WipEout is an excellent target to aim for, but rarely do attempts at recapturing the series' magic get it right. Unfortunately, that's the case with Antigraviator, a newly released, high speed, anti-gravity racing game. It features a handful of different customisable ships to pilot through a few different race types, and swaps out weapon pick-ups for traps that remind us of Split/Second: Velocity's environmental takedowns. Sadly, even this gimmick doesn't do enough to make the game stand out.
It plays roughly as you'd expect, and rough is the word. While the ships are responsive to your inputs and it's ultra-fast, you're traveling at such speeds that turning becomes almost impossible without hitting the barriers. You can use an air brake and barrel rolls to make tighter turns and adjustments, but even then you're still going to be grinding along those outer walls; if you have difficulty with WipEout, forget Antigraviator. Even the AI struggles to fly a clean lap. The aforementioned traps are pretty much unavoidable, and difficult to trigger against opponents because you'll fly by them so fast.
Online is unfortunately a ghost town, but you can at least play locally with two-player split screen. The game runs relatively well, even if the visuals are rough around the edges. The game ends up feeling uninspired, and probably won't hold your attention for long, no matter how quickly you hurtle around its twisting tracks. With WipEout Omega Collection and other superior contemporaries available, it's very difficult to recommend this.
Comments 9
Ouch. While I'm usually the first to dump on another WipEout pretender, I was quite interested seeing it pop up on the store. Shame it's a dud.
@quintumply is the high speed there from the off, or does it build up as you progress?
@KALofKRYPTON It’s very fast right off the bat.
Pacer seems to be the one imitator that has a legit shot at capturing the old wipEout magic.
@quintumply Bit of a silly decision that.
@doctommaso I hadn't heard of Pacer. Just had a look. It does look nice, but unfortunately just looks like another 'not as good as WipEout' WipEout clone. With Omega Collection being essentially perfect it's difficult to see why they bother other than for the PC players.
With so many dev's seeming to have a taste for futuristic racers these days, it's a shame noone has picked up the Xtreme-G IP. The first two games were crap, but XGIII and XGRA especially were fantastic.
Having bikes alone sets it apart from WipEout enough without having to come up with non-WipEout like mechanics to differentiate from the king.
And just because I feel like I haven't said it enough - WipEout!
@KALofKRYPTON Yeah, I am a big fan of the old wipEouts, and I like Omega Collection quite a bit. The thing is, these latter wipEouts do not feature designs from Designer's Republic (which did the original ones), but DR is reportedly a part of Pacer's design. So Pacer is probably closer to true wipEout than Omega Collection visually. Also, I'm hoping Pacer is slightly easier, like the older wipEouts, as the newer ones definitely require more effort (and as an older gamer, I have less time to race tracks over and over).
@doctommaso They'd gone by Fusion I think (which is second only to WipEout 64 in the 'meh' stakes).
2048 and it's bits in Omega are a little easier - the tracks are generally wider than normal - but the rest of Omega is mostly what was in HD/Fury - which was mostly taken from Pure and Pulse anyway, which did get involving very quickly.
With Antigraviator, and a lot of pretenders - it seems that speed is something that they're keen to emphasise. Pacer also looks pretty quick, but it doesn't look like it handles all that well.
@KALofKRYPTON That's concerning about Pacer... guess we'll find out.
I completed HD, and I believe 2048 is a little harder, although it might just be that I have less patience now. Fury I didn't play a whole lot yet.
@doctommaso
Bit of info on Pacer, a YouTube chanel I watch (Team VVV) that covers racing games have had some hands on. Said (rather unenthusiastically) that it doesn't feel like WipEout.
I didn't realise that it's what's become of Formula Fusion, which I'd forgotten about entirely!
@KALofKRYPTON Appreciate the info.; I guess it looks like a pass. Back to more wipEout then.
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