One of my favourite video game franchises is WipEout. First released in 1995, it blue my young mind wide open. An amazingly fast 3D racing game with a superb electronic music soundtrack. It was one of the most stylish and futuristic, and adult games that I had played. It was extremely unforgiving, very challenging, yet very rewarding.
There were many sequels to the game, across multiple platforms. I didn’t own a Playstation at first, rather the SEGA Saturn, and WipEout 2097 was often in the units optical drive. I went on to purchase systems based on their WipEout content. The PS3 was a must-have, for WipEout Fury/HD. In Japan, I played that game after getting home from the arcades after work. Fond memories. In fact, here’s a video I made in 2011 (gosh) of some laps in the “Zone” mode.
Wipeout Fury HD on the PS3
One of my favourite games on the PS4 is in fact the WipEout Omega Collection, which is a superb compilation and looks absolutely stunning. Further, it has an absolutely mind-blowing PSVR (virtual reality) mode, whereby if you wear the headset you really feel as if you’re piloting one of these things. If only this technology was around when I was a teen—but having said that, I have witnessed the tech and game series develop to this point.
One thing leaving me a bit downbeat about the entire franchise now, though, is that the development studio was shut down in 2012, leaving any future use of the IP to other developers/Sony when they feel they can make a profit. If a WipEout game were a launch title on the PS5, I’d have one in the living room right now. There must be more people like me, that see this game as a “must own”. It fits my gaming style quite well—I prefer games where you can challenge yourself to either survive longer, or score higher, or be faster. I am less interested in war-simulations and expansive open world operatic games. I know there are many fantastic games out there, but I am quite happy to pick up a game I’ve played for hundreds of hours and try to do better. It’s a personal challenge type thing. Plenty of people can’t see the point in gaming like this and find it a bit boring. Conversely, I often find it a bit boring to ride a virtual horse for 20 minute to discuss something with someone and then enter a bottle shooting contest, etc.
Anyway, onto the photos. I had some vouchers for a video game shop (do you remember shops? buildings with things inside, that you could look at, and purchase!), and noticed some WipEout models (from Japan, obviously) at a decent price. So I picked up a couple. The second one won’t be here for a while, but until then, please enjoy these photos of the AG Systems AG-SYS ship. The box arrived damaged and covered in dust as if it had been left in an old army bunker somewhere in Eastern Germany, and a strongly worded email to their customer support got me 10% back, but imagine if this were a birthday present for someone? Fortunately, I am the only loser I know that would want a WipEout model, so Happy Birthday to me.
So, for those interested regarding the photos, I took them with my Leica 60mm macro lens, and a lot of carefully placed natural sunlight (it’s nice being able to tell the Sun what to do). I then removed the transparent plastic stand in post-production, _et voila_, we have a flying space ship.
