{"id":9758,"date":"2011-10-10T15:34:23","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T22:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/?p=9758"},"modified":"2011-10-10T15:34:23","modified_gmt":"2011-10-10T22:34:23","slug":"wipeout-hd-mystery-solved-at-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2011\/10\/10\/wipeout-hd-mystery-solved-at-last\/","title":{"rendered":"Wipeout HD mystery solved at last"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I had forgotten how beautiful Wipeout HD is. Not just the course graphics, but — THOOM — pretty much everything about it. The looks of the different vehicles. The design of the fictional product placement around the tracks. The color and activity. In the background of the — THOOM — above screenshot is a milling crowd I’d never noticed. Even the interface before you’re into the game proper is beautiful. The animated folders for the — THOOM — Fury add-on. The icons for each individual track on the game settings screen. Wipeout has always been an aesthetic feast.<\/p>\n

I had also forgotten that every race seems to take place over an underground mining colony hard at work with their, I dunno, rock pounders<\/em> or whatever they’ve got that makes such a racket. I’ve never seen them, but by golly I can hear them. THOOM. Erratic but constant, deep and resonant. It drove me crazy. I never understood it. A perfectly sublime game — THOOM — ruined by its inexplicable proximity to invisible industrial machinery. Surely that can’t be how the game is supposed to sound. Was it some problem with my sound set up, maybe a — THOOM — crossed wire sending the wrong signals to my subwoofer? I even asked other players if they noticed it. No one knew what I was talking about. Like the pipes that heated my college dorm*, I learned to live with it.<\/p>\n

Until now.<\/p>\n

After the jump, the mystery of — THOOM — Wipeout HD’s pounding diversion solved<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me during all the time I’ve played Wipeout previously. But this time, I wondered if maybe it was something I was doing<\/em>. Hitting the walls? No. I do plenty of that, and the consequences are dire, but not quite so booming. Perhaps the air brake? No. The thrust? No. Wait. Maybe. Could it be? Yes. <\/p>\n

That deep boom corresponds exactly with me pressing down on the thrust button. <\/p>\n

There’s a slight delay, as if it takes a moment to kick in. What’s more, I can even see the exhaust flame on my ship light up. That’s the noise these sleek sexy hovercrafts make when you apply the thrust? It’s odd out-of-place sound design thump in an otherwise sexy game. I would expect maybe a roar or a hiss or a whoosh or a TIE Fighter scream, but a boom? A deep resonant rock pounder boom? This hearty Norse thump, like someone swining Mjolnir one valley over? From now on, I will endeavor to just hold down the accelerate button at all times.<\/p>\n

But at least now I know there aren’t any secret mining colonies under these lovely tracks.<\/p>\n

A few miscellaneous notes:<\/p>\n

I didn’t remember is the importance of the pilot assist feature. After racing a few times and failing miserably, I swallowed my pride and activated the pilot assist. Egads, what a difference! Why would you ever play with it off? It certainly boosts the challenge level when you have to avoid hitting the walls so carefully, but the pilot assist lopped several seconds off my course times, which is crucial to winning medals and progressing the single-player races. But I can’t quite bring myself to think of pilot assist the way I think of assist features in other driving games, where the added challenge of going assist-less is part of simulating actual driving. I have no comparable desire to simulate actual hovercraft racing. What’s more, it’s absolute folly to compete against people using pilot assist unless you’re also using the pilot assist feature. I found that out the hard way. <\/p>\n

Zone battles are so good. What an excellent risk\/reward mechanic in a competitive environment. In fact, I was less impressed with how the straight-up weapons battles hold up. The new modes in the Fury add-on are really worth exploring. Also, you never accelerate in zone battles, because the point is that you’re always accelerating. Which means no thoom sound effects.<\/p>\n

I still love these different vehicles, for their unique handling characteristics, for their basic design, and for all these gorgeous unlockable skins. Wipeout remains an absolute triumph of sci-fi design and gameplay.<\/p>\n

No sign of a State Farm Insurance ad during the loading screens! Or any ad, for that matter. Whatever shenanigans Sony pulled by selling ad space on a game I’d already paid to play, they apparently thought better of it. Good call, Sony.<\/p>\n

* If you’ve never heard the erratic clanging pipes of an old heating system, it’s pretty unbelievable. It sounds like someone in the basement whacking the plumbing with a giant wrench. A visiting friend crashed in my dorm room one night. After the lights were off, from his sleeping bag on the floor, he asked, “What is<\/em> that?”<\/h5>\n
“They’re doing work on the fire escape,” I deadpanned.<\/h5>\n
“Oh.”<\/h5>\n
Because, really, that’s exactly what it sounded like.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games"],"yoast_head":"\nWipeout HD mystery solved at last - Quarter to Three<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2011\/10\/10\/wipeout-hd-mystery-solved-at-last\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wipeout HD mystery solved at last - Quarter to Three\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2011\/10\/10\/wipeout-hd-mystery-solved-at-last\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Quarter to Three\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-10T22:34:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Wipeout_HD_THOOM.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Chick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tom Chick\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/10\\\/wipeout-hd-mystery-solved-at-last\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/10\\\/wipeout-hd-mystery-solved-at-last\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Tom Chick\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6a609bd1629ebbc177fb1d4839f5db3f\"},\"headline\":\"Wipeout HD mystery solved at last\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-10-10T22:34:23+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/10\\\/wipeout-hd-mystery-solved-at-last\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":847,\"commentCount\":6,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/10\\\/wipeout-hd-mystery-solved-at-last\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/Wipeout_HD_THOOM.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Games\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/10\\\/wipeout-hd-mystery-solved-at-last\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/10\\\/wipeout-hd-mystery-solved-at-last\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/10\\\/wipeout-hd-mystery-solved-at-last\\\/\",\"name\":\"Wipeout HD mystery solved at last - 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