I sold my Pulse about a month ago after getting all the golds on easy. Pulse was my first foray into WipeOut and it was an intense learning curve (which I posted about). But at the time I sold it, I was kinda getting tired of Pulse, it just stopped being very fun for me. While I liked Pulse, it wasn't as great a racing game as I had thought it would be based on all the hype.

Fast forward to yesterday, I needed my futuristic racing craving and bought the Playstation store version of Wipeout Pure. And within the first few minutes, I was WOWed. No wonder this version had the higher metacritic score, not only was it revolutionary at the time it came out, I think it did several things much better than its sequel.

Here are what Pure does better than Pulse:

1. Levels: the levels in Pure are so much more beautiful and majestic. There was almost not a single level that I was really impressed with in Pulse, but so far, many of the levels in Pure had me dropping my jaw at the beautiful scenery and the great feel of racing through them. The levels in Pure are much more creative and diverse. Whereas the Pulse levels felt gritty, the Pure levels felt futuristic and innovative.

2. Graphics: Ok, maybe my vision is bad, but I always had tired eyes after playing a session of Pulse. The levels were really dark so it was hard to make out turns in certain areas and I had to play in very dark places. Pure is much brighter overall, and I have no eyestrain playing it. It is a pleasure and this little minor detail makes the experience infinitely more enjoyable.

Now, Pulse does some things better as well:

1. Honeycomb progression - very cool and almost introduces a strategic element

2. menus and structure - obviously they had timp to revamp the system

3. Eliminator - spices up the experience

4. better graphics - not a huge difference, but still an improvement

This is obviously just my opinion as the experience is subjective...but I was genuinely surprised with how much I enjoyed Pure. It was kinda the experience I had hoped to have with Pulse but never quite got.