Wipeout HD is an anti-gravity racer set in the future - you race hovering ships around tight courses to assert your dominance over the world. If you can bring yourself to do so, think back to Star Wars Episode One - the Pod Race which dominates a concerning portion of the movie is based on a similar concept. Wipeout manages to avoid Episode One's downfall of having a terrible plot by having absolutely no plot at all - Wipeout HD is pure racer.

It doesn't pull any punches either. Check out this Trophy from the game - it's a Silver Trophy, putting it in the second lowest tier of achievements.

Airbraker - Reach Zone 50 (Subsonic) in Zone Mode on any track using only airbrakes and sideshift.

Let me break this down for you. Zone mode in Wipeout HD puts you on a normal track and auto-accelerates your ship for you. The challenge in Zone Mode is that your ship will always accelerate - your goal simply becomes survival. The fastest speed class in the other modes in the game is "Phantom" - around Zone 30. To earn this Silver Trophy you need to navigate to Zone 50 without turning - you can only use the airbrakes to get you around corners.

The idea here is that you will push yourself to be the best - it's a throwback to when finishing a game was something to brag about, not something you simply expect to occur after playing long enough. The game doesn't go about this unreasonably - you aren't thrown into the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim. You begin the game driving slow ships and using a training wheels function called Pilot Assist - this will keep you from hitting the walls as you drive around. As you move through the game you'll eventually reach a point where you have to remove the Pilot Assist feature to succeed - you'll need to find tighter lines and take corners closer just to remain competitive.

The game puts a lot of emphasis on speed - both as a method to keep people glued to the game and as a way to continuously challenge players. The speeds you can reach in the game are mind-blowing - Zone 50 in the trophy above is called Subsonic for a reason. The class of ship typically dictates how fast you can go - Venom is the slowest, topping out at close to 500 km/h while Phantom approaches 800km/h.

The different racing modes in the game are straight forward - with the exception of the aforementioned Zone mode. You can race in Time Trial - where you have to complete a set number of laps within a certain amount of time. There's also Fast Lap mode, where you have a number of laps, and only your fastest lap counts. These modes both include ghost data from your previous attempts to give you an immediate visual idea of how you're faring.

The blimp says "A friend in speed".

Race mode switches things up by putting AI racers in the game - and power-ups. You access Power-Ups by driving over a Power-Up pad - there are Turbo pads and Power-Up pads, and you'll have to choose between each one mid-race on the fly. After hitting a pad you're randomly assigned a power-up - the weapons provided vary in worth from the mostly useless machine gun type weapon all the way up to the almost one-hit kill Plasma weapon. There are also shields and extra turbos available at random - it can be tough to time using a shield, but turbos can be very useful if you know the right time to use them.

The game features eight player online racing, and even playing with people from all of the world isn't a huge hassle - if a player with a 300 ping is teleporting all over the track you typically won't find them impacting your racing style that much... Unless your racing style is "Destroy everything in sight" of course. Still, the net code seems quite good - even when playing against racers from all corners of the globe I didn't see anyone teleport too much.

The last feature which needs pimping in Wipeout HD is the Photo Mode. At any point in any race, you can pause the game and take a photo of the track. You can see from the screenshots in this review the kinds of pictures you might come up with - I took them myself. It really shows off the amazing graphics engine in the game - you can really appreciate the power behind the game.

The only thing which lets Wipeout HD down is the track selection. If you've played the Wipeout series on the PSP you will already be familiar with the eight tracks on offer - they're all reappropriated from Wipeout Pure and Wipeout Pulse. Newcomers to the series won't be affected by this though - and the game only costs $30 - so it's hard to punish the game too much for this. Even one brand new track would have been a worthwhile effort though.

Beyond the game's pretty graphics and the quality gameplay, the reality is that if you don't like racing games Wipeout HD is not going to convert you. It sticks to the basics of racing games - going fast and looking nice. It combines a well-balanced learning curve with realistic challenges to keep you coming back again and again if you're even remotely interested in racing games Wipeout HD is a must-have game.