Review by: Doug Trueman
Published: February 5, 1999

There has always been a trend in video games regarding the impossible. Over the years players have been faced with more and more difficulties to overcome to succeed at a game: human-like enemies, complex environments, three-dimensional worlds, and even tougher obstacle courses. However, in the racing game genre, there has been very little change: drive fast; drive well; and don’t crash into anything. As technology has improved, very little has changed. We’ve used various weapons, raced on the moon, skidded around the corners of rainbows and forced opponents off of cliffs. We’ve also driven increasingly faster cars. To put it bluntly, if the actual automotive industry progressed with the same speed as cars in video games we’d be breaking the light barrier by now.

Wipeout 64 is the latest in Psygnosis’ extremely successful “Zero-G” racing series. Players control one of four futuristic hovercars and race around sealed freeway-type environments. To Psygnosis’ credit, there is very little backstory: four competing car manufacturers are racing to see whose car is the fastest. Obviously Psygnosis felt that their time and budget were better spent on the game itself, and it shows. In the final analysis, who cares why we’re racing? We just want to win.

All of the vehicles are equipped with weapons and a defensive shield. Maintenance of the shield is crucial to success in Wipeout 64. Collisions with the sides of the track will reduce its amount of energy, as will getting shot with the various weapons. But, unlike many racing games (the Mario series comes to mind), shield power isn’t related to speed — it’s related to life. If you lose all your shields, you’re dead. Fortunately, the tracks of the future all have energy “pitstops” to restore dwindling power. But, like in modern racing, the use of a pitstop will slow a player’s car down.

The tracks in Wipeout are different than those in most other racers. Instead of the tight, 90 degree turns and screeching U-turns, this game focuses instead on graceful, gently banking courses with a series of difficult zigzag stretches every now and then for good measure. Although this might sound like a kiddy’s racer, Wipeout 64 is only for the best gamers out there. This isn’t because of some contrived difficulty setting, however. It’s because Wipeout 64 is so fast that any minor adjustment on the controller results in a huge change of the path of your ship. Like parallel lines that have been offset by a mere single degree, the change isn’t obvious at first. But over the course of time it becomes apparent that such tiny variations will mean the difference between effortlessly gliding around the next turn or bouncing your face off of the asphalt.