Wipeout 2097 o Wipeout XL es el segundo juego de la saga Wipeout que termina de establecer el estilo y arte de la IP en un adrenalínico juego de carreras único en el género.

Wipeout es un juego de carreras de naves antigravitatorias al estilo F-Zero que se diferencia de este último y del resto del género ofreciendo una experiencia de carreras alta velocidad con circuitos bien diseñados y cuidados en detalle con una jugabilidad destinada a no decelerar nunca. El número de naves es reducido con tan solo 4 naves predeterminadas y 1 desbloqueable mediante código, estas utilizan 4 estadísticas para diferenciarse entre ellas: Aceleración, velocidad punta, escudo y manejo. Cada una de las naves destacarán en 1 o 2 estadísticas mientras que flaquearán en otras, aunque Feisar busca ser la nave estándar con un diseño balanceado entre todas las estadísticas, mientras que Piranha es una nave que solo es obtenible con códigos trampa, y que poseerá estadísticas completamente rotas.

Como el gameplay tiene como objetivo la velocidad, no cuenta con un botón de freno al uso, sino que emplea 2 frenos “aerodinámicos” que sirven para virar a derecha e izquierda respectivamente para cada freno. Además, durante la carrera hay repartidos por el circuito 2 tipos de paneles: unos en forma de flecha que funcionan como propulsores; y otros en forma de cruz que otorgan armas y modificadores para las naves que permiten atacar o defenderse de los rivales. Cada nave posee un medidor de escudo que determina la salud de esta y cuanto queda hasta ser destruida, este medidor puede ser restaurado pasando por el carril de recuperación en rojo que hay justo antes la línea de meta que penalizará el pequeño rodeo con una penalización en la ventaja en segundos, por lo que será decisión del jugador decidir si vale la pena atravesarlo o seguir por la vía principal.

Wipeout a diferencia de otras sagas más realistas como Burnout o Gran Turismo permite tomar las curvas a mayor velocidad y, por tanto, se permite llevar el trazado a un mayor nivel, permitiendo al jugador desarrollar su habilidad tanto como desee, al mismo tiempo que castiga gravemente cuando no se cuida el trazado o no se memorizan los circuitos.

La estética es post retrofuturista, es decir, que en 1996 era futurismo, pero que actualmente pertenece al retrofuturismo típico de los 90. El estilo minimalista y estilizado de su interfaz crea una sinergia con los escenarios urbanísticos futuristas cargados de detalle, luces de neón y carteles de marcas (algunas reales como Red Bull) ambientados en lugares reales como Tokyo.

La banda sonora está compuesta por temas de electrónica y EDM compuestos por Cold Storage (Tim Wright) que seguirá siendo el compositor principal de la música de la saga Wipeout en conjunto con otros artistas.

WipEout XL está ambientado en el año 2097, unas cuatro décadas después de su predecesor. En lugar de la competición de carreras antigravedad F3600, el juego presenta un torneo aún más rápido y peligroso: la liga F5000 AG. La historia de Wipeout es contada a través de los equipos competidores, cada uno tiene un trasfondo, estilo de pilotaje e imagen de marca que da explicación y sentido a las estadísticas que poseen sus naves en cada título.

En resumen, Wipeout 2097 consolida el estilo distintivo de la saga, ofreciendo una experiencia de carreras de alta velocidad con naves antigravitatorias y circuitos detalladamente diseñados que siguen siendo emocionantes y desafiantes incluso después de décadas desde su lanzamiento inicial en 1996.

THIS REVIEW IS SPONSORED BY RED BULL

I really don't have a lot of racing game experience. I'm planning to fix that in the future, but for the time being, the PS1 Wipeouts have been one of my most prominent investments into the genre, especially as a kid. I liken them somewhat to a grittier Mario Kart, mostly just because of the arcade racing structure, combined with item usage to get an edge in the course. But, I'm aware that's a pretty insane generalization of what this series is.

In any case, I absolutely fuck with this. I don't have to worry about number crunching stats on vehicles because there's only like 4-5 to choose from, alongside a pretty limited amount of tracks. These would've been negatives back in 1996, but in emulation form, Wipeout XL lends itself well as an entry point into the genre, and a game that I can spend one peaceful afternoon on, get some thrills out of it, and move on. The learning curve is braindead easy, but the vehicles feel weighty in just that right way. Narrowly scraping against the walls as sparks come flying out, instinctively leaning left and right as I brace myself against those tougher turns, and feeling each and every bump like it was impacting me in reality. The items themselves pack a lot of punch, and on that rare occasion where you nail the use of the insta-kill laser to take out your opponent, it makes you feel like the harbinger of doom. The AutoPilot item is the true harbinger though, I can't even count the amount of times It sent me directly into a wall. Fuck that thing.

Bonus points go to the overall presentation and the readability of its race tracks, on top of that very specific UK-produced assortment of techno music that could've only existed in that era of video games. No doubt a lot of my fondness can be attributed to nostalgia, as has been the case for my other recent reviews. And if I were to look at it from another way, it's true that Wipeout's appeal lies more in a niche techno sci-fi aesthetic than a wide-ranging amount of character and personality. Without an appreciation for the currently existing appeal, Wipeout's probably closer to a 3.5 or a 4 star rating. But for me, this game has never let me down. It has only ever promised me a good racing time, and that's exactly what it gives. Sometimes, I only wish there was more of it. And I don't mean more Wipeouts, or spiritual successors. I mean like, 6 more levels for this game. Maybe 8. But then again, short and sweet is better than long and stale.

Having been something of a fan of the F-Zero series for a long time now, I’ve always been somewhat curious about the very aesthetically similar Wipeout series. Though it’s even appeared on Nintendo consoles (with Wipeout 64 being effectively identical to XL here just with the tracks mirrored), it’s always existed in this space of “Sony’s F-Zero” in my head. Given that it’s a western-developed title, I was somewhat surprised to discover that they were released in Japan at all, and this was the first (and so far only) one of them I’ve ever been able to find locally at anything accepting a reasonable price. Being in quite the mood for racing games still after Diddy Kong Racing, I decided to finally pop in this game to see if I could finish it. I didn’t 100% it, and frankly I likely never will, but I was able to get gold on all six tracks of the arcade mode, and that’s good enough for me XD. It took me around 6 hours to complete the arcade mode in the Japanese version of the game on real hardware.

Wipeout is very much a video game’s video game in just how little premise it needs. It’s future racing with flying F-1-ish cars. There are different companies who are represented with different cars, and the tracks themselves do technically exist in or around real world places, but that’s just about all you’re gonna get with Wipeout XL’s writing (if you can even call it that). But this is a PS1 racing game! As long as the cars are fast and the tracks are fun, you don’t really need any more than that for a good time, and Wipeout XL is absolutely not an exception to that rule. It’s fun future races, and we don’t need much more excuse than that to have some fun racin’ action~.

The actual racing of Wipeout XL is very different than what I was expecting for someone otherwise only familiar with F-Zero. Frankly, it’s almost a Yakuza and Shenmue situation, where despite their significant aesthetic similarities, they’re almost nothing alike when you start getting into what actual gameplay involves. Wipeout XL, as mentioned before, has only six tracks in the normal arcade mode as well as four different cars to pick from (though more tracks and cars are unlockable if you’re a mad enough lad to brave the super hard challenge modes you unlock after you beat arcade mode). Your goal is to go around the tracks and get first place, of course, but the actual way that the racing is put together makes it very different from any other racing game I’ve played (which is admittedly not terribly many <w>).

The first and most major thing I’ll point out is how braking works. Rather than just a normal braking feature, Wipeout has you using R2 and L2 for a right and left “air brake” specifically, cutting off the acceleration to your right and left sides respectively. This effectively means that you right brake to turn right, left brake to turn left, and do both if you want to do a general brake. It doesn’t sound like a huge deal on paper, but in actual practice, this amounts to a TON to get used to, and it really makes Wipeout feel like a beast all its own as a racing game. It also means the skill ceiling on just how good you can get at these tracks is pretty damn high if you put forward the effort to memorizing them (which you’ll need to do at least a bit if you want any hope of beating arcade mode, let alone the post-arcade challenge modes). However, this also means that the skill floor is quite high as well, and more casual racing game fans are likely to be turned off by just how brutal Wipeout’s harder courses are to complete.

The other thing that makes Wipeout quite different from something like F-Zero is that, while this game does have shield energy that is the difference between car life and car death, it also has weapons Mario Kart-style. Run over a colored tile on the track, and you’ll grab a weapon power up of the corresponding color. There are quite a few different power ups at play (from standard boosts, missiles, and shields to a difficult to aim instant-kill beam to even an auto-pilot feature), and they really add a whole new flavor to such a fast-moving racing game. Not only do the Wipeout cars go fast, you see, but they also actually get faster on their own as the race goes on, so between all the weapon-ing and high tech air braking you’re doing, there’s a lot to sink your teeth into if you’re willing to put the time into it.

All that said, that high skill floor comes with a few other causes as well. For starters, Wipeout XL is 12-man races, and you always start at the back. You’ve got some pretty stiff competition to overcome if you want to see first place. On top of that, it’s also kind of a fake 12-man race. Something you’ll discover quite quickly as you get better is that it only appears to show all the other racers at the start. Let the guys more than a couple places ahead of you disappear over a hill (out of the view of the camera), and they’ll have literally vanished by the time you crest the hill moments later. Only 3 or 4 other racers actually exist at a time, and that can make for some pretty frustrating experiences trying to pass those buggers on the harder difficulties, just waiting for them to spawn in so you can actually pass them.

On top of that, the computer is also not out here to win. They’re here to make YOU lose. They will actively focus you down with any weapon they can get their hands on, even passing up attacking fellow computers right in front of them just to fire a homing shot directly back into your face. This is aided a little bit by there being a lot of power ups the CPUs just can’t get at all, with their arsenals generally being restricted to standard or homing missile types as well as the ever deadly mine spreads (so they can’t get the big earthquake weapon or the instant death gun, thank goodness). That said, the big pain in the butt here is also that those jerks don’t even need to pick up weapon power ups to actually get weapons (though they can still snipe weapon tiles from you by running over them just before you, of course). The computer just automatically is given weapons periodically, and you can tell this very easily by the announcer very helpfully saying the weapon they’re about to use a second or two before they’re about to use it. This factor, combined with how you have shields and can therefore die, means there were tons of times where I just happened to find myself behind a recently spawned pack of 3 racers who all unloaded homing missiles and mines into my face at once resulting in me going from 80% or 100% shields to 0% in an instant. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you just how frustrating a racing experience that can make for, and just how badly the CPUs cheat was a big reason I had no interest in pursuing victory in anything beyond arcade mode.

Cheating computers aside, the aesthetics of the game are incredibly cool. They build futuristic cityscapes and wilderness tracks that look super cool as they zoom past your car, and the flying future cars themselves look pretty darn snazzy too. This is all on top of a very pumping EDM sound track that, while not my particular favorite kind of music, certainly fits the gameplay very nicely. The game also runs really well, and while tracks take a good few seconds to load in, they never need to again once you’re there, and they even restart really quick too. I never had to worry about just driving into a blank void because I happened to take a corner too fast, and that’s pretty darn impressive for a game with such fast speeds not on the N64.

The only real issue I could say (apart from the lack of any kind of mini-map making the memorization of tracks that much more of a necessity) is that the colors and such can get a bit too loud at times. It can be difficult to actually parse the track and the cars at times because you’re going SO fast and the colors are so all over the place, which doesn’t make for a very difficult time when you’ve learned a track a bit, sure, but it does make the process of learning a track that much more difficult.

Last but not least is the very funny product placement in the game, with Red Bull energy drink ones being the most prominent. They’re not so funny in a vacuum, sure, but when you consider that this game came out in ’96 despite Red Bull not being sold here in Japan until 2005, it’s hard not to giggle about for me x3. That does speak to, however, just how poorly a localized game this is in the first place. While the packaging and manual is thankfully translated into Japanese, there is literally no Japanese text in the actual game whatsoever. This isn’t the worst problem in the world for a racing game, but for one like this that requires setting up type of race, car you’re using, and track before you actually hit start to initiate it all, it must have been a real pain for players back in the day who didn’t have terribly great English skills. I’m certainly used to western publishers not giving much of a crap when localizing their stuff for Japan, but Psygnosis hit an all new low for me with this one. Frankly, it’s no surprise that these games were so unpopular (and are therefore now so rare) in Japan on the PS1 when SO little effort was put forward into actually making them playable for a non-English speaking audience.

Hesitantly Recommended. This is far from a bad game, but it’s one that I think only pretty serious racing game fans will really like. The skill ceiling is high, but the skill floor is also very high, and the big cheating AI only compound that skill floor’s difficulty even worse. There’s a lot of fun to have here, but casual racing fans are likely going to find this one a bit too difficult (and a bit too content light) to really get much fun out of. That said, if all this sounds fun to you, it’s well worth checking out! You just might find an all time new favorite series buried here among the zooming fury of the far flung future~.