10 things i hate about wipeout fusion

[Koleax]

I really liked Fusion. The handling was different, but once you get used to it, there's much to be appreciated, particularly the track design. You don't often get a chance to appreciate the track design because you're trying to get through it as fast as possible, but Fusion was easy enough that you could try imagining the whole thing, even the parts that were blocked off, and see its complexity.

But this thread is about the bad stuff, so I'll list what I can think of.

1. Menu music -- a little blippy for the wipeout style, the beat is all wrong, and that's just the beginning.
2. Ship design -- particularly ugly, roundish blocky-looking
3. The QUAKE -- ugh, really, we couldn't carry over the same style from before? Do you remember the first time you saw the quake and how awesome and inspiring it was, XL lifting up the track like it was a carpet? A devastating concrete carpet wave of pure destruction! But Fusion had a little oddly trapezoidal-shaped shockwave thingy.
4. Menu font -- default was all lower case, not a fan of that.
5. Cheats -- there was a menu for cheats... what do you say to that? Thanks?
6. Plasma bolt -- sounds like it was bought at a garage sale.
7. Pit -- slowing down through the pit lane, as if the pit lane is supposed to be safe
8. Doors -- Doors. They open and shut. In a race. I confess to not getting this.

Actually this point highlights something that I rather did like about Fusion. It was the feeling that I was racing where I ought not to race and that this was a challenge I was meant to handle. I felt the simultaneity of freedom and danger while in those open spaces, like the feeling that comes through maturity.

During the whole game I was feeling like this wasn't a wipeout game, and when I accepted that, then I accepted the experience as a deviation. As long as this wasn't the direction the entire franchise would take, I was fine.