Wipeout HD Fury

Back in 2002, Studio Liverpool developed Wipeout Fusion for the PS2. It received varied reviews and, although it introduced the popular Zone Challenge mode to proceedings, was often thought to be the game that had marked the end of the series. However, it wasn't bad and was more of a case that the developers had bitten off more than they could chew with the existing technology.

Combat could slow the game to a crawl and the absence of The Designer's Republic, the graphic design studio responsible for the series' unique aesthetic, was a blow. Luckily for all the zero gravity speed freaks out there,  the series gained some resurgence on the PSP and then further still with the addition of Wipeout HD  on the Playstation 3.

Now comes Wipeout Fury, an extension to Wipeout HD, with the processing power to finally do everything that Fusion promised but failed to deliver. Eight new tracks, new ship models, more unlockables, more trophies and three new game modes, with two available online, give this game more bang for your buck than any entry to the series so far.

Destruction and speed are the name of the game in Fury and while the straight race mode and speed trials of the series remain, there's been a serious upgrade in the violence quotient. Take Eliminator, tasking you with racing around circuits trying to blow your opponents away, which sounds similar to normal racing, except the introduction of a button to flip your ship through 180 degrees allows you to surprise your opponents with a face full of rocket.

Completing a lap awards you with some hull integrity, but weapon pick-ups can only be used for a very limited shield to help you through the destruction. Helpful warnings alert you when an opponent has fired a weapon at you, making for a frantic calculation of whether the attack is from the front or behind and if it is realistically avoidable.

Then we have Zone Racing. No weapons here...well, not really, You pick up zone boost by crossing speed-up pads. This boost can be spent to fire your ship to faster speeds, leaving a wall of energy in its wake for opponents to crash into. Collect more zone boost and the speed increase goes up exponentially, but be warned: controlling a ship which suddenly goes up three or four speed classes in under a second is tricky. Tricky, but this is the only way to win. Boost charge can also be re-distributed to your shields to help buffer against crashes, but in a mode where maintaining a top speed and coming first is your target, you will have to be desperate to waste such a valuable resource.

Finally, we have the offline mode Detonator, mixing up zone challenges with bombs placed on the track. As you complete a circuit, the targets missed remain making tracks steadily more cluttered. An inefficient cannon makes the job all the more difficult and with steadily increasing speed, things become frantic before you've really had a chance to breathe. Yes, you can build up an EMP pulse to clear the track ahead, but once you're really motoring, you may just have one or two too many things to concentrate on.

As with all the Wipeout series, practice makes perfect, and the introduction of three difficulty levels since the release of Wipeout HD definitely makes this accessible toplayers both old and new.AI pilots are fiendishly intelligent and at the top of their game in the Elite levels, but add to this the online element of group play and there really is nothing missing from the Wipeout package. The graphics push the Playstaion 3 towards its zenith, new ship styles following the 80's TV rule of 'if it's more chunky it must realistically go faster' and new music tracks add to the variety available and will please any arcade style racing nut.

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Under the previous scoring system (before 09/09/09) this game received a score of ten out of ten.