The Wipeout series, which began on the original PSX, was heralded for it's thumping techno-industrial soundtrack, slick and stylish designs and intense futuristic racing action. The sequel, Wipeout XL, took the same formula and amped it up another notch. The game's developers then changed hands at Wip3out 3 and the end result suffered a bit. Wipeout Fusion, the first in the series to make the jump to next generation consoles, was an amazing roller coaster ride which took the series in a slightly different direction. And now we have arrived at the latest installment in the series, Wipeout Pure for the PSP. With Pure, SCEA took the best elements of XL and Fusion and put together what could be the best Wipeout title in the series, and as a result, a must have launch game for the PSP.

Playing Wipeout Pure on the large, crisp PSP screen is a thing of beauty. Visually, the game is damn gorgeous. An excellent, silky smooth framerate, impressive textures, and even better lighting and weather effects. The tracks and environments are interesting and pretty amazing to look at -- almost to the point of being distracting at the beginning. When you play your very first game on the first course, and start out in the detailed grandstand area before plunging into a twisty undersea tunnel, it's hard to realize you are playing this on a portable game system. As is the norm for the series, the designs of the ships/teams, the game interface and the courses are pretty exceptional and stylish, though I think I may still prefer the hovercraft designs found in XL.

Sound has always been an important part of the series as well, and Wipeout Pure's music selection lives up to the past installments. Music is all high energy, industrial-style techno and electronica from real artists and it fits the game like a glove. The music is not tied in with either the courses or the team you choose, but rather the entire soundtrack can be toggled to play randomly or sequentially. I wish there were more tracks (it doesn't take long to hear them all), but it's all impressively CD quality and mostly memorable. Again, I think I like Wipeout XL's a bit better, but the selection is still really good. The sounds effects, along with the robotic female co-pilot voice, both also work perfectly with the game.

The gameplay is really where Wipeout Pure is at, and Wipeout fans will not be disappointed. There are some minor changes in the gameplay system, but the core elements are in place. Like before, the zero gravity racing action takes place on 16 courses (12 new, 4 classic) of ever-increasing difficulty and complexity. The courses are really well designed and are less flat then XL's and less twisty than Fusion's. The environments are all futuristic and take place in a variety of locations, indoor and out, including underwater tunnels, snowy mountains, dark techno cityscapes, rainy clouds, and beyond. Each course is interesting, with a number of landmarks and cool environmental and weather effects. The tracks are littered with power-up and boost pads, and there are a number of jumps, splits, inclines/declines, banked turns and a variety of other features. As for controls, the setup is pretty standard for this type of game. The digital or analog pad steers and adjusts the pitch of the ship's nose; The L and R buttons control the airbrakes, which are utilized for leaning into turns or slowing down; The X button controls acceleration; The Square activates weapons/items; the Triangle provides a rear view, and finally the O "absorbs" the weapon/item you are in possession of in exchange for more energy. In addition to the momentary rear view camera, the view can be adjusted from far, to near, to inside using the Select button. I found the analog stick to be a little overly sensitive with the game, but the digital pad worked great. You'll definitely be bouncing off the walls at first, until at least you get used to the anti-grav physics and how to use the airbrake system.

Wipeout Pure drops the whole "energy recharge lane" as found in the earlier titles and games like F-Zero for the aforementioned absorb system. This definitely speeds the pace of the game up, as there is never a need to slow down and veer off course into the pit to recharge when damaged. Another gameplay feature that veterans will find new is the "barrel roll" boost move when launching off a jump. By tapping left-right-left or right-left-right while in mid air, you can gain an instant speed boost when landing. This costs a litle bit of your ship's energy, but can provide an invaluable boost at just the right time (there's never really a wrong time). You can arm yourself with weapons and items that can be picked up while racing along the tracks, and they are randomly selected like in previous Wipeout games. Most of the classic pickups, such as shields, auto-pilot, mines, energy blasts, homing missiles, and of course, the infamous track quake are included in Pure. You can only hold a single item at a time, and in order to pick up another it needs to be used or absorbed.

The A.I. in Wipeout Pure is fairly smart, but becomes ultra competitive at higher classes. It's nice to see the enemy racers take each other out and not just solely focus on you. There's thankfully not much rubberband action happening, and if you take a huge lead, it's usually possible to keep it if you continue on or improve your pace.

The game's single player modes are mostly standard fare, though Tournament is where you'll spend most of your time. As you would expect, it's a set of courses and classes of increasing difficulty. The better you do in the rankings, the more tracks and classes you unlock, along with additional ships, powerups and courses. The only other single player mode that stands out is the Zone mode. You race on four custom-built tracks where your ship will constantly accelerate and the ship's top speed increases every 10 seconds. The goal is to last as long as possible. Unfortunately, I was not able to test the multiplayer capabilities. The game only supports the local Ad-Hoc WiFi mode (for up to 6 players) and no one else local to me has the game. If it supported the Infrastructure mode and allowed wireless online play (like Twisted Metal, NBA and Gretzky), that would have been an awesome addition. As it is, the single player modes will keep you pretty busy for a while.

There's not much bad to say about the game. People who hate this type of racing game, or the entire racing genre in general, will probably not be converted. I'm sure they'll enjoy looking at the amazing visuals though, and at least take a few laps around each course just to sightsee. The one major problem? The game's initial load time. It's long, a bit too long. Most of the game structure and data is probably loaded into memory at that point, and after the game gets going, the load times become much more acceptable. This is where the PSP's incredibly useful sleep mode comes in handy. When you turn the PSP off while playing any game, the state of the game, including the exact position that everything is in, is saved. It's literally frozen in time. You can simply turn the PSP back on, days later, and continue instantly where you left off. As long as you don't play another game in between, or exit the game, you'll never have to deal with the annoying initial load times again. Which in theory, will probably never happen.

If you a solid playing, great looking racing game or just want something to show off your PSP, you can't go wrong with Wipeout Pure.