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.
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.