Why is Wipeout Fusion hated

[shotfan]

This thread is a bit old, but I hope nobody will take offence if I include my thoughts on the faults of Wipeout Fusion:


First of all - G-Tech. A self-insert team of Good Technology that evicted AG-Systems to do so, and as a FEISAR loyalist this was not a pleasant news to lose the long standing rivals (much like Auricom lost their rival Qirex to bloodthirsty Tigron) - not to mention that AG-Systems are arguably THE AG Team, since they were THE first and led by Pierre Belmondo himself. To make matters worse, G-Tech crafts exceled at nothing: slow, average thrust, handles like a lamppost, average shields. Even FEISAR and Van-Uber are miles better in handling and thrust respectively. Has a lackluster superweapon. And looks ugly too. So why even bother? (not that making G-Tech a Xios-esque Mary Sue team would make the reception that better, I think)

Since I mentioned craft stats: the lack of balance between teams finds me disturbing. I prefer when each team are suited to something else - this makes for a more fair racing and makes the whole experience more vaired. I am in love with how FEISAR can dance on the track, so this is my first pick. But sometimes I desire more speed and thus take Piranha, or want to become a fast brick by hopping into Qirex. In Fusion? After you unlock all the teams, you do not really have an incentive to take anything else than Piranha for time trials, Tigron for killing everyone, and Xios for general racing. Bleh. Albeit later the teams went a bit too much the other way for my taste (at least when speaking about Wipeout HD, where the differences get further mitigated by Fury crafts). I would prefer if team balance would be set by giving every team a static sum of points to distribute along the stats, the sum being around 50-60% of the whole sum of stats (like in the case of Piranha from W2097, with 10s in everything).

Also: not a fan of weapon power and braking power stats. The first one should have never existed! Weapons are supposed to be a random element to the race, not something you can optimize in such way. And besides, having some crafts (cough-Xios-cough) with better weapon damage that aim at being better fighters is an anathema to sport spirit - this is a racing game, not a AG fighter simulator! Coupled with points for eliminating opponents in standard races (that should stay exclusively in the Eliminator mode) this makes F9000 a disgusting affair. Braking power stat is not THAT bad of an idea as the weapon one, but does not seem to be that relevant or sensible. Perhaps you could say that teams compete also in making better airbrakes to have their ships use the brakes as little as possible, but in my mind this is not as important as having good top speed or other "classic 4" stats.

Next one: the physics of the craft. Nowhere is to be seen the bounciness and floatiness of the PSX era. All the crafts now behave like high-flying maglevs that recover their default hover height absurdly fast and accurately during the fall from a high jump. Much less enjoyable. Also, there is no way to harmlessly grind (or scrap) on the bends. Everytime I pull this maneuever in W2097 I feel big satisfaction. In Fusion I am always treated to immense vibrations and losing shields even when gently touching the bend. Oh come on! Especially irritating in Zone.

Speaking of vibrations, they went overboard with these when you get your craft destroyed - especially as they continue way after the actual explosion! What an annoyance.

Also - why the crafts EXPLODE, if their durability is maintained pretty much only by their shields? A shieldless craft should be able to take one or two hits from colliding with a wall, then crash and slump to the ground, like in Wip3out.

No Devilla outside one-time event challenges (five in total over three tracks). Because no one in their right mind would like to hone their skills on first-ever Wipeout point-to-point tracks, right?

Stupid onboard voice notifications that go "WARNING: INCOMING" instead of simply saying WHICH weapon is going to ruin my race if I do not prepare. How useful.

Nitro Rocket and Shield Drain are overpowered. 10x more damage from having an iced craft is way too much (and makes no sense anyway, considering the earlier point about shields not hull being resposible for craft's integrity), and SD always restore Xios to full shields no matter how much shields the victim ship has. Not that Xios are fragile crafts either... they should exhange their superweapons with Van-Uber, that would make life for V-U pilots easier and make more sense that Xios, an erstwhile weapons manufacturer, knows how to make a black hole generator or something.

Since I raised the weapons issue: some of the regular ones were useless and only wasted a weapon pad: Flame Thrower (a flame-based weapon for such fast-flying ships?! Good luck with aiming this thing), and Grav-Stinger (not different enough from Mines; also, give my Bomb any day instead). Also, Gravity Bomb was overpowered - powerful and no way to evade it. Albeit I wish the Hunter Missile from Multiplayer came back. Also, reverse Quakes should have never existed, and I think I do not even need to disclose why.

Most of last tier upgrade crafts have really ugly, drab livery. Especially Van-Uber and Piranha lose much vibrancy with this change (trade red and yellow for grey and white?! Whose idea was this?!) The only ones that look somewhat decent are Auricom (not that drastic change of colour), Tigron (pretty much no change here) and G-Tech (because this green is at least not as sickening as their purple, and I like green).

By the way, about the ship upgrades: Xios hull design progression is nonsensical. I would prefer if it stayed at SMF-X III akin-configuration. The IV looks ridiculously out of place.

3D pilot heads look too cartoony. They should retain 2D ones, which are paradoxically more believable (uncanny valley effect and all that).

The main menu BGM plays on my nerves. Could we not just have actual soundtrack cycle, like in the older games (even if this one is not as stellar as W2097/3 ones)?


Now, this is not to say that Wipeout Fusion did everything wrong - it is far from that. But this is also not the thread for this... (time for some thread-necromancy?)