Crack No Cd Wipeout 2097 Playstation

“It’s only really many years later when you have the benefit of hindsight that you look at the idea, the art direction, the soundtrack, the platform and it’s all just perfect timing. Those moments don’t come along very often.” – Nick Burcombe, co-creator, WipEout (1995) WipEout hit 1995 with the force of an earthquake. Its sci-fi vision of armed anti-grav craft battling it out at 1,2000kph for gold and glory on twisting, vertigo-inducing race tracks couldn’t have been further removed from the quintessentially English pub in which it was conceived. Yet it felt perfectly in sync with the world it roared into like a supercharged sci-fi colossus.

Type: Games There were no working versions of this game on the net and 'Nobody which was the only way I could play this and later. WipeoutZone Forum The Games WipEout XL / 2097 WIPEOUT 2097 WORKING SPEED PATCH [NO SLOW play the game at the a PSX cd of 2097/XL. Free wipeout cd soundtrack. For some reason there is no music in Wipeout 2097 on the lr-pcsx-rearmed core. You need to make sure your audio files are merged in your.bin and the cue file points to all the right tracks. I only have one BIN file that the CUE file points to, which means all of the audio tracks are contained within that one BIN.

Birthed in Liverpool, England and deployed on PS One’s bleeding edge tech, WipEout dropped into the eye of a raging cultural storm that was gripping the United Kingdom. Yet while it embodied the zeitgeist of ‘Cool Britannia’ – a celebration of the country’s beautiful collision of movies, music, art, club culture – its impact wasn’t restricted by geography. Cool Britannia’s epicentre was the British Isles. WipEout’s was anywhere a PlayStation was hooked up to a TV.

How the Future of Racing Started in an English Pub WipEout was the child of a concept pitch and a vivid memory. The two met in a pub just outside Liverpool in the early ’90s, introduced by a pair of Psygnosis developers – designer Nick Burcombe and artist Jim Bowers. The drinking establishment was a regular haunt for studio staff of which Bowers and Burcombe were two.

They’d regularly meet and bounce ideas of each other. Years earlier, Bowers had created a concept movie of two wedged ships dogfighting along a race track, firing missiles at one another before soaring round a huge loop. He’d showed it to Burcombe, who recalled the footage when regaling Bowers with a story of how he’d overcome a particularly difficult race in Super Mario Kart by turning the TV’s volume off and cranking up a trance track (‘Age of Love’ by Age of Love) on his hi-fi. “I had a zen moment were everything flowed perfectly,” remembers Burcombe. That sense of exhilaration as the music reached its peak as he crossed the finish line “was the moment I knew I wanted to make a game that did that to you.” He envisioned doing the same to Bowers’ concept, setting the piece to a Liam Howlett cover of surf track ‘Wipe Out’ that broke out into the Prodigy’s ‘No Good’. “I think that was the moment we could both see immediately what the game could be,” Nick says. “Even if it was in our slightly sozzled minds’ eye.” The concept was gold.

But there were two other key elements that helped turn the concept into reality. How the CD-ROM and the Movie Hackers Made WipEout a Reality In the early ’90s Psygnosis was making inroads in two key areas. Alongside researching CD-ROM technology on the belief it’d soon be the next big shift in the industry, its Advanced Technology Group art team were getting to grips with 3D modelling. The result was a pair of arcade shooters, Microcosm and Novastorm (the latter, designed from scratch by Burcombe, offered a heavier emphasis on sci-fi). Unbeknownst to Psygnosis, Sony’s PlayStation console would also use the technology. Impressed by the studio’s output, Sony would soon buy the studio outright and put it to work creating a game for its debut games machine.

At the same time, Sony Pictures approached the studio to create a gameplay sequence for a scene in its movie Hackers. Bowers and Burcombe saw their chance to solidify the idea born from their recent pub conversation. A tight deadline meant there couldn’t be any fat, and the pair raced to refine their initial idea. Burcombe focused on vertigo-inducing track design while Bowers added pop-up walls that could be shot to access new sections of the level. Their work paid off. So impressed by the concept, when the studio took delivery of its first PSone development kits, Burcombe was put in charge of creating its debut title.

“I think [my boss John White] and Jimmy knew I had something in my head that I wanted to get out,” Nick theorises. Tracks, Setting, and the Feel of Anti-grav Initial focus was on perfecting track design. Trackside details, the game’s overall tone and theme were secondary.

“I was much more concerned with the length of straight, steepness of elevation, frequency of undulations and the tightness or camber of chicanes and corners,” says Burcombe. The designer also had a clear idea about the weapons pilots could use during the races, stating that everything initially designed made it into the final game. The 2052 setting was picked because of its relative proximity to the modern day. Close enough to relate to (“it should still be recognisable. An arbitrary date – like 3231AD – would mean nothing to me”) but still offer a tantalising glimpse into future tech such as anti-gravity, which would be the cornerstone of WipEout’s feel.

“For some bizarre reason, I’d use vocal sound effects to really emphasise the weight of something or the inertia and drift,” recalls Burcombe of trying to convey the feeling of anti-grav to the rest of the team. “So I’d have to say it is a testament to the programming team who actually understood what I was trying to achieve.” How the Iconic Soundtrack Emerged You can’t talk WipEout without discussing its soundtrack. At a time when licenced music was a rarity in the industry, it was a combination of Sony’s extra marketing heft – specifically tapping into Sony’s music label – and an early demo of the game that secured the title’s first artist. Burcombe headed to London to meet Phil and Paul Hartnol – better known as dance outfit Orbital. “We got talking about [the demo we showed them] and they were really enthused.They took us down to the studio to play me a track they had called P.ET.R.O.L.

After some remixing and reworking – this track actually ended up on the disc. I think once that contact had been made, it was easier to get some others.” Leftfield and The Chemical Brothers soon followed, and the game’s success greenlit further collaborations in sequels with the likes of FSOL, Fluke, Underworld, Prodigy, Photek and more. “It was a who’s who of the ’90s dance scene,” Nick says as he runs down the artist list. Restarting the Project and Finishing the Game Yet despite discussing the initial concept at length and fine-tuning it before full production began, creating a fully textured, real-time 3D game proved challenging, to the point that at one stage, the team had to restart the entire project, rethinking its approach to its production and programming pipeline.

“There was a moment when Ken Kutaragi came to the Liverpool studio and left believing we couldn’t make our launch dates,” Nick reveals. “But that was like a red rag to a bull for a team that had already worked very hard on it.

The final few months of WipEout’s development was extraordinary, and I think being there for the European launch was a monumental achievement.” “Looking back on it now, if it was just reverse psychology – it worked,” Burcombe admits. Even when discussion shifts to the game’s launch, and acknowledgment of the fact that WipEout was on every early adopters’ wishlist come the PS One launch night at the studio’s local HMV, in typical developer fashion Burcombe mainly remembers the less enthusiastic critical responses.

“We were reading the 7s more than the 9s and nodding about the things that could be improved. It really focused our attention on what we needed to achieve for a sequel.” After celebrating its success the team rolled up its sleeves and immediately started work on the next entry: WipEout 2097. The Price of WipEout 2097 In the original game, weapons were deployed only to slow the competition down, give you time to overtake. In 1997 follow-up WipEout 2097, the studio introduced ship energy bars, meaning competitor – and player – ships could be destroyed if you didn’t recharge via trackside pit lanes. It added a new layer of strategy to races; WipEout’s version of F1 tyre changes mid-race. Ships would now scrape up against walls, sparks flying, rather than coming to abrupt halt.

While the original’s difficulty had its fans – including XDev’s John McLaughlin (“This is also why it is loved so much,” he says. “Once mastered you become one with the handling model, zipping through tracks, bounding over boost pads”) – the team wanted to make a more rewarding experience. But the development turnaround proved creatively tough. Coming directly off finishing the original, the studio now had just less than eight months to develop and release the sequel. Despite 2097 bettering the original in every way, some of the original staff needed a break.

As a third game went into production, Burcombe became a bystander to the franchise’s future. Nick eventually left Psygnosis – or Studio Liverpool as it was rebranded – to form his own independent label, PlayRise, and work on mobile turned console racer, Table Top Racing. “I was able to stand back and watch as WipEout 3 launched, then Fusion on PS2 and then the PSP, PS3 and PS Vita versions.” But he remains upbeat about seeing the series continue without him. “Watching it evolve from afar has been great and I know so many of the people who have worked on all these different versions – improving and building on it each time.” “I think it’s one of those games that actually conveys something of the team in it. It is a game with a soul and I think people get that,” Burcombe concludes.

“The ideas, the graphic design, the music and the PlayStation all combined to make it perfect for that moment in time.” The Origin of WipEout Omega Collection “It’s a unique game; there’s nothing else like it. It defined a generation.” – John McLaughlin, XDev, Omega Collection December 2016, Anaheim, California. A packed auditorium’s roars are only emboldened as the tease of a bass-heavy electronica track kicking in merges with stunning HD visuals to confirm WipEout is returning. The Omega Collection couples PS3’s fan favorite tag-team of WipEout HD and Fury to PS Vita’s WipEout 2048 for an upgraded, remastered package on PlayStation 4. It’s a welcome surprise for fans. For John XDev’s McLaughlin – one of those lifelong franchise fans and brainchild behind WipEout’s rebirth – “it seemed a simple and obvious choice” to bring the series back.

Though he admits it couldn’t be his decision alone, he made sure he was in the best possible position when pitching the idea. “I managed to pry [WipEout HD’s] codebase from IT and got it over to Hustle Kings developer EPOS”. Together with CEO and programmer Staffan, McLaughlin worked out how they could conceivably make a PS4 remaster happen and worked up a timeline for development. To achieve it, they’d have to reach out to Clever Beans studio (When Vikings Attack) to partner with.

The pitch worked. WipEout was on its way back. The original plan, according to McLaughlin, was just to work on the HD/Fury package. “But very early on in development we looked at the 2048 code,” he explains. The PS Vita launch title is the most recent entry into the franchise, but its fiction provided a glimpse into an earlier era of the Anti-Grav Racing League.

“We thought it would be great to bring all of the tracks and ships from that game too.” Artwork was reworked, details added. SFX was totally remastered. Split-screen was coded in – a first for the previously handheld only 2048 – and a couple of nods to the classic era added (“we set about bringing back a couple of defunct teams from yesteryear and brought back Tigron and Van Uber teams.”). And today, some months short of WipEout’s 21st anniversary, the futuristic racing franchise is reborn on PS4. Back in 1995 there wasn’t anything like WipEout.

In 2017, there still isn’t. Your favorite race track from the franchise While Burcombe has the very first WipEout track, Altima VII, as a highlight (“I purposely put it first so you get that “wow” moment from the rollercoaster style downhill section”), it’s pipped by the game’s later course Arridos. “It has a brilliant flow to it,” he remembers. Public Transport Service Corporation more. “There’s some insane airborne shortcutting and great air-brake drift corners too. I also love that it looks carved into the landscape; the location seems plausible.” For McLaughlin, it’s a pair of Sols – Sol2 from HD and Sol from 2048 – that are closest to his heart. “I love being thousands of feet in the air, zipping along at 1200KPH knowing I can fall off the edge at any moment.

Real seat of your pants stuff!” Your favorite WipEout team Maybe because it’s the default team come the ship selection menu of every WipEout, but both Burcombe and McLaughlin favour the Federal European Institute of Science and Research, better known under their acronym, FEISAR. Though McLaughlin “has some affection” for Triakis, Burcombe points out the story behind FEISAR’s naming may be why it’s his only choice. “It was a bit of a political joke. The UK had just signed the Maastricht Treaty in ’92 and it was a sort of prediction on where the UK and EU might be heading.” Your favorite music track Despite not making its WipEout debut until 1997 sequel 2097, Prodigy and dance classic Firestarter is what immediately comes to mind for both men. “It’s embedded in everyone’s brain,” Burcombe sums up simply.

“Even though the version in [WipEout 2097] is the instrumental, it’s so engrained in the UK psyche, your mind just fills in Liam’s incredible vocal without even thinking about it.” Your favorite piece of fan appreciation Much as WipEout is a unique melting pot of near-future techand killer tracks, so too is fan love spread across mediums, styles and disciplines. Burcombe points to seeing WipEout tattoos (“it blows my mind that its influence is strong, they felt the need to etch it into their skin forever”) but also that he “still gets regular emails” from fans thanking him for getting them into PlayStation, dance music or becoming DJs themselves.

For McLaughlin though, a homage to the in-fiction ships wins out. “.” Celebrate WipEout Omega Collection’s launch with its iconic art and music Listen to on Spotify, and crank up the volume for a curated tracklist of the franchise’s best track from previous entries in our new. Check out 25 stunning pieces of unseen WipEout artwork from across the franchise’s history.

By Published We originally ran this piece last December, as one of a series of features to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the PS1's launch in Japan. But of course, WipEout was actually released much later as part of the European launch line-up, so we're republishing this piece today, exactly 20 years since both the game - and the console that hosted it - were finally released in Europe. Namco's demonstrated the power of the original PlayStation when it released alongside the console at the Japanese launch, 20 years ago.

But for many - especially in the West - it is WipEout that is synonymous with the arrival of Sony's debut gaming hardware. Psygnosis' futuristic racer wasn't just a technological showcase for the new 3D era in console gaming, it was more than that - it was the game that made PlayStation cool for the more mainstream gamer without alienating the core. Today, Sony's Dominic Mallinson is Vice President of Research and Development at SCEA, working on research, SDK, system software and some hardware development. Most recently, his team worked on the Project Morpheus prototype. However, 20 years ago, he was getting to grips with the original PlayStation hardware, developing WipEout first as lead programmer, then as producer. 'At the time, I was working in Psygnosis' Advanced Technology Group and we'd been developing on new CD-ROM platforms like 3DO, CD32 and FM Towns,' Mallinson says. 'But none of those platforms really did 3D graphics and so when we first saw the demos for PSX, we were blown away.

For us the exciting thing was the combination of a formidable polygon rendering GPU with the special GTE coprocessor that accelerated 3D geometry and lighting. The SPU audio processing, the MDEC and the CD-ROM were the icing on the cake.' In terms of timelines, Psygnosis was a Sony-owned company from 1993, with the PlayStation launching in December the following year. However, access to hardware was limited. Mallinson attended technical hands-on meetings in December 1993, recalling that actual hardware arrived in the Liverpool office in spring 1994, with full production on WipEout kicking off some time in the second half of 1994 ('I could be off a little'). 'The hardware was super-strong and relatively well balanced. The SPU audio processing was amazing for its time.

The GTE was very powerful once we figured out how to access it at the low-level. Memory size was a challenge but nothing unusual for the day,' Mallinson notes. 'I recall our initial problems were with the development tools which required some weird Sony NEWS workstation and had very little in the way of debug features. Once SN systems fixed that, next issues were with early builds on the Operating System, which didn't quite deliver what we needed.' PlayStation vs Saturn. Imagine a scenario where key PlayStation first-party exclusives were licensed to appear on competing console hardware.

It's unthinkable now, but that's exactly what happened back in the 90s, when WipEout and its sequel were actually released on the Sega Saturn. Neither port could match the quality of the original PlayStation versions, but it's a wonder that they actually existed at all. 'Psygnosis was a Sony-owned company from 1993, so the Saturn game development all happened under Sony's oversight - and yes there were a lot of politics surrounding that which I didn't get involved with,' recalls Dominic Mallinson. 'As for WipEout on Saturn, our team really didn't do much directly with the Saturn version of WipEout. I recall we handed pretty much everything off to Perfect Entertainment. Of course we were aware of the technology behind Saturn and while it did have a lot of powerful components, it was very complicated to get them all to work together whereas the PlayStation was a much cleaner architecture and a lot easier to get at the performance.' Sega Saturn may not have enjoyed the success of the PlayStation, but it played host to some phenomenal games of the time in an era where first-party exclusives were much more numerous.

In fact, while the WipEout titles weren't included in their number, some multi-platform games - Duke Nukem 3D, for example - actually enjoyed better conversions on the Sega machine. Not that one of the Saturn conversion's key developers has much love for the system.

'The Saturn was really an insane abortion,' Ex- coder Ezra Dreisbach told us. 'The graphics hardware was made by guys that obviously wanted to just keep developing 2D hardware and tried to avoid learning anything about 3D. So they made this thing that was totally different from what everyone else in the 3D community was doing and missed some real key ideas, making some things (clipping) impossible. 'And then the rest of the system had a whole other batch of warts caused (according to the internet) by a hasty pre-launch upgrade to match the PlayStation.

They threw a whole bunch more parts in the box, and none of them worked out that great. The second processor in particular made it both more difficult to program and impossible to fully utilise.

This probably ultimately doomed the Saturn. With so much different crap jammed in the box, it never got cheap for them to produce it.' Alongside the PlayStation, there will always be a special place in our heart for the Saturn, whatever its technical issues. If you ever developed for it, please. Revisiting WipEout, the quintessential launch title for PlayStation in the West. Here, we're looking at the US version of the game, which offered locked 30fps gameplay. Back then, it was still NTSC vs PAL, meaning that the game would've run at 25fps in European territories.

What the PAL launch lost in terms of frame-rate, it gained via a brilliant licensed soundtrack, which wasn't available on the US version. What's remarkable is that Psygnosis adapted so quickly in an era where the nature of games development changed so radically. The transition from 2D to 3D was a seismic shift in the way that games were made, resulting in a fundamental change in the nature of the games we played. The era of 2D sprites and bitmap art was reaching its twilight years, and developers had to adapt - how did Psygnosis handle that game-changing leap from two to three dimensions? 'Well, there are two answers to this question,' Mallison offers. 'For the content side, we had a lot of experience with 3D in-house and our artists understood how to create models, render and animate. On the console programming side, we had to scramble a little.

We had a few PC developers with experience and we brought them in-house and asked them to help train others. Fortunately, we'd already hired some recent University graduates with strong maths backgrounds to help with tools for the artists and those guys quickly made the transition from off-line to real-time 3D.' In effect, a giant reset button had been pressed on the way that games were made. The challenge wasn't just about creating a strong, robust 3D engine on prototype hardware - every element of the production process required new tools.

'I think it's fair to say that we had more issues with establishing a good content pipeline and production toolset than we did with the PlayStation itself,' Dominic Mallison says, but in his area, elements of the visual presentation we take for granted today didn't come so easy to the developers of the day. 'Probably the biggest technical issue that I remember was dealing with the lack of perspective correct texturing and having to sub-divide the polygons in the track so that they looked OK up-close where the near clip plane is. The problem is that the resolution of the polygon XY positions and the necessity to have T-joints led to cracks in the track. We never did eliminate all the cracks. Also, the CD-ROM version of the development kit came relatively late in the development cycle so we had to scramble to get that working.

PAL support was also really late in the development kit.' Early concept renders for WipEout appeared in the 1995 movie, Hackers, starring Angelina Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller. 'Jim Bowers was responsible for many of those early pre-renders. The one that I remember best was work that ended up in the movie Hackers,' Dominic Mallinson tells us. 'Jim and Nick Burcombe had a vision from very early on of a fast paced futuristic racing experience and the early renders were definitely what we were striving for in terms of the final game.' PlayStation was noted for being easy to develop for at the time, but perhaps some of that perception is down to the fact that its competition - the Sega Saturn - was so much more difficult to work with.

PlayStation's streamlined design made it easier to unlock its performance, while Sony worked with SN Systems to create the development environment. It was an association that would last, with the platform holder acquiring SN in 2005. 'There were similarities to other consoles and SN Systems very quickly got their development tools working on the PlayStation, which gave us a familiar and powerful environment to work with,' he says. 'On the 3D programming side, we had to start from scratch.

The first libraries shipped from Tokyo were too high level and so we had to do a little reverse engineering to get the maximum performance from the GTE.' With WipEout slated to launch alongside PlayStation in North American and European regions nine months after its debut in Japan, the Psygnosis teams working on the Sony hardware would have been midway through development when Namco's Ridge Racer - developed in just six months - was released. Was it any kind of yardstick by which Psygnosis could judge the quality of their work-in-progress game? 'Ridge Racer was an amazing achievement to be ready for launch in Japan,' Mallinson replies. 'While it influenced us a little, we always had a different feeling for what we wanted from a futuristic racer so we didn't consider it a head-to-head competition.

In some ways we were more focused on a friendly rivalry with the Destruction Derby team.' The franchise sadly concluded with the excellent Vita Racer, WipEout 2048, but for our money the series reached its peak in the absolutely brutal WipEout HD Fury. We urge you to check it out on PS3 - it holds up beautifully. This game expansion was even ported over to Vita as an add-on for owners of 2048 but as good as it was, it couldn't match the performance level of the PS3 version. With WipEout, the end result was a game that looked and played like nothing else we'd seen before - arguably more impressive from an art and technology perspective than Namco's launch masterpiece, and very much a game of its time (documented in much more depth in Wesley Yin-Poole's piece on - the rebadged Psygnosis).

The visuals, the design ethos and the music combined to create a game that was more culturally relevant - especially to the European audience - than anything since the glut of homegrown games released in the mid-80s computing boom. But we shouldn't forget that at WipEout's heart, there was a great game in there too. 'It was a combination of design and technology, but the dynamics of the vehicles and the 'feel' for them floating on the track worked really well.

I'm pretty sure that was mostly thanks to Dave Rose who did an excellent job leading the programming team,' says Dominic Mallinson, revealing that some of the team's technical objectives couldn't be met. 'We wanted more draw distance and we wanted more tracks and we wanted 60Hz. Draw distance and 30Hz were mostly a limit of the hardware, powerful as it was. More tracks was a limit of our production tools at the time.' Of course, WipEout evolved across the years, with strong titles released on every Sony system up until PlayStation Vita, where WipEout 2048 remains one of the best titles available on the overlooked handheld system. But Studio Liverpool is no more, and just like Ridge Racer, the series would not make it onto PlayStation 4.

And as good as the back-catalogue of WipEout titles was across the generations, none of them had quite the same cultural impact as the original. During production, were the developers aware of just how important the game would be for the fledgling PlayStation hardware? 'Honestly, no. Looking back I believe that the WipEout team were committed to the game and not to the impact on PlayStation,' Mallinson replies. 'As is so often the case, when you have this type of belief in a game, it's infectious, and everyone in the company started to get behind it - and ultimately that carried over to the players too.'

30 September 1996 • PlayStation •: 30 September 1996 •: October 1996 •: 8 November 1996 PC •: 31 July 1997 •: 31 July 1997 Sega Saturn •: 18 September 1997 •: 5 March 1998 Amiga (WarpOS) 1999 Mac OS 2002 [ ] Mode(s), (via ), (via,,, or ) Wipeout 2097 (stylised wipE'out'2 097; released as Wipeout XL in North America) is a 1996 futuristic developed and published. It is the second instalment released in the, and is the direct sequel of the released the previous year. It was originally released in 1996 for the and, and in 1997 for the. It was later ported by Digital Images to the in 1999 and by Coderus to in 2002.

Whereas the original game introduced the F3600 racing league in 2052, Wipeout 2097 is set over four decades later and introduces the player to the much faster, more competitive, and more dangerous F5000 AG racing league. The game introduced a new damage interface and new weapons and tracks.

The Sega Saturn version supported analogue control by using its 3D Control Pad, whereas the PlayStation version supported analogue control only through using the optional twist controller. The game received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the game for its dramatic improvements to the controls, graphics, and gameplay of the original Wipeout.

Ranked the game as the 13th best PlayStation game of all time in 2002. Gameplay from the Sega Saturn version Gameplay does not differ much from the previous title. Aside from the different circuits and new weapons, the fundamental aspects were kept. Pilots race each other or computer-controlled A.I. Opponents to finish in the highest position possible. Though the crafts move at very high straight-line speeds, Wipeout takes its inspiration from Formula 1 breakthroughs by aspiring for even greater turning speeds. Using the Formula 1 parallel, rather than using aerodynamics to increase wheel grip by down-force for faster turning speeds, Wipeout uses a fictionalised method of air braking for ever greater turning force.

Just moving a craft left or right alone is very responsive, but by applying an air-brake in the direction of movement, players zip around very tight turns at near top speed, including those greater than 90 degrees. By applying an air-brake, the turn starts out gradually but as it continues, change in direction increases sharply. Where necessary, the player may also use dual air-brakes for rapid deceleration, typically used if the pilot has flown off the racing line in tight corners and needs to steady.

The player can also take on damage from enemy fire and be blown up, but the ship can be 'recharged' to health at the in exchange for a precious few seconds of the race. Aside from the usual tactical aspects of racing, Wipeout 2097 (unlike its predecessor) offered the chance to eliminate other drivers from the competition by destroying their craft with weapons. Each craft has a shield energy quota, and when this quota reaches zero—either from damage sustained from weapon attacks, or impact from other craft or the edges of the circuit—the craft blows up. The craft also blows up if the time limit is reached, though this only applies to human players. The biggest weapon introduced in 2097 was the Quake Disruptor, which has been a series hallmark ever since. This weapon causes a quake to thrust a destructive wave down the track that dunks the crafts it smash into.

The aim of the game remains the same from its predecessor: complete increasingly difficult challenges to move on to the next race. The difficulty level is changed by increasing the top speed of the craft, through four different classes (Vector, Venom, Rapier and Phantom). The number of laps needed to complete a race also increased with each new class.

Victory in the challenge modes is the game's ultimate accomplishment. These modes are similar to a championship where players have to race every track to become champion; however, rather than tallying up points, Challenge mode takes a very single player-centric approach by only allowing progress to the next track by coming in first on the current track. Players can lose the mode by losing all three lives, which are lost by finishing a race in worse than third position. By winning all the races, the player is crowned champion and given access to faster modes, new tracks and ultimately the Piranha craft. Development [ ] As with the, Wipeout 2097 was developed by Liverpudlian developer and the promotional art was designed by -based. The development cycle ran seven months.

To cater for the increase in Wipeout players, an easier learning curve was introduced whilst keeping the difficulty at top end for the experienced gamers. The game was originally intended as a tracks add-on for the original Wipeout. No sequel had been planned, but Andy Satterthwaite (who worked on the version of the original) was asked by Psygnosis to apply for the role 'internal producer'. He did, and during the interview, asked to do a sequel to Wipeout, but instead ended up developing extra tracks.

The add-on was titled Wipeout 2097 because Psygnosis did not want to give the impression that it was a full sequel. In the United States, it went by the name of Wipeout XL because it was felt that American players would not understand the concept of the game being set a century in the future.

The American title was originally to be Wipeout XS (for 'Excess'), but it was pointed out that XS could also stand for 'extra small'. Satterthwaite ended up with a team of two coders (two of who were new), six artists, and Nick Burcombe. The game's look was influenced by Japanese culture because the team had worked with The Designers Republic. Nicky Westcott was the lead artist, and her team built on the original vehicle designs. She also worked with the designers and coders on the tracks. Custom tools were created in to develop the tracks, which were tweaked and the team played each other's tracks to obtain feedback. During the process, Satterthwaite realised that he could do more than the tracks add-on he was tasked with producing.

Work on the tracks began in January 1996, and the plan was to select eight tracks out of twenty designed and built in a month. Their 'skinning' was expected to be complete by June, with the game anticipated for release in October. Despite the work involved, Satterthwaite had three uninvolved coders.

The collision code from the original Wipeout was also completely overhauled. Burcombe wanted to improve on the original's ship handling and introduce a new weapon, which led to new power-up ideas. Westcott said that it was a collaboration between the areas because of the strict deadline. The gameplay change that had most interest was what happened to ships that hit track edges. That ships stopped immediately in the original game was considered too harsh. It was desired that ships scraped the edges instead, and this took longer than expected to develop.

Ghost vehicles were only featured in the European version because had a patent on them from in the United States. The team wanted to make it possible to win races in any ship, and a challenge was to make them all feel different and to still have their worth. Months of work rebalancing the was undertaken to ensure all vehicle and track settings were a challenge. Sony wanted a feature, which proved difficult due to syncing issues and the frame rate differences between and.

Much extra content, such as harder tracks and a prototype ship, was added because, according to Westcott, the team were both enthusiastic and stressed, and described their development as 'a period of great energy and immense exhaustion at the same time'. An entire United Kingdom nightclub tour was initiated in conjunction with energy drink, which was featured prominently throughout the game, before the drink actually gained popularity in the American market. The game was first unveiled in the form of a demo at the May 1996. Wipeout 2097 was released in 1996, and sold around a million copies. Ports for the,,, and PC were later released. Music [ ] New music was mostly recorded from Psygnosis's in-house music team,, for versions released outside the PlayStation.

The songs of the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and the Windows and Mac versions could also be listened to by inserting the CD into a CD player (and skipping the first track). The soundtrack was also released as an, though with a different artist and track listing. Track listing PlayStation version No. Title Writer(s) Performer Length 1. 'Landmass' Garry Cobain, Brian Dougans The Future Sound of London 4:29 3. 'V Six' Fluke Fluke 5:19 5. 'Dust up Beats' Ed Simons, Tom Rowlands 6:07 6.

' Ed Simons, Tom Rowlands The Chemical Brothers 4:41 7. 'The Third Sequence' Rupert Parkes 4:48 8. 'Tin There (Underworld Edit)', Rick Smith 6:08 9. 'Canada' 6:14 11. 'Body in Motion' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 5:14 Track listing Saturn version No. Title Writer(s) Performer Length 1. 'Kinkong' 4:31 2.

'Plasticity' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 3:55 3. 'Messij Xtnd' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 9:22 4. 'Body In Motion' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 5:15 5. 'Canada' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 6:13 6.

'Tenation' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 2:42 7. 'Surgeon' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 4:06 8. 'Body Plus' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 9:22 9. 'Hakapik Murder' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 4:08 10. 'Messij Received' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 4:18 Track listing Mac version No. Title Writer(s) Performer Length 1.

'Body In Motion' 5:15 2. 'Canada' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 6:13 3. 'Hakapik Murder' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 4:08 4. 'Plasticity' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 3:55 5. 'Messij Received' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 4:18 6.

'Surgeon' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 4:06 7. 'Tenation' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 2:42 8. 'Messij Xtnd' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 9:22 9. 'Kinkong' Tim Wright CoLD SToRAGE 4:31 Reception [ ] Reception Aggregate score Aggregator Score 94.75% Review scores Publication Score 8/10 8.5/10 (PS) 7.1/10 (PC) 9/10 (PS) Air Hendrix scored the PlayStation version a perfect 5 out of 5 in every category (FunFactor, control, sound, and graphics) in, citing 'across-the-board innovations' over the already excellent original WipeOut. He particularly remarked that the controls are much more refined, fairer, and easier to master, and that the frame rate and graphical effects are much more impressive. Tom Ham of also commented on the control improvements, and approved of the new ability to destroy opponents. Additionally praising the elaborate backgrounds, detailed sound effects, and more aggressive A.I., he deemed it 'a must buy.'

Said that it had topped the original in terms of music, number of simultaneous racers, A.I., weapons, and graphics, and concluded, 'It's games like this that make you proud to be a PlayStation owner.' In 1996, ranked Wipeout 2097 as the 32nd top game of all time for how 'playing linked Wipeout comes close to gaming at its very best', noting that the game could have been a for PlayStation.

Gave both the PlayStation and Sega Saturn versions a score of 8 out of 10, with similar remarks of its improved graphics and its gameplay. In 1997, named it as the fifth top PlayStation game yet. In IGN's top 25 PlayStation games of all-time list it ranked 13th, noted for being often considered the PlayStation's best racing game of its time and was chosen ahead of others in the series because Wipeout 2097 was 'the one they preferred to keep coming back to'.

It ranks as the third best PlayStation game at with an average review score of 94.75 per cent from ten different sources. Reviewed the PC version in GameSpot, assessing that 'The PC version's Direct3D support gives this new release a nice face-lift, while still keeping intact the fast action and stylized graphics that console players have come to know and love.' He said that the new soundtrack, while good, is a disappointment compared to the PlayStation version's techno tracks, but gave the game a strong recommendation. References [ ]. • ^ Wipeout 2097 manual. • ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley..

Retrieved 18 January 2015. • ^ Edge staff writers (24 February 2013).. Archived from on 8 December 2014.

Retrieved 22 August 2014. • ^ IGN staff writers (26 November 1996)..

Retrieved 22 August 2014. • 'NG Alphas: Wipeout XL'..

• Cohen, Peter.. IDG Consumer. Retrieved 18 January 2015. • ^ 'Wipeout 2'.. • ^ 'The Making Of: Wipeout 2097'. Retro Gamer Annual Volume 3.. • 'The Future Sound of Game Music'..

December 1996. • 'Psygnosis Own E3.'

Maximum: The Video Game Magazine. • Hickman, Sam (March 1996). 'The Thrill of the Chase!' Sega Saturn Magazine. Emap International Limited. • Langshaw, Mark.. Retrieved 18 January 2015.

CBS Interactive. Retrieved 22 August 2014. • ^ Edge staff (24 August 1995).. Retrieved 22 August 2014.

• ^ Ham, Tom (December 1, 1996)... Retrieved 11 December 2017. • ^ (26 August 1997).. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 22 August 2014. • 'ProReview: Wipeout XL'..

November 1996. • 'Top 100 Games of All-Time'. Next Generation. September 1996.

• Staff writers (September 1997). 'Top 25 PlayStation Games of All Time'. PlayStation: The Official Magazine. Vol. 1 no. 1.

• IGN staff writers (22 January 2002).. Retrieved 22 August 2014.