I get the feeling no one really watches Wipeout consciously.
It's background noise, that thing on Hulu you can queue up just so that whatever mundane
task you find yourself grinding through has the occasional punctuation of a distressingly
over-eager person getting hit with a foam-rubber obstacle really, really hard and falling into
water.
And then John Henson makes some vaguely salacious remark at said over-eager person's expense.
So when they take this idea of a giant, video-game-style obstacle course for real people and turn it
into an ACTUAL video game, which requires attention and direct input...
I dunno, I'm kinda lost.
Sure, they can do bigger and badder contraptions, defy the laws of physics in new and interesting
ways... and have a giant badger as a competitor...
but you're actually paying ATTENTION to it, and you can see all the seams and flaws.
Especially when, y'know, it just acts all freaky.
So your ultimate goal is GET TO THE FINISH LINE, across any number of hazards, balance
beams, rotating drums, series of giant red balls of questionable physics, hockey equipment,
cheese, nutcrackers...
figuratively AND literally...
all negotiated through use of your nunchuck and Wiimote.
And when I say "Negotiated," I mean "move forward or don't, jump, jump, slide, slide,
and occasionally crouch."
Sometimes you'll get some quicktimey events if you need to fit through vaguely person-shaped
holes in platforms.
That's really all you need.
(And trust me, seeing those I thought, "AT LEAST I'M NOT PLAYING A KINECT VERSION, AMIRITE?")
With this thin but functional arsenal of tricks, you run.
You run so far away, along a completely linear path fraught with danger and rather strange
traction.
Sometimes you'll get going so fast you'll be unable to stop and wind up crashing into
something, costing you... well, time and that's pretty much it.
Fail three times on any particular obstacle and you get a pass, though that's unlikely
since the actual difficulty of any given segment is fairly low, once you've got it figured
out.
So, in order to make up for a perceived lack of difficulty, each stage is studded with
rings that float in midair for you to collect.
Presumably, this is because the developers - in an act of utter delusion - thought they
were in fact making a Sonic the Hedgehog game, one that just happened to have humans running
around instead of stylized anthropomorphic mammals.
So that explains the badger.
With the prize money you collect at the end of each episode - because you're running through
them more or less alone, setting record times that Usain Bolt would be hard-pressed to challenge
- you can buy new gear for your runners.
New characters, up to and including the producers and hosts of the show, unlock at intervals
according to your experience points - yes, there's EXP to be gained even in this monstrosity
- as do new episodes with new and interesting ways to kill a man.
Wait.
That's a Final Fantasy XII reference, and if I'm throwing allusions to anything it should
be that episode of Space Ghost John Henson appeared on.
Wipeout 3, just like the two before it, isn't about to win any awards for gameplay, physics,
writing...
it's a distraction at best, and a bad distraction at worst.
But sometimes you're of a mind where you need something absolutely stupid, and it's at least
entertaining...
until you take a step back and wonder where your life took a turn.
If you can avoid that moment, you should be golden.
Still, I feel like I'm missing something... um... oh yeah, certain points in each stage
cover you in mud, just for the purpose of obstructing your view!
It's a brown, onion-flavored nightmare down there!
There ya go.
My work here is done.