YMMV / WipEout

The Video Game

• Audience-Alienating Premise: WipEout Rush/Merge already had the misfortune of being a mobile-exclusive revival of a Cult Classic franchise, but then the gameplay trailer reveals that everything that made the console games fun would be stripped down and automated, leaving players with... a card merging game. To say fans were miffed would be the understatement of the century. If it's any comfort (and depending on how you look at it), this never left the UK, so players outside of Europe weren't missing out much there.
• Awesome Art: One of the reasons why the series is much loved is the cool stylized art and solid visual design. The first three games stand out in this department, courtesy of The Designers Republic. Their return as artists in Formula Fusion is the reason why many a Wipeout fan got extremely hyped for its release.
• Broken Base: The fandom doesn't talk about it much given the direction this series has taken, but there's a divide between those who prefer the slower, more difficult handling of the 3 first installments and those who prefer a more fluid and faster pace from Pure onward. Then there's Fusion...
• Cult Classic: Although the series is remembered for its amazing gameplay, visuals, and music, the series hasn't really caught on in the mainstream, but it maintains a very devoted cult following. This proves why there are some fan-made games in development: to fill the void that the series left after 2048.
• Demonic Spiders: The AI crafts can be this depending on difficulty. Especially if they use the Quake, Missile, or even the Rocket items. Heaven forbid you get hit with a Plasma bolt, or else you're cooked.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Qirex is the most popular team in the series, rivaling FEISAR and AG-Systems.
  • Arial Tetsuo, one of the Auricom pilots from the first game had a quite large popularity back in the day. The music video of one of 2097's soundtrack explained how.
  • Curly, the announcer in Wip3out is also widely loved. To this day many fans actively make demands to make a return for her in Formula Fusion.
  • Although Tigron Enterprises were one of the most ruthless teams in AG racing history, their craft, the "BULL-666", was one of the most popular ones in Fusion thanks to its impressive speed, handling, durability, firepower, and its overpowered Super Weapon. Their popularity skyrocketed when it was confirmed that they would return to Omega Collection along with Van-Über. Even their newest K-VSR craft is available as a media kit for the limited edition of the game itself.
• Even Better Sequel: 2097 introduced a load of innovative concepts that were so highly praised by critics that they still remain in the series' modern iterations, namely the ability for ships to be destroyed, a few game-enhancing weapons and pick-ups, such as the auto-pilot, the plasma bolt, and the quake disruptor, and of course, Phantom class. It also made touching walls more forgiving than the original, which would bring the player to a dead stop every time.
• Fan Nickname: In the early games, there are rescue droids that grab your ship and place you back on the track, should you fall off. The fanbase has nicknamed them "Wuss Wagons".
• Friendly Fandoms: Back in the day, there used to be a major Fandom Rivalry with F-Zero, but as time went on, the two fanbases began overlapping. It further helps the fact that both series are currently laying dormant.
• Funny Moments:
  • Icaras originally dissolved after wip3out due to the death of its eccentric owner, Burnston Burns. How did he die? He accidentally swallowed a balloon at a children's party!
  • At the 3:08 mark of Fluke's "Atom Bomb" music video, Arial ends up hugging two men; one of them seems to have been easily choked to death!
  • Due to the Good Bad Bugs in Pure mentioned below, Citta Nuova can be either one of the hardest tracks in the series since Silverstream from the first game... or one of the easiest if you make liberal use of Quakes and Bombs and watch as every other racer on the track drop like flies. The end result is nothing short of hysterical if you're the last racer on the track.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Each game had one from 2097 onwards. The Piranha ship in 2097, the Assegai in 3, yet again the Piranha in Fusion, the Triakis in Pure, again the Assegai in Pulse, the Goteki 45 and FEISAR Fury in HD and the AG-Systems Speed in 2048.
  • As for the Super Weapons in Fusion, we have Tigron's Nitro Rocket, which was deemed overpowered since it deals some nasty heat and screws up the victim's controls.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • Triakis's cornering deceleration rate in Pure is bugged, making it quite agile for a heavy craft. Pulse factored this bug (and its fixing) into the lore by noting that Triakis had installed an illegal reverse-inertia deceleration system on their FX300 craft.
  • Continuing from Pure, it's possible to invoke an Instant-Win Condition on certain tracks (Sinucit, Citta Nuova, Cardcity Run, and Paris Hair) in Phantom class by making liberal use of Quakes, Bombs, and everything in-between. You can even fire the Quake backward if you're in first place and occasionally be treated to the amusing sight of wiping out (heh) the rest of the competition. Though actually attempting it is more of a Luck-Based Mission than anything given how weapon pick-ups work in Wipeout.
  • Certain events in HD allow you to wreck yourself early and still get Gold Medal for it.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The game was considered to be Sony's answer to Nintendo's F-Zero series - and then Psygnosis went and teamed up with Midway to release Wipeout 64 on the Nintendo 64. And in the very same year that F-Zero X was released.
• Meaningful Name: Hi-Fumi in Wipeout 3; it's Japanese for "1,2,3".
• Memetic Mutation:
  • WipEout predicted Brexit.^note Before the events of Pure, the United Kingdom splintered from FEISAR to resurrect Icaras. Come 2016, with the UK holding a referendum on whether they should stay in the European Union or not, with the "leave the EU" side narrowly winning.
  • "Oh my god, this course is HORRIBLE!!!"/"Those BLOODY bulkheads!"^note Mentioned by Charlie Emery AKA HellfireWZ while discussing about Temtesh Bay Course 2 from Fusion, which is notorious for it's tricky corners and the use of bulkheads.
  • Pilot Assist: "DON'T USE IT!!!!"^note Another one from HellfireWZ, in regards to an optional Mercy Mode the player can enable in the game, during his Wipeout HD Fury tutorial video. HellfireWZ make a reference to the meme in another tutorial video for Wipeout 2048.
  • "Baby got an atom bomb! Twenty-two megatons!"^note One of the first lyrics from "Atom Bomb" by Fluke, in which the music video features Arial Tetsuo from the first game.
  • "Donk."
  • "SHAKE IT! DON'T BREAK IT!"^note The lyrics from "Shake It" by Addiktion, the song most often associated with the Omega Collection and Tigron Enterprises themselves.
• Moment of Awesome: Scoring a plasma bolt hit in 2097. Made anticlimactically easy in the third game and in the games after that, the weapon no longer did instant kill damage.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • "CONTENDER ELIMINATED." Unless it's happening to you, that is.
  • In Pulse and HD, "GOLD MEDAL AWARDED." It's especially awesome if you're playing on Elite difficulty. Same story goes for its 2048 equivalent: "ELITE PASS."
• Nightmare Fuel: The series doesn't have a lot of creepy content, but the song "Zulu" by Hybrid in WipEout Pure is pretty unsettling, this is subverted if you're trying to feel like a badass. Also, it got sampled in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
  • The Zone mode can be considered this to some players, because of its Difficulty by Acceleration.
  • The intro from ''Wip3out'' is pretty much this, which features the reversed animation of the Goteki 45 craft causing a suicide explosion towards the FEISAR and AG Systems crafts in the finish line, blowing them up. Considering how violent Goteki 45 was during the F7200, suicide attacks would've been right up their alley. Also, the intro also featured a creepy drone (even though it uses a sample of "Piranha" by DJ Sasha) throughout the entire cinematic cutscene.
  • Fusion's intro is even more of a doozy. Not only does it feature sudden flashing lights that would cause a Jump Scare, but it also has a sample of a child laughing in both the beginning and the end of the opening. And it gets worse from there: the fall of F9000 not only led to a massive global recession but there were also riots and war all over the globe. It only took many decades to stabilize, and many more to recover from before the events of WipEout Pure.
  • Well, this is an odd one. The promotion art for the very first game◊ is downright unsettling. It features two teenagers with nosebleed as their clothes has been soaked with blood. It's just like if the developers of the game kidnapped them and tortured the poor bastards as an attempt to force them to promote the game. Also, the other version of the art refers to the game itself as "a dangerous game". Thankfully, the unsettling art is staged, but still...
  • The Qirex announcer from 2048 may count as this, due to its Creepy Monotone.
• Polished Port: Wipeout 64 is one damn fine port of both the original and 2097 to the Nintendo 64, bringing with it fully integrated analog control for better steering accuracy, and a tighter control altogether for a distinct feel while retaining the high speeds the series is known for, only dropping frames in any notable way during the new split-screen mode. It had to compete with F-Zero X and Extreme-G, and it managed to damn well hold its own ground.
• Porting Disaster:
  • The PC port of the first game loses the light effects, which wouldn't be so terrible if they weren't what made it such a graphically awesome title in '95. It also acquired a peculiar kind of flickering track bug. Lastly, the opening cinematic had a random probability of locking up certain PCs while playing...
  • The PC port of Wipeout XL/2097 lacks a speed limiter, causing the game to run out of control on top of the line back in '97, never mind today (this can be fixed with a CPU-killer program, but then you will find out the hard way that Windows Vista/7 require a lot more CPU to run properly than the game!). The game also has a different soundtrack (Possibly due to licensing problems) that's nowhere near as good as the original's.
  • While the PlayStation 2 port of Pulse may look visually better than the PSP version, it suffers from a nasty glitch which corrupts your memory card data beyond repair. Even turning the autosave off doesn't prevent the said glitch as well! If you really want to play the game, stick to the PSP version instead.
• Replacement Scrappy: Unlike the far better-received Fusion-debuting teams Tigron and Van-Uber teams, G-Tech ended up being far and away the most loathed team in the franchise for being a replacement to AG Systems.
• Ron the Death Eater: Despite turning good by the events of Pure, quite a few fans wanted Goteki 45 to retain their Ax-Crazy F7200 persona even after their reinstatement, even though their newer, lighter crafts have become extremely popular in the Pulse/HD Fury multiplayer scene.
• The Scrappy: G-Tech. They likely represent Good Technology (Currently known as VML London), the graphic designers of Fusion. They're also loathed for replacing one of the fan-favorite teams, AG-Systems, ripping off Qirex's color scheme and their craft REVVER being inferior compared to the other crafts such as FEISAR's "LS-59", Auricom's "T-808", Tigron's "BULL-666", or Piranha's "Swiftkiller".
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The rescue droids from the original to Wip3out were loathed for taking precious time when the players accidentally fell off the track. As a result: Since Fusion, you will instantly respawn on the track, with the rescue droid only appearing when your craft is destroyed, saving the pilot inside.
  • The bulkheads from Fusion. Those BLOODY bulkheads! (See That One Level)
• Scrappy Craft: It may look cool, but GOOD GRAVY! G-Tech's REVVER from Fusion is terrible! It's notorious for its poor stats compared to Van-Über's ZR-320, its super weapons may deal some moderate damage, but the craft itself can be easily WIPED OUT if the player isn't careful enough.
• Sequelitis: While it may be a little bit well received, Wipeout Fusion was criticized for being Pod Racer-ish, having different graphics compared to Wip3out and the gameplay being vastly different, placing an emphasis on its needlessly over-complicated weapons system compared to other titles. The track design was also derided by critics and fans alike.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Wipeout Pure was a welcome improvement after the poorly-received Wipeout Fusion.
• That One Level: A nice cross-section of some vicious tracks from the series inception through to HD Fury can be seen here. Highlights include:
  • From the very first game, Silverstream. A tight, very technical track with alternate routes at two points where choosing the wrong path meant you were effectively out of the running. It is so notoriously brutal it's still considered one of the (if not THE) hardest courses in the series.
  • Temtesh Bay Course 2, from Fusion, is a veritable checklist of horrible track design decisions. It was so bad that it became part of a major in-universe race disaster when the backstory to Pure was released. According to YouTube user and series veteran Charlie Emery AKA HellfireWZ's video "Wipeout - Circuits from Hell", Course 2 is a travesty of a circuit filled with tricky corners, rock pillars and those fuckin' annoying bulkheads which will NOT OPEN until you are VIRTUALLY ON TOP OF IT!! Also, it's even worse when played in reverse, making Temtesh Bay Course 2 itself the most difficult course in the entire series, making Silverstream from the original game look like a walk in the park.
    Charlie "HellfireWZ" Emery (reacting to Temtesh Bay 2): Oh my god, this course is HORRIBLE!!!
    • Take That, Scrappy!: Its bad reputation among the fandom was almost certainly the reason it was chosen by the Devs as the Sacrificial Lamb for Fusion as a whole lore-wise; the aforementioned disaster involved an up-gunned version of Feisar's Superweapon causing a massive cave-in, killing several competitors as well as spectators, which helped lead to the domino effect that led to the League collapsing in turn.
  • From Pure, Citta Nuova. This track boasts a nasty hairpin at the halfway point, but what makes it especially difficult on the faster speed classes are the undulating chicane series following said hairpin that are so great that they're liable to throw you off the track (or worse, flip your craft upside down) if your racing line isn't pitch-perfect. And to add insult to injury, if you're on Phantom class, weapons do unusually high damage both to you and the other contenders, meaning you can't afford to have a margin of error lest you want to be eliminated and end the race prematurely.
  • While it doesn't seem hard to navigate, Sebenco Climb in Pure and HD is full of sharp corners in which you'll need a perfect timing while speeding up the mountain until you start plowing into the tunnel, where you'll have to be careful while racing in the chicane section in order to avoid ramming the walls.
  • From 2048, there's Sol. A predecessor to Sol 2 from the FX300/350 League (Pure/HD), you'd think you wouldn't expect such a challenge, but unfortunately - no, that's not the case. It's one thing for the track to be very tight, technical, and ruthlessly testing of your reflexes, but there are absolutely no borders anywhere on the track, making it extremely easy to fall off the course. And to add insult to injury, the track can only be raced on A and A+ Class (aka, Rapier and Phantom, respectively) in the Omega Collection, meaning that like in Gare D'Europa and Spilspinake back in 2097, you have to throw yourself into the deep end to be able to practice the course.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Right from the very first game, WipEout has always pushed the envelope when it comes to visual fidelity and performance. The original 1995 release to this day is still one of the PlayStation's signature Killer Apps owing to its unique atmosphere and visual style provided by the folks at Designers' Republic. Fast-forward to 2017 and the Omega Collection is bar none one of the prettiest games on the PlayStation 4 in a system that's flanked by games like Horizon Zero Dawn or Ghost of Tsushima. Mind you, that's without mentioning that the Omega Collection is a remastered compilation of HD and 2048, which still look incredible and hold up really well on their native systems to this day.
• The Woobie:
  • The backstory for Icaras for Wipeout 3 will surely make you feel bad for them. It might overlap with Jerkass Woobie if you count that they were created as a publicity stunt and their scrubbish attitude during the championship.
  • Auricom also count as this during the F9000 League (Fusion), as they're mocked by Xios and were the remaining team to defend Belmondo's philosophy right after AG-System's downfall.

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