great example of a racer punching above it’s weight. While for most racers these modes wouldn’t make sense, Wipeout is unique enough to pull them all off. If you loved the original but are looking for a bit more depth Wipeout HD Fury will surprise you with it’s new direction and is definitely worth picking up.
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