I picked up Fusion yesterday...

[Kscorps]

...for 5 dollars. Anyway I don't know why you guys don't like Fusion very much, it's just done a bit differently than some of the other Wipeouts. One thing I don't like is how the ships handle differantly. This is wipeout not some other racing game!

[eLhabib]

And that's also the major concern most of us have with Fusion.
Personally, I also think that the logo design, ship design, and overall presentation are heavily flawed, but your mileage may vary.

[RJ O'Connell]

You just answered the question in your post.

The handling feels nothing like any other installment. It was done partly in response to novice players who felt the learning curve was too steep. Sadly it just alienated the veterans. Plus, the PAL version was so bug-loaded it was almost unplayable, even in the NTSC game which was delayed because it didn't have a publisher for so long there were still some odd glitches.

However, it introduced some new teams that can co-exist well with the "elite eight" of Wipeout 3 (and have), it had one of the most immersive backstories, and it was a very ambitious game in general. Shame it didn't execute as well, it would have kept the franchise on the PS2 or at least become an instant classic. :/

Oops, seems like someone answered your question before I did XD Hi eL.

[Kscorps]

Well they sure as hell made it accessible, I talked my brother into playing multiplayer today and he owned at it within 5 minutes. On the other hand, I sucked due to my familiarity with Pulse.

[RJ O'Connell]

Yes it is very novice friendly, and with two-player split screen it's a good multiplayer game for any skill level.

[KevInCal]

I never have understood in the slightest the mass dislike for Wipeout Fusion. I think it's a really good Wipeout game with awesome speed, graphics & music. The controls seem a little different from the previous Wipeouts, but nothing that hindered my experience much at all... That said, why isn't Wipeout Fusion in the Records section!?

[rdmx]

Too hard to keep track of - upgrade levels, etc plus the bugs which made you respawn at the finish line kinda prohibit good record making.

[RJ O'Connell]

The only way I know of would be an "all or nothing" approach - either leave the ships at stock (Vector) or 100% upgraded (Phantom) and either way Piranha would own all the top times. (Not that I'm hating on Piranha in any way :g)

Just tried it with the neG today, definitely an improvement. :+

[flashbax]

When u get enuff credits u can unlock all the other pilots just by upgrading the first ship of each team...just something to do when your bored lol..I like fusion TBH the big bulky ships r something diffrent and the sound tracks a cracker:g

[Medusa]

I'd love it if it was called simply "Fusion". I dislike it because it does not fit the title "Wipeout" that it carries. Zone mode good. Game mode fun and easy, but not wipeout. Therefore bad.:g

[RJ O'Connell]

It's definitely as fast as WO3 at Phantom (greyscale prototype) class.

[Kscorps]

Some series have their black sheep, and this was WipEout's black sheep. WipEout 2097 is to WipEout Fusion as Zelda 1 is to Zelda 2. All series have these. :D

[KevInCal]

Hmm, I wonder does the hate of Fusion have something to do with the fact that the PAL version is MUCH more buggy than the NTSC version!? That's what I heard anyway. I've played my US NTSC version of Fusion a LOT and have hardly noticed any bugs etc... The only thing I really notice is at the start of the race when the camera pans over the ships, it's kinda jerky. It doesn't bother me.

[RJ O'Connell]

That would also be a factor.

Now I'm glad it took so long for the game to find a publisher here - SL could work out the bugs, such as the dreaded "starting grid system epic fail" bug where your PS2 melts if you don't skip over the starting grid sequence.*

*It's not quite that bad.

[Lance]

I suspect that the behaviour I've heard of where it seems the racecraft feel like they're on noiseless steel spheres rolling on glass at a constant fixed height above the visible surface might have something to do with it. If it ain't floaty, it ain't WipEout. It's F-Zero instead. I've played a computer sim of the original F-Zero. It was horrible. I hated the feel of it. No float, no low-flying airplane feel. Blech!

[RJ O'Connell]

They still pivot from the rear unlike any game made after Pure. So it's not quite like driving a car without wheels.

[JABBERJAW]

The game itself shows you your race time, but there are no records kept in game of your best times, which is assinine. Also, (possible spoiler you, (stop reading if you don't want the game completely wrecked) It is faster to ride the walls around a corner than to make the corner perfectly, and with only 3 laps, the control does not get bad enough to make is slower. In my tourney, I put the lap count to 5 to make racing correctly a neccesity, but we did not have time to play fusion at the end.

[Sausehuhn]

[...]rolling on glass at a constant fixed height above the visible surface might have something to do with it. If it ain't floaty, it ain't WipEout.[...]
You mean just like in WOPure and WOPulse? Lance, since WO3 there was no WipEout game that brought back the old school feeling. The ships do not turn at the back anymore, the ships do not change height if you press up or down, the ships do not press down their rears at hard turning. That's all gone.
To be honest: Pure and Pulse do - IMO - not differ that much from Fusion as anybody says.

I still don't understand why the ship's turning point is now at the center and not at the back (where the engine is). And the float is all gone as well. It's more like one-time-bumping after a jump, crashing the nose into the track surface once to gain the standard height again.
Pure and Pulse do not have the track-lock (except for Magstrips, that is) so the ship can do jumps. But that alone does not make it feel floaty.

WOHD vids looked more floaty. And I hope the game really is.

[Lance]

I never said that I think that Pure and Pulse are WipEout. :g



.... Better than Fusion? Okay. :) ....

[Sausehuhn]

Hah! I know you didn't ;)
Anyway, here's a graphic which is self-explanatory (http://cybershot.cy.funpic.de/kram/sonstige_bilder/WipEoutZone/stuff/wipeoutshipbehavior.png).

[RJ O'Connell]

As least with Fusion you don't get the horrendous bouncing upon landing off a steep drop. And the ships turn from the rear. And there's neGcon compatibility with the NTSC version. And Piranha is nimble instead of tank-like.

I'm content to say Pure is further detached from the PS1 trilogy than Fusion is. Still a great game though, but nothing near as close to WO3 as anyone thinks.

+1 for Maxmillian. :+ WE NEED MORE OF THAT RED GRAPH!

[Sausehuhn]

After playing a bit of Pulse again I just noticed how unnatural the turning point in the center of the ship feels. And how often it slams me into the wall.
I barely use any airbrakes because they make your ship turn like 70° if you just tapped it once.
Pure wasn't that bad, nonetheless even Fusion's steering feels more natural than Pure's and Pulse's (the steering, not the behavior in general).

And well... after what I've seen of WOHD, the turning point is still at the ship's center.

[JABBERJAW]

"but nothing near as close to WO3 as anyone thinks."

Who said pure is like wipeout 3?

[Sausehuhn]

No-one. But I have the feeling that a lot of people see Pure as a return to a handling that is more towards the old games (WO1 - WO3).
I just wanted to make clear that WOPure and WOPulse do - at least to me - not really feel like anything that's close to the old games.

[eLhabib]

I see Pure as the return to decent gameplay, and also the return to visual style.

[JABBERJAW]

"decent gameplay" abosolutely, but the game had great gameplay for the first 4 games. Take the great gameplay from the first 4 games, and add the records/extras from the new games, and you have a revolutionary game.

ONe the graph, there is something missing though, the first 4 games, you could land in a wide variety of areas, in fusion and pure, it was predestined, and in pulse, you can adjust your landing quite a bit, not as much as the first 4, but good nonetheless.

[DJ Techno]

Fusion

is the game for the person who just comes into the new revolution of where Wipeout wanted to go.

I say that, cause when i had friends first play the game. they never or haven't been up to date with racing like i or any other person here has been.

Instead of taking a while to get use to playing the controls and speed of any of the craft. And I'm saying a week or longer. Instead two-three hours! And the occasional day. For the person that is just Dinzzy.
They felt more comfortable and less dragged. To think, they can't stay off the walls much. Trying to keep a handle for the speed right was very noticable for me, from watching them play. Hell, I will still go thru out my way to get up front. Knocking or Pushing you out of the way, slam you into other things, and all the other ways of reaching the first place spot without pulling real skill and handling. Then using a weapon.

Oh...And Pure is some what like Wipeout 3....
If matching my use of the joystick on the playstation controller with a psp controller on the two games...
Then the two versions are like brother/sister.

[JABBERJAW]

Mike I call the similarities between pure and wo3 like Halle Berry vs Rosie Odonell or if you prefer Brad Pitt vs danny devito :)

[RJ O'Connell]

ONe the graph, there is something missing though, the first 4 games, you could land in a wide variety of areas, in fusion and pure, it was predestined, and in pulse, you can adjust your landing quite a bit, not as much as the first 4, but good nonetheless.
And that's because Pulse has more "float" than Pure or Fusion.

Martin: On visual style - I agree with the team logotypes and ship designs, but Fusion wins hands-down in track design and atmosphere.

[Lance]

Mike I call the similarities between pure and wo3 like Halle Berry vs Rosie Odonell or if you prefer Brad Pitt vs danny devito :)

}Brad Pitt shirtless in 'Thelma and Louise' versus Danny Devito as 'The Penguin' in 'Batman Returns'.{

Nah, Pure is way better than Fusion, which really iS more like The Penguin [Oswald Cobblepot]. [possibly I exaggerate]

[eLhabib]

LOL!
@RJ: Atmosphere might go to Fusion, but not track design. Fusion's tracks are highways for the most part. :P

[Linchpin]

Fusion had great track design in my opinion .

As much as I agree with everyone on these forums that the overall quality of the game from art direction to physics in the game were nowhere near as good as other wipeouts , not to mention the amount of bugs .
It wasn't a bad game at all , I played it for many hours , and enjoyed it .

I feel like , it's become a sort of 'cool' thing to do on these forums , to rip off fusion . Well many of you blow things way out of proportion .

The game may have stepped out of line with the original direction wipeout took , but definitely bounced back with pure .
It indeed catered to a more noobified audience , maybe they were going for a wider appeal .

But hey many long running title franchises have had their odd title that steps out of line , that the hardcore fans will never like .
As long as we know for sure many of the mistakes in fusion will never happen again ;)

[DJ Techno]

Mike I call the similarities between pure and wo3 like Halle Berry vs Rosie Odonell or if you prefer Brad Pitt vs danny devito :)



yeah... but you got to say... rosie and danny know how to crack jokes then halle and brad.

plus...
in fusion and pure... your more feelling like your vehicle is like attached, trully to the track.

like the way all race drivers from nascar to formula one. get their tires to that good/great road/race feel.
So when the time is right. To stick somebody from behind. BAM!!!!

[Medusa]

BTW you can use a negcon in the PAL version of Fusion, which I have. I can only use it zone mode though because the available button setups are crap which my hands can't adjust to. Oh well.

I think Fusion feels very much like Pulse in the gameplay style, and it's likely just as buggy too.

Just imagine if there was no Fusion or Pure, and we got Pulse directly after W3O! There would be riots, nay, there would be mayhem!!! All things considered, if Fusion hadn't happened, we wouldn't be content with the PSP games, would we?

[JABBERJAW]

very good point!!

[Sausehuhn]

Acclaim!

What I find confusing and disturbing in Pure and Pulse is also the fact that you can ride on the walls.
The ships gain height so easily (then - why the hell - are there steep turns lower at the edge than in the center?! That's totally insane!) and you're so damn fast riding the walls, crashing back on the track, gaining height again while some other ship is coming from behind, smashing into your craft causing deadstop (which is, of course, followed by another weapon hit) or another uncontrollable nose-up-and-down effect.
This, combined with a non-consitent framerate, is so damn annoying. Especially because you're losing so much speed in Pure and Pulse every time your nose pulls up (and the ship does that alot if you're not pressing "down" all the time).

Nothing bad about floatiness and not being stucked to the grond, but where's the fun if the result is non-stop crashing? Seriously, those crashing sound effects in Pulse are almost permanentely existent! And if they're not caused by crashing into walls, then it's because you're slamming into other ships or hitting the track surface.
And then the camera is just swinging around from curve to curve.

[Lance]

Max, was there a point about Fusion in there somewhere? ;)

[Sausehuhn]

Let's say it that way: There was no point against it ;)

[love9sick]

I cannot like fusion, I didn't like the fact that all of a sudden after doing way to many loops I find myself passing some tree in a jungle while trying to control the ship with horrid below average sci-fi racer controls. The feeling of Wipeout was gone, I might as well be playing Fatal Inertia EX or some other below average sci-fi racer which is bad. To many teams and the sound track was formed of old tracks everyone has heard like BT, come on...more original please.

Being the fan of Wipeout that I always was after playing fusion it was like a bad taste was left in my mouth and the new Wipeout games helped to clear it up a bit...but I think the bad taste is still left over..feels like a disappointment..like even Wipeout series have THAT ONE bad sequel now. :[

[darkfaerytales]

some days ago i was in a game store into a shopping centre and i've found 2 coppies of fusion second-handed both at very low price... i did not know what to do, i had think upon a bit, then i had leave the store.
sincerely i'm struggled with fusion,i don't know exatly, maybe would be cool give it a try, but i don't like the fact that the game isn't wipeout anymore,the ships the feel the handling all gone
maybe if my approach with the game is thinking it like some other sci-fi racer as someone else as pointed some post ago...

in the end that game has introduced van-uber :g;)
one major good point hehehehe

[RJ O'Connell]

Except Van-Uber was the worst ship in Fusion. Yeah, it has amazing thrust - which is great in any game made afterwards - but it's weakened by tissue shields, plus it has really mediocre handling and a lower top speed than FEISAR.

Then the Gamma Pack comes around and Van-Uber is a high-tier machine...

[darkfaerytales]

yes, indeed you're right , i cannot explain myself but that ship has something that attract me, still grow on me more and more since time to time, so weird , funny lookin, very unusual but not totally crap like others in fusion...and then in pure as you say, and i've heard it from everyone is an ultimate performance machine and kudos to the design updated for a "real wipeout game " but at the same time retaining some of the basic distinquishing elements who define van uber weirdness

actually Van uber and Eg-r ( another good design among tons of crap who i think own the right potential to be reused and revised for a "real wipeout" ) should be the two and only reason i could get a fusion copy