Wipeout Omega Collection

Hover mouse over screenshots for commentary.

December 2017

Zooming down a racetrack.	The environments in Wipeout 2048 were a bit more detailed than in previous games.	Before the race starts.
	A zone event. A+ speed is faster than you race at in the normal campaign.	A screenshot of a stats screen after a race - a zone event, in this case.
		I grew a fondness for this particular brand of ships. It's fast and has good handling.
There's a photo mode in the game that I rarely got to because racing takes every ounce of my attention.
	"Zen" speed is faster than is normally encountered in the regular campaign.
	In this mode you go faster and faster, but have to shoot mines that litter the track. If you don't clear them out then racing gets increasingly difficult.
		In this event you try to reach high speeds faster than your competitors by going over boost pads.
	Subsonic speed. It's crazy fast.

My best attempt at a zone event. Notice how much faster I'm going toward the end of the video compared to the start of the video.

I don't play a lot of racing games, but I've played quite a few in my lifetime. With that qualification, I feel comfortable saying that the Wipeout Omega Collection is probably one of the best racing games ever made. I don't think it's just a preference thing - it really is an expertly crafted game from practically every angle.

The driving mechanics are not realistic in the slightest so it's best characterized as an arcade racer (as opposed to a driving simulator). It has weapons and boosts you can pick up and use, just like in Mario Kart. However, unlike Mario Kart it heavily rewards people who know how to race. Playing the game is the only real way to get better at it - no DLC will save you or give you an advantage.

The Omega Collection consists of Wipeout HD, Wipeout HD Fury, and Wipeout 2048 (the three most recent Wipeout games). Wipeout HD and 2048 were full games in their own right, and Fury has enough new content that it provides many hours of gameplay even for the casual player.

It's kind of hard to describe why Wipeout is so good. I think part of the reason is that everything just comes together perfectly - the tracks, the vehicles, the music, and even the menus all just feel right together. It's futuristic, high-speed racing with an impeccable presentation.

One thing that sets Wipeout apart is that the main obstacle in the game is driving well. Your ship has a health bar and if you take too much damage then you're out of the race. You lose health by getting hit by weapons and by smashing into the walls, so if you can't race properly then you might not even be able to finish. It's harsh but it's a really great motivator to help you learn how to race.

The tracks are extremely well-designed; I say this as a person who wouldn't normally notice such things in a racing game, but they're just so good that I couldn't help but notice. It will take a minute to explain what I mean. There are a few different speeds you can race at, ranging from fairly slow to over 1,000 kilometers an hour. Can you imagine going on the Royal Raceway at, say, 2,400 CCs? It just wouldn't work. In fact, I recently played Mario Kart 8 and one of my main complaints is that some of the tracks simply aren't made to work at higher speeds. But the Wipeout tracks are designed with all speeds in mind, and the tracks play very differently depending on how fast you're going. At slow speeds you make turns simply by turning into them (duh), but at 1,000 kph your ship just can't turn fast enough. So what do you do? You have to master using the air brakes. If you hold the left or right trigger then your ship will take a sharp turn to that side. At slow speeds air braking makes the ship unwieldy and it turns too fast into the walls, but at higher speeds they enable you to zoom around twists and turns. At the highest speeds the air brakes become your main method of steering. It really is amazing that they could design so many tracks that work perfectly across such a wide range of speeds.

There are a lot of different game modes and the campaigns will expose you to everything (except multiplayer - that's it's own thing). Racing modes include traditional races with and without weapons, time trials, best laps, battle races where you try to deal the most damage, "zone" events where you just go faster and faster around the track and try to survive as long as possible, and more. The variety keeps things from getting stale, but you can also focus on getting the elusive gold medals on elite difficulty - only the best racers can even hope to get one of them, let alone all of them.

The music to the game is very fitting for the setting. I've attached a few videos from a playlist I created so you can hear some of the tunes. The videos feature me playing the Zone events, which is where your ship just moves faster and faster. As you can see, the way you race has to change if you're going to succeed at the higher speeds.

I don't really know what else to say about Wipeout other than it really is a great racing series and this game offers the best of the best.

The Therapist Gamer

Zooming down a racetrack.

The environments in Wipeout 2048 were a bit more detailed than in previous games.

Before the race starts.

A zone event. A+ speed is faster than you race at in the normal campaign.

A screenshot of a stats screen after a race - a zone event, in this case.

I grew a fondness for this particular brand of ships. It's fast and has good handling.

There's a photo mode in the game that I rarely got to because racing takes every ounce of my attention.

"Zen" speed is faster than is normally encountered in the regular campaign.

In this mode you go faster and faster, but have to shoot mines that litter the track. If you don't clear them out then racing gets increasingly difficult.

In this event you try to reach high speeds faster than your competitors by going over boost pads.

Subsonic speed. It's crazy fast.

Wipeout Omega Collection