I love this game, i really do!

The Wipeout series has started to slow down a little after the 64 version came out, there needed to be some definite lift to the series, maybe not exactly in a gameplay aspect, but more in an overall feel. When you look at the Mario Kart series for example, you can never forget it’s premiere title for the Super NES because of it’s nearly perfect feel and balance. But when the Mario Kart series moved to the 64 version, the overall feeling to the game was sort of lost [at least to me anyways], however after many years of wait, the GBA Mario Kart, Mario Kart : Super Circuit, managed to reawaken the series for me since it had all the old tracks from the original as well some nicely designed new tracks that felt like the original since they were 2-D based not 3-D.. Plus MK for GBA managed to make the new tracks in the game a lot larger [in comparison to the original Mario kart], yet they felt very good when you played it. Wipeout III is like the “Mario Kart: Super Circuit” for the series, nothing really super different with the game compared to the last ones, however, it did managed to get a brand new and definite feel that is sort of like a rebirth in my opinion. Now on to the review,

Gameplay- Like the last games, this is a futuristic racer where you fly super fast hover cars around some pretty sweet tracks. One of example some of these phat tracks is the Super Mall level where you ride in a mall and in one point you actually drive down a a spiral road, very fun indeed! Like the pervious games also, you use weapons and you can get destroyed if you don’t take the occasional pit stop. The weapons in this game are nothing amazing, just missiles, power drains, and so and so forth [nothing really different from the previous titles], but some require a little skill to know when and how you should use them. This is the first Wipeout game to introduce turbos in the game and though the series was never in need of turbos [Heck, it is fast enough as it is!] it is still there for you crazy people out there. The major problem with this game is it’s absurd difficulty level, this game didn’t hear of a learning curve for their isn’t any! The first racing tournament in the game is a breeze to say the least but as soon as you hit the 2 nd one, you will know what getting your butt owned really means. It is too bad too because besides this tragic flaw this is one fantastic game. Luckily you can make progress with the time, race, and elimination challenges with a little more ease.

Graphics- This game makes a huge improvement over any of the last incarnations of the series. Everything looks nice and sharp [even more so with the PS2 graphic improver] and for once every stage actually looks a good amount different from each other, unlike previous wipeouts, in my opinion. Also I love the font that is used in the game because though it is hard to read it really finalizes the futuristic vision of the game.

Sound- The soundtrack of this game is fantastic, and even better you can actually play the tracks from the game right off the game cd in a stereo [because of the way the game was recorded, I would like to say it is called the “Red Book” method, though don’t quote me on that]. Every track just oozes with personality and favor and it fits that game like steak and cheese [with a little sauce to, your pick]. The sound effects are of usual racing game fame, hear engines run, things explode, blah blah blah, the usual stuff.

Overall- This is an outstanding game with an outstanding difficulty level, unless you are Mr.Wipeout, then I doubt you will make much progress in this game. But practice is always the best thing to do…..even though even after many practice sessions it still didn’t help me. Sorry the stars have to drop for the stupid difficulty and learning curve please forgive me Wipeout 3 [Wipeout 3 disc walks up and kicks me]. But hey do you know , Wipeout 3, if you had a better learning curve you could of gotten 5 stars easy from me [still kicks me].