I have to say I'm becoming more and more fed up with 2048, particularly by the physics. In short: If 2048 paves the way for future WipEouts, the series is going to take a sharp turn into the wrong direction. In my opinion anyway – which of course includes anything I say and write anyway.
There are important things wrong with the way 2048 simulates craft handling and the interaction of craft and track.
First is the way ships are being glued to the track. Yes, glued. Ever noticed how you don't get as much air in Zone, especially at Altima? Why, you do get air – the game's not making the entire track a Mag-Strip in Zone. What it does is it adds a lot more weight to the ship (without any effect on any of the other physics-values). Fine, so Zone is some kind of simulation... I don't mind silly game stories to justify certain features. However I do mind recognizing the same awkward “heavyness” to the ship after each and every jump. It just doesn't feel right to me. The heavy weight doesn't add up with the acceleration and agility of the craft – which gives 2048 a random “arcadeness”. It sacrifices the believability I used to associate with a WipEout game.
Speaking of which, here's another: The instant reaction to sideshifting inputs is ridiculous. It only enhances the previous point. Both aspects combined make controls so instant, so tight... you'll hardly ever go off track, the ship will always react to you inputs, it accelerates quickly after a mistake. Yes, you can make mistakes, but you're always in instant control. I'm sorry, but to hell that. That seems to be the kind of bullshit casual gamers need so they don't wonder “why the craft don't react like my usual car racing game doooooes”. Why, because that's WipEout for you!
Or at least, it was.
There's some other quirks I find disturbing – like the way your ship is being artificially placed in relation to the gradient of the track at the long downhill section of Sol (is “gradient” the correct English word?): Don't fall back to the track in time and your ship will... not level out, fall down nose ahead or do anything that's scientifically believable. Instead it will keep it's relative position to the horizontal axis. You can clearly see there's no physics at work. Instead, you're being “held in space” by some artificial mechanism, which again takes away some level of believability.
Same Sol, same downhill section... the point where you stop from drifting towards the outside of the turn and instead are suddenly being glued to the track. Those sudden switches between the “real” track and Mag-Strips or similar artificial mechanisms start making me sick. I don't want to figure out at where I need to turn in order to stay in the middle of the track and where I can let go of the D-Pad in order to achieve the same goal. I want believable physics, not “we'll make it easy for you”. In terms of physics 2048 feels like a dumbed down WipEout simulator to me. I have no desire whatsoever of perfecting my records with that sort of game (and I didn't even start on barrel rolls yet ). Video game physics don't need to be real, but they do need to be coherent in themselves.
I just want to fly again.