WipEout Pure

The Good
Wipeout Pure is a great game to to get for your PSP. Not just because it has sharp graphics, easy controls, and a relatively simple learning curve, but because of it's replay ability. To me, that is it's best quality. Let me explain. When you start a single player game for the first time, there are only four racetracks available for you to play. If you get gold medals in all of them, you can unlock more tracks. Simple, yes, but there is an added feature that makes it even better. There are speed divisions that allow you to race the same track but at a higher level of difficulty. "Vector" is the easiest, followed by the much faster "Venom". By racing the same tracks but in two different speed divisions, you can get twice as many gold medals to unlock more tracks. But there's even more you can add to the single player experience without having to get gold medals all the time. The game has a free download feature where you can download more tracks, vehicles, and skins for the game. Yes, it's free! I read somewhere that if all PSP games had this much aftermarket content available, the world would be a better place. You can also go to the Wipeout Pure website and download the content via your computer.

Another single player feature I really like is called Zone. It's kind of complicated to explain, so I'll do my best. Your vehicle is constantly accelerating and there's no way to stop. Every time you hit a wall, your shield go down. The faster you go, the higher the "zone" you get to. To get medals you must reach a certain "zone" before you lose all your shield and blow up. It's very challenging sometimes and is a lot of fun.

Oh, yeah, the music is awesome. You can actually go to the Wipeout Pure website and listen to all the tracks for free. Another plus.

The Bad
Well, the replay factor is very high, but it tends to get repetitive after a while. The game (or just a PSP in general) makes long plane rides much more tolerable, but you could get bored with it fairly quickly (especially if it's only game you have). I would tend to say that small doses are best when playing Wipeout Pure.

The Bottom Line
Having never played any of the previous Wipeout titles, I can't compare this to any of them. As someone who has never heard of Wipeout until I got a PSP, this game is great. It was the first one I bought for it, and until I find someone to play a multiplayer game with, I will continue to play it until it gets broken or something like that. It's a great game to have in your collection because of it's replay ability and I recommend it to everyone.