In a nutshell, not to my liking.
Just purchased the game roughly nine hours ago, didn't unlock a single grid cell, and took it straight online to see what it had. Set a few top three records and crashed my way around the reverse courses.
First, I must say that the presentation is absolutely stunning; graphically it's a work of art, but for me, that's about where it ends. In my opinion, the core Wipeout gameplay has taken a rather large step backward; all the very fine refinements Studio Liverpool made to the control in Pulse have been reverted back to something nearing, perhaps exceeding the float of Pure, except in HD.
Let me put it this way -- I'd accept a cell-shaded HD offering if I were promised the same sensation of speed that spoiled me in Pulse. That sensation simply isn't there in HD. For me, Pulse is the pinnacle of the Wipeout franchise in every way. Pulse is fast, dark and menacing -- my kind of game.
I've seen fast racers. I've been spoiled by the likes of Extreme-G 3, and honestly, when you've seen the kind of velocity that seven year old PS2 game is capable of, you tend not to look back. You tend to want as fast, if not faster. Nothing to date has touched XG3, not even Burnout which through cheap visual trickery and a claim of being the fastest racer ever, could touch it. The only other game I've played that came close is Need For Speed Underground 2.. and that's coming from someone's who's seen nearly 300km/h on a real life motorcycle.
Alas, I digress, but Pulse sets the Wipeout standard for me and compared to it, HD falls well short.
About HD, I don't plan on playing it beyond the all-nighter I just pulled (half the night playing Pulse with INFAXSU, the rest on HD -- haven't slept yet and it's noon now). HD is nice, but dare I say gimmicky.
Going forward, what does that mean for me? Well, Pulse is down to its dying days -- nobody on the servers and wipeout-game.com is caked. Barring nobody being up for a game of Pulse, I'm pretty much a Wipeout spectator for as long as I could pretend to be -- at this point I'd need an excellent reason why I should continue playing HD.
- F