Looking back: WipEout

For my first entry in the series of “Looking back”, I’m taking a trip down memory lane to what the futuristic racer wipEout, did for gaming.

Why it meant so much for my generation of gamers? I aim to look back at other memorable titles too, so we can see the evolution games have gone through.


Once in a while, there are just these titles that come along and blow you mind when you see them for the first time. Sure, the anti-gravity racing theme had been touched on prior to wipEout. Such as in the excellent F-Zero on the SNES, but it lacked something to keep the player hooked for hours on end. Something more explosive, something more unpredictable and it needed to sound awesome for the new CD format.

You see, my parents grew up with a vision of the future being this sterile, white and shiny, Jetsons looking homes, buildings and flying cars. It all looked like it was so perfectly clean and bright. My generation X, on the other hand, grew up with movies and games depicting a dark, worn down future of anarchy. Filled with 90’s electronica, aggressive inhabitants and life threateningly dangerous sports for entertainment. The first European developed PS1 launch game, WipEout, followed this fashion perfectly.



I remember it clearly to this day: I was in a toy store, as a teenager with a friend, feeling like I'd outgrown the toys around me. 
Slowly realising that we were growing out of endless 2D games with cute characters jumping around on platforms collecting coins, rings or cuddly bears. Yet, here we were to check out the new PlayStation console. To my disappointment the PS1 stand was powered down.

However, a young employee arrived, kids started flocking, and he put wipEout disc into the PlayStation and powered it up. I believe, this was the first time I ever saw the console in motion. The year was 1995.

Low and behold, the amazement of this futuristic racer! After a fantastic CGI intro sequence, depicting an adrenaline filled race start and thumping music, we're greeted to flashy and stylish menus. Clearly designed somewhere elsewhere than Japan, because it actually looked fashionable, not just colourful with quirky wannabe techno.

Somebody began playing it and it moved with such an incredible speed! When we finally got out hands on it the anti-gravity feeling was amazing, the music was r real tunes from techno bands and the graphics were incredible!

It was this whole package of impressions that made wipEout stand out for a teenage audience. Finally, gaming had moved on for consoles, transcended into something aimed at the current generation of teenagers. From the moment I saw wipEout in that store, I knew PlayStation was going revolutionise the industry into something even more mature than Sega had already began in their Mega Drive era. Sony had put the faith into pioneering United Kingdom 3D development, taken a jump into the future and timed it perfectly.

The powerful 3D capabilities of the PlayStation that made the wipEout graphics possible and the CD-ROM that made the music change from midi sounds to real music and quality stereo. However, visuals and audio alone don't make a great game, the gameplay does.



While the first wipEout is an unforgiving affair with it’s touchy crash physics, it still, alongside the second and third game, retains a unique feeling when manoeuvring the anti-gravity spaceships. They felt like they float on air, they bounce up and down from hard landings and you can air brake slide into corners with the left and right shoulder buttons on the controller.

It felt, and still feels, so amazing to play and totally different from a typical car based racing game. Add the speed and weaponry you could pick up, to shoot down the competitors, it all comes together as a true adrenaline experience. If you were so lucky to own a Namco NegCon controller too, which twists in the middle for steering, you were in for futuristic racing heaven in the mid 90's!

WipEout required, like most arcade racers, that you take time to perfect each race circuit. Learn all the corners, brake perfectly and learn how to react when sudden situations occurred. After some playtime, you'd get over the speed and begin focusing on combining the actual racing and weaponry. Firing down competitor after competitor and learning to keep a shield handy for when you needed it the most.

For people watching you play, it looks advanced and difficult, and in a sense it is, but goddamn it's fun and so controllable once you learnt it! An adrenaline ride from start to finish.

What amazes me to this date, is that wipEout truly put UK developers on the map as 3D pioneers. It completely stood tall alongside Japanese racers on graphics and blew them away with it's music and unique art design. The developers, Psygnosis in Liverpool, England, hired in The Designers Republic to make the design artwork, way ahead in comparison to other games would follow this trend later on.



WipEout 2097 launched the following year in 1996 and made the height of the series when it came to it's controls and gameplay. It took away the annoying crash physics, added a better selection of weaponry and cranked the dark and gloomy futuristic design one step up. It looked and played incredible, although the actual design of the race circuit scenery is best in the fist game. WipEout 1 just hit that early 3D, bold arcade graphics style and gloomy futuristic vibe perfectly. 

Wip3out came after a three year hiatus and toned down the dark and bold colours. Delivering a more subtle looking visual style, from the menus to the detailed environments surrounding the race circuits. It retained the great gameplay from wipEout 2097, but cluttered the weaponry selection. The intentional, toned down design choice, followed perfectly with the trend at the time with techno bands, album covers and live venues. It was a unique example of the series following trends in music and design.

However, what followed would not be forgiven. Like many unique PS1 series that continued into the PS2 generation, they faded. WipEout Fusion was a mess. Buggy, questionable controls and gameplay, cheap art design and too many changes to the formula. It killed the series and it wouldn't re-emerge before the launch of the PlayStation Portable. Where, once again, wipEout became a launch title with solid quality. Two great wipEouts on the PSP and one great HD release on the PlayStation 3 and the series stands tall, yet far more niche, again.

I hope younger generations can get some of the wipEout magic, that combination of a futuristic look, music and fast, adrenaline filled gameplay. However, nothing will be like the first three releases, that time period and the rapid development in 3D games just made it an incredible time to be a gamer.