progress report

[science]

for those of you NTSCers out there who have had the game for less than 48 hours as of now, how far along have you come?

so far, i think im at about 40% with close to 11 hours of gameplay according to the statistics, although i the time that the game keeps must only count race time, cause ive played an embarassingly larger amount than 11 hours so far. i actually had to force my self to stop playing today since keeping a negcon button depressed for half a day straight seems to have pinched a nerve and i literally cannot feel the tip of my thumb anymore. all i could play was zone mode and my ears started bleeding...

[BenjaminBirdie]

:o

Let's see. Since I've been running through as many pilots as possible, it's been like this:

I started with Feisar Baldie (I can't remember their names so bear with me) and raced him through Hyperion League and approximately three full upgrade cycles. Then I realized I'd better start building up the other teams, as is my completist nature. So now I've got everyone up to the lead g tech pilot (Secondary Feisar, Van, GTech, Auricom, EGR/Lead Feisar, Van and GTech) cleared through Chronos and Rhea. It's becoming a longer and longer process just to get everyone up to speed because to get most people through Rhea I've had to build them up to their second upgrade cycle which unlocks the lead pilot, which means I've got to start the whole process all over again. Not that I mind. There actually is a palpable difference between every pilot this time around.

God knows how I'm going to get Van Uber through the later leagues. Both their shields are maxed out at like sixty. Should be fun. :(

I also started on the challenges, which are really quite difficult. I'm thinking of taking fox's advice and holding off on them, as I don't want to deal with those super weapons in the leagues.

This morning before work I breezed through some arcade races and got clobbered. But it was nice running though individual track races. Felt like the old days.

Anyhow, more and more am I feelin' this game.

The only thing I hate are those ugly medals. Next time they need to do the menus wip3out style. Slick and clean.

And does anyone else want them to go back to that original idea: every track in wipeout history tweaked for ps2? ah, to dream.

:-?
Benjamin.

[BenjaminBirdie]

Did I say Rhea? I meant Oceanus. I'm not that bad.

:oops:
Benjamin.

[Sven]

I've had it for less than 24 hours. I've got 11% game and 35% secrets after about 4 hours of playing.

[science]

some of the challenges are really challenging, some of them are a piece of cake. the timetrial challenges are too easy, and the elimination challenges are way too hard. those bastards just do not die. dont even bother going after an auricom ship.

i am loving this game, but im not too keen on the actual physics of the ships. it feels like you have less control over what your doing, almost like they tweaked them towards an XG3 feel (ducks!). you cant seem to throw yourself into a turn with airbrakes like you used to be able to and the overall response to turning feels more limited than previous games of the series.
the electric fences.... if i run into one more ****ing electric fence thinking that its the path of the track, im going to scream. thats my biggest gripe of the game. bigger than being thrown into outerspace when i hit the gravity flip pads. i hate the electric fences.

overall, this game is a great game, but its not the pure racing game that the previous titles were. its great fun and its absolutely gorgeous to look at, but it lacks something that xl/2097 and wo3 had right on the money. as of yet, i cant seem to find the groove on any of the tracks to get around them flawlessly, or even semi-flawlessly, but that may just take more time.

welp... what should have been a sentence or two has turned into yet another critique of the game, although i dont have anything else to do with my time since i still cant play the game due to my still numb thumb.:)

[Lance]

.
joel, my thumb got flat out painful after playing 2 hours of wo3 last night, much of it on stanza inter; is there any track in Fusion that's as technically challenging as Stanza?
.

[infoxicated]

Vohl Square 1 & 2 are pretty tight and twisty... and Alca Vexus has its moments too.

Oh, and Temtesh Bay - one of the variations of that is so screwed up that I wont play it! :)

[rhys]

in not in ntsc, but my progress is something like 10%


why???


cos the game lost all my save data........ :cry:


i really cant be that bothered 2 start again now.

[science]

i couldnt really say for sure Lance. im still trying to get used to the way the crafts behave. it sounds horrible, but they really do behave like a WO/XG hybrid. all of the ships really want to go in a straight line. turning is not only sluggish, but it feels like you simply cant turn hard enough. at best, a hard turn feels about like an AG-Systems ship (from 3) at 50-70% turn. anyone else feel like that?
the hardest turning craft in the game is the one that's exclusive to zone mode, but by the time it starts to handle ok youve topped out your speed and your scared for your life.

[Lance]

.
joel, would it be fair to say that at best the Fusion ships have the maneuverabliltiy of an Icaras, and at worst are worse than Qirex or Go-teki?
.

[Hydra XL]

An Icaras?! correct me if i'm wrong but didn't Icaras handle horribly (and goteki handle well)?! But to reply to your suspicions, no, the control is not that far off. but yea, the physics are watered down and cheaper in this game, than previously (XL & 3). It's a shame as this was my favorite part of the wipeout series probably. Not only is the steering sketchy, but the "floaty" feel is no longer in the game and the craft might as well be on wheels (slippery wheels in regards to the airbraking). I think the excuse of the tracks being too wild for the craft to have thrust\pitch up and down is a cop-out. I don't really see why, even with loops and such, the ability to climb a bit would have to be thrown out the window. Instead of tweaking a decent foundation set by XL & 3, Studio Liverpool decided to scrap the entire feel of wipeout, which previously added so much to its gameplay. This is what really denigrates this game. That, the cheesy characters, the bland frontend (that loading screen is LAME) and some of the dumb ship designs hold back fusion from being a substantial addition to the wipeout series. I do congratulate Studio Liverpool on track design tho', additionally, the game runs silky smooth most of the time. And the music, while not as aggressively addicting as in XL & 3, is starting to grow on me and actually pretty bitchin'.

[Sven]

As I recall, Wipeout (1) had 'cheesy characters' too...

[Hydra XL]

not exactly. it's really all opinion but WipeOut's characters were drawn and had a dark, stylish look, plus they were all an artist's renditions once on paper. The intrusive "headshot" polygon rendering of the character's in WipeOut Fusion is a little more over the top, and while the two different pilots' ships and styles differ more than those in WipeOut, it still is kind of extraneous to throw that huge polygonal face while choosing your ship. Basically i think Fusion's characters are cheesy because I really feel annoyed when i choose a ship and an ugly bald headed, caricature-like character is taking up a rather large portion of the screen. Plus reading the character profiles in the manual, you see how rather unnecessary and how it detracts from the games overall feel/presentation.

[Lance]

.
i don't think Icaras' handling is really that bad, but i'm probably just too used to it. Go-teki is a clunker. the last couple of days, i went back and started driving the courses with every ship. Go-teki felt like a Qirex without the speed.

just to start a controversy, i would rate the ships agility, which i define as the ability to change direction quickly, in the following order:

pirhana
assegai
auricom
feisar
ag-s
icaras
go-teki
qirex

i suspect that qirex is really a little better than go-teki, but the high speed makes it seem worse. positions 3,4, and 5 are very close to each other.
.

[Hydra XL]

oops, got assegai confused w/ go-teki

[science]

its not even that they handle like icarus. icarus would be fine with me too, as long as they didnt all handle that way;) but the big problem here is, they just dont really handle like wipeout crafts are supposed to. it does kinda feel like you are on wheels in a way. its almost like the crafts have no inertia in a turn, so to make up for that they fattened up the turning radius for the ships of the game. if you ever get the chance, play XG3 and try to imagine some middle ground between that and WO3 as far as handling characteristics go.
even the airbrakes resemble XG3. you can use them to slide around a corner a little bit, but as soon as you let off, thats the exact spot that you stop feeling the effects (if that makes any sense...) no inertia. way too stiff feeling.
like ive said a couple of times before: its a good game and its fun to play, but as soon as i get to 100% WO3 will probably see more play than fusion will. i dont think ill be shooting for any record times :D

[Sven]

not until we have record tables at least...
I wish pitching actually did something too...

[Wiseman]

Well, i just got the game yesterday, and I have about 30% of it done, with about 4 and a half hours logged.

Anyway, I have to agree with a lot of things that were alrady said here.

I know I'm not even going to worry about getting good times until/if/when there are times tables for WF here.


I think I'm going to have to agree with most of what science said on the handling characteristics. It really doesn't ever seem like you can turn too hard, and the ships feel overly ermm, stiff. They don't flow around corners like in the other Wipeouts.

I've noticed this on the EG-r ship moreso than the others (that I have unlocked, that is).



Oh, and Temtesh Bay - one of the variations of that is so screwed up that I wont play it!That would probably be the middle (2nd) section.... if it is, then I agree with you. I absolutely can not stand the mines section. There's just too much of it in one spot, I think, they should have cut it in half and put it on 2 different sections of the track, that would have made the track feel more "balanced".

As is, it feels like a painting with a bunch of items on one side, with the other side almost barren.

[Sparta(Assegai)]

i agree with both temtesh bay 2 and 3 being so lame i dont like to play them... the 2nd on i think, with the mulitple short jumps.. trying that with pirhana at 100% and im flying off the track a bunch of times.. and the 3rd one, wht the underground section where there are 2 tracks that twist over each other with those stupid doors that open and close.. argh.. those doors are so stupid.. just so you cant see in front of you!

[Sven]

you got them backwards :wink:
2 is the mines track, and 3 is the one with all the jumps.

[Aurex Vorshade]

I dunno, in some ways I like the new control, in other ways I don't.

I think they should have utilized the PS2 controller's pressure-sensitive buttons for the airbrakes so that a normal tap would give you the current Fusion airbrake while a hard press would twist you around like a WOXL airbrake.

I enjoy Fusion's airbrakes as they are for the softer turns and even for the straights. I find myself doing about 30% of my steering with just the airbrakes instead of the D-pad. They make counter-steering out of turns a lot easier and more fun as well. But for the tight 90+ degree corners the Fusion controls don't even compare to WOXL. Every time I find myself sliding into the outside of those couple turns in Katmoda 12 I think about how I could have whipped past them in WOXL.