With everything going on, I decided 'screw it!' in regards to waiting to buy a PS3 of my own, and just opened my PSN account and purchased HD/fury.

So far, I've gotta say, I'm impressed with what is present so far, and what I need to unlock in time. I had played first the stand alone HD while downloading the Fury add on, and I can see some rationale in having to unlock some of the grids to get the raining 4 teams, though if my current avatar isn't a hint enough, I'm a bit of an Auricom fan.

None the less, unlocked Auricom and it's one of my top ships to pilot (it and the Fury variant). I'm in general trying to get a good handle on every ship, but my favorites of either the standard or Fury varaints include Auricom, Assegai, Harimau, Qirex, Triakis, and Icaras.

Though one craft I want to master but I'm predictablty finding to be a...handful to pilot is team Piranha, be it the standard or Fury craft, but a goal of mine is to master such a craft, but it will be a while.

...there's a lot I want to say but I may have to save that for a review/analysis but here's what I can say so far.

Control wise, it's very responsive and nuanced, which makes it a mixed blessing. On one end, you can adjust things to a good degree but on another, you have to be careful and constantly on edge.

However having had a chance to also play the Original Wipeout (also downloaded), as well as 2097/xl and Wipeout 3/wip3out (...it would be even better of Sony would allow sale of both games in the US via psn but oh well), that seems to be a constant...being in control of what amounts to controlling craft that are in some principle aircraft more than cars.

It's a strong and weak point all at once and I'm not going to lie, I'm more comfortable at venom and flash speeds, as I'm still coming to full grips with rapier and until I master rapier speeds on every track (including Ubermall, chengu project and so forth), with craft that either handle like a dream (ag systems, harimau, assegai, etc) or have moderate to very good handling (Goteki 45, Qirex, Auricom) or are tanks, be it by design (Piranha, and Trakis) or seemingly on purpose (EGX for such a craft with it's shielding)...before I start to do a full on tackle on Phantom.

Then there's the AI...i've decided to bite a bullet and play as many races as I can on elite AI...it's going to be a LONG time before I can even try to employ a piloting style not unlike Wolfgang Van Uber...we'll see.

That said, my PSN is Rossriders_86, though when I can come on is sporatic at best...we'll see.

Till then, see you all later.