Those who know me know I like WipeOut. I mean I really like WipeOut. I love the graphics, the handling, the sleek, minimalist aesthetic, the consistently fantastic and bang on trend soundtracks, the lot.
It’s responsible for a lot of snap decisions to buy a
console that in the past have wound up being pretty fruitful. I decided on a Playstation
when I first played WipeOut 2097 at a school friend's house and it’s a decision I feel I will never regret. Mainly because Wip3Out came out two years later and glued itself into my disc tray. To a lesser extent, the
same goes for WipeOut Fusion for the PS2, which I never really mastered, and WipeOut HD on the PS3, which I most certainly have mastered.
Recently I tried WipeOut HD in 3D and I was sold instantly.
After years of scepticism over 3D cinema, suddenly it made sense. Somehow there
wasn’t even any of the ghosting which puts me off seeing a 3D film at the
cinema. It was smooth as silk. Vineta K looked beautiful as it stretched into the distance, and watching my quake disruptor disappear into the screen was just incredible Admittedly one race at Rapier Class did completely fry my retinas and
melt my brain, but I was so blown away, I told myself I could get used to it. I
probably couldn’t, and I'm yet to try a Zone race, but I can't help myself. I get such a buzz out of WipeOut that it just makes my mind susceptible to a dumb idea or two.
WipeOut suckered me into buying a PSP. And while I love
WipeOuts Pure and Pulse, a lot of the games on that system never really did
it justice, even though I built up a fairly decent sized library of games. On
release of the PS Vita, Sony nearly got me again. My local Game store had a
demo unit running Wipeout 2048. It was beautiful. It was awesome. And holding the Vita gave me cramp, but I still wanted a
Vita there and then, and I very nearly bought one, but I'm an adult now and I can be objective when that amount of money is going to fly away from my bank account. I took a step back and
had a look at what other games the system had to offer, and with the exception
of Uncharted: Golden Abyss, the answer was none.
There was next to nothing on the Vita on release that
screamed, “BUY ME,” apart from those two games, and even now, it feels like
most of the games on it are home console conversions. Don’t get me wrong,
conversions are nice, but I already have them to play on my big screen at home,
where games like that belong. With the exception of Gravity Rush, there is
still nothing on the Vita that makes me want to own one, and I can’t abandon my
sanity and spend that much on one to play three games. I made that mistake with
the PSP. I don’t need another slab of plastic gathering dust on my games shelf.
I know it’s been said already, but this is an issue Sony really needs to address. A system lives
and dies on the standard of its games, and it seems that everyone, publishers,
developers, consumers, everyone, is ignoring the Vita. Without the games, the Vita
will go the way of the 3DO. And even if we do see some unmissable content
arrive for Vita, with the way its life has started, it could go the way of the
Dreamcast instead. Loved by the few, ignored by the many.
So this goes out to Sony. I want a Vita, I really do, but I
can’t justify buying one yet. Not until you give us games that only Vita can
do. Games like Tearaway. If there were more like that, I’d buy one tomorrow.
Another Wipeout might help too.
No comments:
Post a Comment