WipEout HD Q&A Feature

Without doubt one of the brands synonymous with PlayStation (despite early co-appearances on SEGA Saturn, Nintendo 64 and PC), WipEout jumped onto the gaming world in the mid-1990s with high-speed racing, stylish designs from The Designers Republic, and a soundtrack that included The Chemical Brothers, Leftfield, and Orbital. Continuing the success on PSone with WipEout 2097 and WipEout 3, the franchise took something of a negative turn on PlayStation 2 with the delayed release of WipEout Fusion in 2002 - the only title in the series to launch on Sony's 120 million unit console.

Since then, WipEout has found a new home on PSP, with the successful Pure and the upcoming launch of Pulse. Building on the newfound resurgence on the handheld, WipEout is finally coming home with the impending launch of WipEout HD on PlayStation 3, an amalgamation of tracks from both Pure and Pulse, all restored to full 1080p visuals together with a host of additional features.

TVG caught up with SCE Liverpool Studio's Lead Designer Colin Berry to discuss the PlayStation Network title, and whether it serves as a stepping stone for a future 'true' PS3 WipEout...

TVG: WipEout HD takes tracks from WipEout Pure and Pulse - how many are there from each title?

Of the eight tracks that we're working on six are from Pure and two are from Pulse. The two from Pulse have the new Mag-Strip feature that allows the ship to go upside down.

TVG: And you're planning on adding to that with Downloadable Content after launch?

We will be doing Downloadable Content, hopefully that will include a mix of re-visiting old tracks from previous iterations and also new tracks, but that's all to be confirmed.

TVG: Will this be the future for WipEout as a franchise, or is HD a bridge towards getting - and I don't mean this to sound derogatory - a 'true' PlayStation 3 instalment into development?

At the moment we're fully focused on WipEout HD via PlayStation Network, and that is where all our attention is going - beyond that, I can't say.

TVG: The Designers Republic had a hand with creating the visual style of the original few WipEouts...

Design Republic worked on the first three...

...but SCE Liverpool has continued to develop that style in house since then?

Yeah, we do all the assets in house now.

TVG: WipEout is also renowned for its soundtracks - will the music for HD be taken from Pure and Pulse too?

There are nine tracks from WipEout Pulse in the game - but the only one that I can remember off the top of my head is Kraftwerk (chuckles).

TVG: It seems that WipEout Pure and Pulse have been the stepping stones to getting the series onto PlayStation 3...

In essence, yeah. It was never planned that way. We did WipEout Pure because we felt it would make a good handheld game, and then we did Pulse because Pure was successful, and there was more we wanted to do that we couldn't fit into Pure because it was a launch title and we didn't have the time for certain aspects. We've put things into Pulse like Internet play, and the ship skinning - that kind of thing - so WipEout HD became the next logical step really. Because we've done Downloadable Content for both Pure and Pulse, then the thought of making the game [WipEout HD] downloadable over PlayStation Network was there.

TVG: Some of the skins for the ships in WipEout Pure were sponsored by the likes of Coca-Cola; are there plans for similar deals in WipEout HD?

Currently there's no sponsorship deals for WipEout Pulse - I don't know about WipEout HD. That's a question for the marketing side than the design side to be honest, but I couldn't say either way. One year down the line if we're still supporting Downloadable Content, [it could be] yes or no to that.

TVG: SCE Liverpool are currently looking into adding SIXAXIS motion support to the control system in WipEout HD. Since the game is such a high tempo racer, is the controller sensitive enough to cope with the demands?

At the fastest speeds, that's one of the things that we're having to sort out. It's not an easy job - we supported it in our F1 game, so we know that we're going to support it in some way, whether it ends up being linked to the airbrakes or the weapon firing, or barrel-rolls, or even just the pitch of the ship. The speed and the handling of the ships is very precise and refined, so it's a lot of work to look into. It gives us a lot of options; we have six different control systems in the game at the moment that we're researching, prototyping, and testing.

TVG: And will Multiplayer be restricted to online gameplay, or will there be an option for offline split-screen racing?

It won't be split-screen. Because it's 1080p and sixty frames per second, split-screen becomes very difficult to do within in the time scale. Plus we factored in that because people have to be online to download it, then they'll likely use multiplayer over the internet.

TVG: Going back to whether WipEout HD will bridge the gap between the PSP versions and a retail edition of WipEout on PlayStation 3; WipEout Fusion didn't accomplish what fans expected...

That's one way of putting it...

TVG: ...well for various reasons it didn't realise the expectations for either the team or fans. Do you think that WipEout HD is part of a 'healing' process to getting the franchise back on track with a home console?

In a way, yeah. I worked on Fusion for the last year [of its development]. I think that it's fair to say, as we've said before, that it wasn't the game we'd hope it would be. Then we took it [the WipEout franchise] to PSP, worked it, looked at the previous iterations to make it, and this [WipEout HD] is just a natural progression to getting it onto PS3. It's a full game, but it's also focused on Downloadable Content after launch.

TVG: Well I think that Pure and Pulse have taken the franchise back to where it should be...

It's nice - I'm really proud of what we did on Pure because we had to do a launch title, and we worked our socks off to get it out on time. Pulse is a proper sequel with new tracks, content, and features, but it's also refining things that we maybe weren't happy with in Pure. Then there's this (motioning towards a flat screen TV with WipEout HD playing); it feels nice with the controller and the big screen. I love the PSP, I'm a big fan of handheld gaming and playing on the PSP - I like playing WipEout on it, but playing WipEout on this with the analogue airbrakes, which only went in last week, it's nice. It's really easy to mess WipEout up...

TVG: After working on single-core development, how has the team managed in a multi-core environment like PlayStation 3?

Well I'm not exactly sure because I'm a designer (laughs). The fortunate thing is that we did F1 in our studio on PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PSP at the same time with the same team. So the guys are pretty experienced, and the team we've got have worked on WipEout, F1, and they're making the most out of the PS3.

TVG: One last question - Microsoft has managed to strike a deal that will see Rare bring Viva Pinata to Nintendo DS; what are the chances that Sony will allow SCEE Liverpool to work on a port of WipEout 64 for Wii's Virtual Console?

I have absolutely no idea - that's a question that's been asked by fans - but I have no idea on that one.

TVG would like to thank Colin Berry for taking time out to answer our questions on WipEout. The PlayStation Network title is due for release before the end of the year.