My limited skills aome back quickly enough, though, when I dusted this off today and I’vc managed to get a few more medals. Not very good medals, because my skills have never been great, but I’ve been doing okay.

That’s my current ship up there. I have no idea why I’m using AG Systems, but when I started up today that’s who had the longest loyalty bar, so I must have been using them before.

I also seem to have won a lot of medals on Elite difficulty in the past. That doesn’t sound like me at all.

It’s just utterly superb and hours pass like nothing as I inch closer and closer to new medals.

Time trials started proving tricky, so I’ve moved my loyalties from AG to Assegai, because I think they’re slightly faster. After a good while banging into walls far too much I’m starting to get used to the handling and I’ve improved some medals and got some new ones.

Fantastic stuff.

One thing that has helped distract me a bit is WipEout HD, which I believe I love. It is, as far as it goes, perfect, I think. Graphics are lovely, controls are great, sound is brilliant, difficulty is just right.

It’s very good indeed.

Anyway, I leapt in and told the game that I was returning WipEout player, so I didn’t need the autopilot help. I then proceeded to crash into several thousand walls in my first race and came sixth out of eight. Oops. I tried again – still without autopilot – and came first. Hooray! That gave me my first ever Trophy, which was nice.

Then I tried a Zone race, but only got a silver. Ah well.

When I first played this last night I was so bad that I could even bothered to write an entry about it. Every race saw me coming last, if I lasted to the end.

This evening started like that, too, but after about fifteen minutes I started to get back into the Wipeout swing of things. Turn into corners, use (but don’t overuse) air brakes, all that. I’m not getting very many gold medals, but I’m getting a few silvers and a few bronzes. Usually takes me a few tries in races against opponents, but when I’m racing the clock I can normally get something first time.

Anyway, there’s a bit of tearing, but apart from that it looks lovely. Seems to be a fair amount of game there, too. Can’t comment on the sound, as I play the PSP with the sound off.

Pity about the expansion packs for this one. Wipeout Pure’s were free. The ones for Pulse cost actually money – and you can’t download them if you’ve got a Mac, anyway, Bloody Sony, etc.

Also, I thought WipEout wasn’t looking too bad for its age, and maybe it’s not, but the difference when I started up WipEout Pure was amazing. It looks incredible. We’ve come a long way.

Anyway, this is unplayable. It’s not bad, not at all, it’s just way, way, way, way, way too hard and the only reason it took off must because the graphics and sound were so amazing at the time that people were prepared to put the time in to learn to play the game properly.

It was a different time back then, eh?