WipEout 64

The Good
Wipeout, Sony's successful anti-gravity racing series, made only three appearances off the Playstation format. Part one and two were released on the PC as exact replicas of the original games. Wipeout 64, however, a conversion done by Midway for Nintendo's N64, is an independent achievement. And an amazing one at that. Midway made what could best be described as Wipeout 2,5. Why? Because feature-wise Wipeout 64 does a lot which clearly differentiates it from Wipeout XL, or 2097 as it was named in Europe, and what would later appear in Wipout 3. Where part two is about successively unlocking race challenges, faster classes and additional tracks, Wipeout 64 offers three different types of challenges from the start: race, time trial and weapons challenge. Of course, single races are still there as well. Time trial again differs from other Wipeout games. Instead of doing 2, 3, 4 or 5 lap races, you will be driving as many consecutive laps as you choose. Although some players might so complain about the loss of race records, this mode makes gameplay much more fluent as there are no more interruptions from waiting time in between your attempts. Another change from it's Playstation counterpart, Wipeout XL, is that even though the fifth craft again has to be unlocked by playing through the various game modes, the Piranha is no longer the ship that stands out from the rest. Instead, it now has weapons and some considerably "downgraded" flight characteristics, so it would fit into regular gameplay. Graphics-wise the game uses most of the elements from XL. Some of the weapon effects are less flashy, but well done nonetheless. In fact, Wipeout 64 is faster than it's predecessors with no observable slowdown throughout the whole game. We are again being offered eight tracks to compete on, each set in a different environment and all of them entirely unique to the N64 version. Everything is there; from the easily accessible first courses to the more difficult steep-hills-with-tricky-turns tracks for the experienced driver. One aspect central to the success of the series always has been its soundtrack. Being limited to the data storage capacity of only a cartridge instead of a CD that can house several common audio tracks, the N64 Wipeout seemed at a loss. Yet still Midway managed to put a large amount of high-quality audio into their game, which is sure to satisfy even the most spoiled electronica fan. Wipeout 64 features some of the most forward and exciting tracks in any Wipeout game. And they come in a quality that is almost up to the class of CD music. The rest of the audio has been done just as well, reusing many of XL's sounds. There is even slightly more in this package, since we now get a short spoken welcome to the track that we are about to fly on.

The Bad
There is not much were Wipeout 64 is flawed. However, a rather serious bug needs to be mentioned. Every now and then, preferably at very specific points on certain courses, it happens that the game simply freezes. It may help to just leave the game and come back minutes later in order to find it running again. Mostly, though, you will want to turn off your console in order to get back to playing - and this way lose all your latest accomplishments. Apart from that, there are only a few minor issues worth mentioning. First and foremost, the N64 version cannot be controlled with the directional pad. Since Wipeout requires precise nose control in all four directions, this makes gold medals harder to achieve than necessary as handling the controller stick does not exactly allow for the most accurate movement. The second thing you might find annoying is that other crafts no longer have highly visible exhaust emissions. This makes it difficult to spot ships ahead of your own, so you will get some frustrating moments from running into contenders just because you had no chance of seeing them in time. Something that differentiates Wipeout 64 from its cousins is that your ship reacts much more sensitive to control inputs. This probably makes the game easier at first but also results in a loss of precision in control over your craft. Add this and the control issue explained before to the fact that Wipeout 64 is arguably the most difficult in the series and it should become obvious that this game is not for the casual gamer who is looking for quick results.

The Bottom Line
Do not put too much value on the downsides of the game. Apart from the freeze bug I mentioned, they all are minor concerns that can easily be overlooked. Wipeout 64 is furiously fast, exciting, challenging and by far more than a side product of Sony's prestigious franchise. Midway did a fantastic job at bringing the Wipeout experience to the realm of Nintendo games and showed F-Zero X a thing or two about AG racing.