Does Wipeout Hold Up 25 Years Later? (we play to find out) 

both the soundtrack and "The Designers Republic" were a huge influence on my life as musician and graphic designer.

"it has the same aesthetic as Hackers". An early prototype of Wipeout was in the Hackers movie. When they go to the underground club, the main character plays it and beats Angelina's character's high score ("you've just made an enemy for life"). The prototype features walls that needed to be knocked down with weapons which, to my recollection, the devs said they remove from the final game because it made it too hard.

"Duricom" XD XD XD That first letter is an "A"! Great stuff. A lot of Ex-WipEout devs are still very active online, and I'm sure they'd be happy to do an interview! Can't wait to see the full documentary video! :D

Sony/ Psygnosis got it spot on with this and the first game - they hit the zeitgeist at the perfect time. The rave scene was huge and WipEout tapped into it perfectly

That game's soundtrack alone is a masterpiece

Hey - I did my work placement (about 8 years ago) with 1 of the main devs for the 2nd wipeout game at his new company (not SONY), and I still chat to him every now and then. Happy to reach out to him and try and arrange a call. He invented the Quake weapon. PS - Liverpool UK, where Sony was based for many years and is now fully back in town.

I reallyyyyyyyyyyyy love Wipeout. The music, the design, the concept. I reallyyyyyyyyyyyy love it.

Wipeout was in Hackers but its a weird arcade version with that strange ball mechanic for the gates.

If you enjoy the style of classic PS1 Wipeout, you should totally check out BallisticNG on Steam, it has the same feeling and lots of tracks and ships from the originals thanks to mod support!

Absolutely, *wipE'out" 2097* **(roughly how its styled lol)** is the best wipEout game. From the feel, how good the ships feel to how much you really feel the speed. The visual design of the first three games was done by *The Designers Republic* , who are incredible and also the soundtrack is a whos who of the best mid-90s techno. The sound design for the first bunch was amazing too the *absolutely amazing sounding "ships voice"* that announces what weapons you've just picked up was done using the vocoder attachment that came with the *Amiga 1200*. The first three really ('95, '96 & '99) are the best where all the above amazing things still applied. Subsequent games, still fine and not bad at all just didnt have the same "magic". Finally, the amazing song you mention, *"We Have Explosive"* (released in 1997 as a single) by The Future Sound of London as their final big release of the 1990s is, yes absolutley amazing, I got the single :P

Sounds ridiculous but Wipeout XL changed my life in a lot of ways. It was my first introduction to Designers Republic and electronic music in general. I'm 38 now and to think this game was my gateway to soooo much..culturally speaking. I'm embarrassed by some of the music I was into as a kid.. This soundtrack is not in that pile. Still sounds amazing to my ears. It's funny that I'm now nostalgic for the UK's style of futurism...from the 90s. It was so inspiring and frankly badass. Thanks wipeout!

@2:15 of course wipeout was actually played in Hackers, the greatest movie of all time, by Angelina Jolie herself. def something to keep in mind for the doco

These games introduced me to JunkieXL and TheProdigy back in the 90's. My life was forever changed, and these games are responsible.

I have such fond memories of Wipeout 2097. It genuinely formed my appreciation for all of the genres of music it included. I had the demo on one of the demo discs which had two? levels and only two of the ships (one for each) and I played it to death with my younger brother. Never owned the full game until I was an adult and PS1 was something you'd emulate on a Raspberry Pi but every time I load up the map with the big wobbly bridge jumpoff to the goal (@18:00 ish) I am right back in my childhood with Crash Bandicoot, Spyro and Tombi.

This game taught me what "Flow State" is. When you get good at it, it's a transcendental experience!

I physically winced when he said "Duricom". Also boost off launch from keeping the throttle 2 segments from max.

Yo Danny and crew! I worked on Wipeout Omega Collection for PS4 when i used to work at Clever Beans (The remaster) Let me know if i can help with anything for the doc!

Now that I've played Wipeout The Omega collection in VR, there's no going back.

This game had a huge impact on myself as a child, I went from super mario to Wipeout on the Saturn which I still play and most certainly holds up.

Damn. I owe my entire adult career to Wipeout. It threw me into a graphic design and electronic music production trajectory when I was 12 years old.

god Danny talking about why he loves the game while firestarter plays in background hits fucking hard

Great to see someone new enjoying a bit of gaming history…😁

What I really liked about WipEout, was that it felt as an evolution of racing games at that time. Yes, it's a futuristic combat racer. But at it's heart, it's primarily a racer. You need good racing lines. It's got physics and subtlety in controls. e.g. Many people don't even realise the importance of pushing the craft's nose up or down and how that changes the physics to allow you to gain speed or turn faster. They play it like you would Mario Kart. Rofl. To me, this is what set WipEout series apart from other contempory games of the same ilk, like F-Zero, Extreme G, etc. and why I consider it to be the best of its kind.

So strange I've been on a Wipeout kick recently. Downloaded all the soundtracks yesterday and been playing through em. So glad to see this!

When you got into the rhythm of race track and music, playing Wipeout 2097 had an almost enlightening quality. One of the best games and showcases for the Playstation 1.

Iconic game. The style and soundtrack still feels futuristic even today.

Would love it if you can get an interview with Ian Anderson of Designers Republic. They created such a distinctive visual language that has rarely been matched in video games.

Excuse me while I totally nerd the fuck out for a moment. Wipeout is my #1 all time racing series and one of my top 5 favorite gaming series' ever. I'm not a car guy at all, could not give a shit less about them, so racing games never really spoke to me until Wipeout. The futuristic setting, the mag-lev vehicles, the music, the overall design language...all of it just immediately clicked with me and I've played each entry for hundreds (if not thousands) of hours. The series was hugely influential in exposing me to a genre of music I'd never heard (I grew up up in podunk ass East Texas) and Ian Anderson/tDR's design aesthetic cemented what I've thought of as good design ever since. Wipeout is the classic that made me buy a PS1 (alone with Resident Evil). Wipeout XL is a perfect example of what a sequel should be (and the game that got me hopelessly addicted to red dull for the past 27 years) and I while get why it's still kind of the gold-standard for Anti-Grav racers, I also think a big part of that is because people by and large just (and unfairly) ignored Wipeout 3 for some reason. Wipeout 3 is, to me, the quintessential Wipeout and the one I go back to any time I get the urge for Wipeout. It is, in my opinion, the pinnacle of anti-grav racing and has yet to be surpassed. It looks perfect, it feels perfect, it sounds perfect, the design language and UI are perfect. Obviously I'm bias, but Wipeout 3 is a perfect game in my estimation. Wipeout Fusion was the reason I bought a PS2, and while I really didn't like it for the longest time, I appreciate what Studio Liverpool was trying to do with it and think it mostly works now. Wipeout Pure was the reason I bought a PSP (sensing a pattern here, yet?) and it along with Pulse are the return to classic style Wipeout I'd been craving after the wilder swings of Fusion. I bought Wipeout HD on a friends PS3 years before I even had one just because I had to play it on day-one, even though it's made up entirely of courses from Pure and Pulse (though the Fury add-on did add actual new tracks). And, of course, Wipeout 2048 is the reason I bought a Vita. Hell, I even played an unhealthy amount of Wipeout 2D, the not terribly good top-down version featured inside Playstation Home. I own at least one physical copy of every entry (except HD), and three copies of the Omega Collection (the upgraded PS4 bundle of HD/Fury and 2048) and it was the first game I installed and played on my PS5. I even kickstarted Formula Fusion, a Wipeout successor from ex-Psygnosis/Studio Liverpool devs that tDR did some design work for (boy, was that ever a mistake). Yadda yadda, blah blah blah...I'm a super-fan. Anyway, sorry for the diatribe, I just get very happy when anyone talk about the series, one I feel has been kind of left forgotten to time...thanks in no small part to Sony never really doing much promotion for the series (outside of the UK, at least, where it was always a bigger deal) and eventually canning Studio Liverpool, something I will NEVER FUCKING EVER forgive them for. Regardless, I'm still holding out hope they decide to bring the series back at some point, though outside of maybe Criterion or Firesprite (who was founded by ex-Liverpool devs in 2012 and acquired by Sony last year), I struggle to think of anyone I'd trust to do it.

Wipeout 3 Special Edition is the peak of the PSX series & possibly the entire series in terms of overall design & aesthetic. Fantastic to this day, and none of obvious distance culling that 2097 has.

Duricom... Duricom? Uh... EDIT: Sorry to be that guy. I love this game. Literally the best OST of all time, this game had more impact on shaping my musical tastes than anything else.

The pre-rendered prototype for this game was the game they play in the 90's film Hackers. They then turned it into something that would run on PS1 hardware. BalisticNG is the spiritual successor to Wipeout and is well worth playing, it also allows for a cockpit view that is incredibly immersive, and it also has a VR mode.

Forgot about the Black Mesa intercom announcer. Still think Ep1Racer edges it out without the awkward car combat focus, but man this game still looks good, unparalleled texture streaming for PSX

Man Wipeout 2097 was a huge introduction to the music features especially Prodigy as a kid. admittedly, i was trash at the game but using the powerups to completely wipe a racer while the music blares is seared into the memory banks. huge thanks for digging these gems up NoClip

This is the game that perfected the controls and served as the template for Wipeout 64.

That cover art 👌

Not sure this is the place to say it, but Jet Moto would be a cool deep dive! Kinda like Wipeout! It was primed to be one of the biggest new extreme-sport videogame series, with tons of real world corporate sponsors and such, but the third game fell flat and killed its chances.

I appreciate these kinds of videos so much. Keep them up!

The wipeout series is my all time favorite series. The design aesthetic looked so futuristic to my young eyes. TDR is awesome too! I bought the PSP and PSVita to play wipeout. I loved that you could put the disc into a CD player and listen to the soundtracks! There is an awesome release of the most recent wipeout releases on the PS4. It runs like a dream on the PS5! Also it is mindblowing on the PSVR!

A friend of mine and myself played Wipeout like a madman when it came out, we competed on best time non-stop for weeks... he would beat my time then I would stay up all night until I could beat his time, then when he woke up he would have to beat my time all over again, and so the cycle continued! You can get a "flying start" so you start at "full speed" if your accelleration/speed is at just the right point when the start signal turns green, Phirana is the only way to beat a record and only air-brakes, it is all about the magic curve and hitting all the speed boost fields. Ahhh the memories...

This makes me wanna see a retrospective on F-Zero GX. It's been about 20 years since there was an F-Zero in the main series and for me, GX might be the definitive FZ experience too. I know we're talking about Wipeout, but the two series do very closely resemble each other. I didn't play either until Gamecube era, though.

Great video guys! Brought back fond memories. It was the original Wipeout that made me want to get the Playstation. I saw it for the first time on a vhs demo showcase tape that came with a Playstation magazine (uk). The visuals and speed blew me and my brother away.

Can't wait to hear your commentaries for wipeout hd and fury. The elimination mode was ridiculous fun.

I like Wipeout 1 the best. The races take place during the day so you can see the gritty grey dystopian environment. Plus it's that super early and rad Designer Republic graphics and rave music. But most important is the handling model. It's so incredibly unforgiving if you hit a wall but the air brakes make things incredible satisfying when you pull off a clean lap and nail all the jump landings without losing momentum.

I love this! My buddy and I used to link up out PS's for Wipeout and Doom! We used to love this sh!t, and he recently passed away. I watch this and I just miss him. We'd listen to all of the British electronic stuff all the time and just play Playstation until the sun came up... Man I miss him and that time in my life. God it was good. Looks like I'll be hooking up the PSX tonight for some Wipeout!

these games hold so much special moments for me. not just for the gaming. those soundtracks man, damn. they definately helped educate and guide my love for electronica. I used to rock these damn playstation discs in my stereo and panasonic shockwave discman at school when i wasn't playing. the tunes.

Extreme-G 2 was the game like this for me. Looking back on it I didn't know what I was missing with XG2 being 30fps on a good day but go figure, that's the N64. Still I'd argue breaking the sound barrier in XG2 is one of the coolest high speed effects in a racing game and would love to see you cover that one day! The sonic boom to silent hum as the music drops out still gets me. At least do yourself a favor and look up "Sound Barrier Extreme-G 2" on RU-vid! And now I'm seeing it looks like people got the PC version to run at 60fps+. I gotta look into it!

The nostalgia. When they talked about "console selling games", this was the one for me. I got a decent job as I was around 19 when this came out...as soon as I got my first paycheck, got the playstation and Wipeout XL as I had rented the console before...coming from a SNES to this was mind blowing. I still have my copy of this game, though I don't own an original playstation anymore, I HAD to keep this game. The combination of high quality, sense of speed, incredible techno soundtrack all combined to make this an excellent game and IMO is the best of the series. I do wish we could have gotten a slightly refreshed version but on Steam, someone actually made a game called Ballistic NG which is an homage to this era of Wipeout and people do a lot of mods to get basically the same feel. One thing I loved is when I could get a perfect lap...you could get so much speed and it felt amazing.

Nostalgia overload! Loved this game when it came out here in the UK, my friends would come over on a Friday evening and we'd spend the next two days on Time Trials trying to one up each other! Great memories! I had my PS wired to my hifi and the tunes were awesome! Ahhhh those heady days of WipeOut, Tomb Raider and Tekken! Thanks for the video! Awesome!

I used to work at Gremlin Ineractive in Sheffield, UK at the same time as WIPEOUT was being developed. We were actually a few roads away from The Designer's Republic. They were a nice bunch of lads. They did a few bits for our games at the time as well. TDR and Pop Will Eat Itself were staple parts of our game dev days back then.

Wipeout HD was my absolute favorite game of the PS3 era, and my proudest Platinum trophy

A few years ago in my local pub, I was standing at the very busy bar and noticed some bloke struggling to get served. So, I shuffled around a bit to make space for him and waved him over so he could get served. I bumped into him again outside and started chatting as he wanted to thank me for helping him beat the crowd at the bar. I mentioned that I play computer games and stuff and he said quite nonchalantly "Oh cool, I made a game some years ago, called Wipeout, you might of heard of it?" Turns out, it was Jim Bowers, co-creator of the game. We had quite a long chat, as you would! The next day when I went back to the bar, he had left a copy of the Wipeout vinyl album behind the bar for me! (Promo copy) Truly amazing and kind gentleman he is. Sadly, I've not met him again since, but always keep my eye out !

The heads at 23, I can't believe you just said ''speedball'' that is immediately what came to my mind, man that game was fun. No one has ever mentioned that game to me before.

Playing Wipeout XL while listening to Firestarter by The Prodigy is one of those imprinted memoried from my university days I'll never forget.

I just love the Wipeout games to this day... I dunno what it is, but no one else can capture the feel of that game (at least to me)....

Wip3out was the absolute pinnacle for me. Vehicle dynamics, track design, soundtrack - all perfect.

I loved the UK link to rave/clubbing culture. Wipeout had The Prodigy on the soundtrack and they were a group formed in my hometown so I loved the game all the more. They used to have loads of PlayStation set up in big London nightclubs (Ministry Of Sound was one I believe?) for pilled up ravers to play for a bit between rushes! My mates and I used to go to illegal raves or nightclubs on uppers and then when the club closed or rave had finished we'd return to my mates flat where he had a PlayStation and another a Saturn and then a Dreamcast. Uppers (we did Speed, Coke and Ecstasy) keep you awake for days so many was the time I played for so long I'd hallucinate the graphics in front of me and the games haunted my dreams! Great times! I miss the 90s so much!

To me, Wipeout is the Gran Turismo to F-Zero’s Ridge Racer. I feel like of the two contemporaries, F-Zero and its super responsive ”arcadey” approach holds up better today than Wipeout’s more simulation-ish approach of “how would these heavy, hovering future machines control if they were real”. The music in Wipout is still ace, though.

Wipeout, but with the Crazy Taxi soundtrack. It works.

I don’t remember the Red Bull advertising at all as a kid, but Danny didn’t find it weird so I guess it was in 2097 also? Look forward to the full documentary!

Fun Fact: You could play the game disc in a normal CD player just for the music.

When I bought Wipeout for the PS1, I knew I was living in the future. 😁

There's a beautiful special edition of the Japanese design magazine "IDEA" called "The Designers Republic Versus Idea Magazine" dedicated just to TDR's work, including lots of pages about all the graphic design details in Wipeout. It's out of print and hard to find but luckily someone photographed most of it and put it on Flickr. Highly recommend looking it up.

Wipeout and Xtreme ‘G’ Racing where my favourite racing games back then. 🤘🔥

Designers Republic... Enough said.

I loved Wipeout back in the day. It's what I played most in my senior year of highschool. The ships still look badass today.

get the perfect boost start, press the accelerator when the announcer says "one" in the countdown. I had 2097 and it was awesome. if you have VR on your playstation try the wipeout trilogy on it. It is honestly one of the best PSVR experiences

Seeing this game again brought back fond memories and the soundtrack that came with the game was awesome ...

Superannuated oldskooler here: I was 29 when 2097 came out! I bought a PS1 to "see what the kids are playing these days", found Wipeout and was blown away - what the kids were playing was ****ing fabulous! I still go back to it all the time, and it gets no less fun even as I get no better at it. That soundtrack... wow... not really my taste at the time, but my tastes changed accordingly! The DR look, too, never gets old. Well, in truth, the "cyberpunk" aesthetic was already rather tired at the time, at least until "The Matrix" breathed new life into it. But it was done in that kind of "knowing" style, so that it was essentially retro. There's a rare quality to certain games where - if you get to play them early enough - you really do feel like you're at the bleeding edge and can see the future. W2097 was definitely such a game.

Really nice to see everyone's stories and memories about these games. My own tidbit: I was 13 years old in 2007, and I took the CDs of Wipeout 2097 and Wip3out with me on our school's skiing trip to Austria just to play on my personal CD player to listen to the soundtracks at night. Imagine trying to transplant a game's content like that into your personal life today. 20 years ago was just a much less regulated time for gaming and its culture, and it was exciting. Luckily for people who will always be looking behind the curtain for less mainstream, less curated experiences, these games will always exist, and will always be found to be classics by new generations. Quality always lasts.

When I was going hard into Wip3out, I remember stumbling upon a website that would track quickest laps and race times. This was pre-Internet for consoles so you basically input all of your times on the honor system. If the moderators had doubts, they'd request a picture or ship in a memory card to them. What made it cool was that it was global, so there were labels for which region you were on: NTSC or PAL. Pretty sure I had a handful of times that managed to make it into top 10 at Rapier and Phantom classes. I'm incredibly surprised that Wipeout never had a graphic novel or comic book series alongside it. There's so much lore written in the manuals, even in the first three titles, that it would make for a wonderful IP.

YASSSSS WIPEOUT!!!!! If you could do a short documentary on it and the music, I'd love it to see it in your style!

Looking forward to this one. A PlayStation icon if ever there was. One of my fondest memoiries of this game was playing it on a demo station in one of the super clubs at the time (I forget which one) and playing along to the DJ. Was amazing!

My first PlayStation game. The changes to ship handling and collisions really made this game. Its possibly my favourite game ever,

I remember playing lots of Wipeout HD on the PS3. Will be interesting to see some more of the history of the game franchise when the full documentary comes out.

I remember getting my PlayStation when I was about 15 and mum got me wipeout and tekken. I absolutely loved both. I still love racing games. I even bought a sim racing setup, recently. Cockpit, racing seat, wheel, pedals etc but I have to say that I no longer love beat em ups. But boy oh boy do I have incredible memories of going into a corner shop, wheee I lived in London and they had a beat em up arcade machine and the game was the incredible Street Fighter 2. I fell in love, instantly and shortly after, all the local shops had street fighter 2 arcade machines. That’s how you know that street fighter was huge. I loved going in my 2 fav stores and putting 20p coin in machine to play street fighter 2. Might sound silly to some but they are such precious and happy memories. It must have been street fighter 2 that started my love of beat em ups. Then shortly after, my dad bought me a Super Nintendo and my cousin kinda told my dad that if he buys this converter (like a Super Nintendo cart, that had another port) it would let me play American games on my U.K. pal Super Nintendo and I could buy the US version of street fighter 2 BEFORE its even released in the U.K. . Back then, Japan would get games first, then USA, then U.K. if anyone actually reads this, do you know why this was? Anyway, my dad did just that and I was playing street fighter 2 at home in absolute dreamland.

Wipeout looks just like Euphoria!

Love the Wipeout series, I played the hell out of 1+2 on the Saturn.

I have a very distinct memory of going to a swimming match and on the coach trip listening to the CD from Wipeout 2097 in my discman

the graphics really holds up

BallisticNG on Steam is like a modern PC Wipeout game, it's a love letter game to the original two Wipeout games. I really really highly recommend it for any Wipeout fans who want to play a PC version. You can even add your own custom soundtrack 😉

WipeOut was my first true love on the OG PS1. This series introduced me to The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Orbital, I still love this music. I have every WipeOut game Pre PS3 in my retro game collection (13,000+) and I play them regularly. I was disappointed with the PS4 version. It strayed too far and was frustratingly difficult. I can’t say enough about WipeOut. It gets my Adrenalin going and I get totally immersed playing these games. It’s great nostalgia and I pray Sony will continue the series.

I played through this game many times when it was released, it was incredible!….I used a steering wheel and the level of control was so on point hitting the sides was a rare occurrence even with the fastest ships. I loved the robotic voice…..great days!

I've been obsessed with WipEout ever since I played the ps1 demo (2097) in a friend's house. I immediately went out and bought a playstation and a copy of both the original and 2097. I've loved the series ever since. BallisticNG fills that void nicely these days, especially on Steam Deck. It's as close as you can get to the original trilogy with so many tracks.

Feels good to see this series get some love, would have been better if you got one or two experts of the game (just ask on reddit) to add experience and information to the already fun video.

Wipeout 3 is my personal fav. Runs smooth like butter on epsxe for Android+Xbox controller. How this game is still so playable is crazy.

I think the ship designs don't have a 90s vibe to them because like those in Homeworld they take inspiration from 1970s science fiction cover artists like John Harris and Chris Foss. The menus seem to take some inspiration from TNG era Star Trek UIs, as well as 1980s car dashboards. It's an iconic look!

I just listened to the Wipeout1 soundtrack again.. what a blast.. And it was almost all done by one person.

I'm from Sheffield England and designer republic was based there and influenced so many things like gatecrasher night club also started in Sheffield. Great video love this game still the best wipeout

Duude I am so hyped for the Wipeout documentary. I didn't get into the series until WipeOut HD but I still have so much fucking nostalgia for it.

Wipeout, Rollcage, Jet Moto, Rapid Racer, Hot Wheels..Love me some PS1.

I have the game in my collection and it makes me proud as a PlayStation console owner, it is one of the most prominent futuristic racing games for that console and it has a unique feel to it, especially when you pair this game up together with analogue audio output, then you get the real experience.

Loved Wipeout 64, used to play split-screen, admittedly have bought-sold-re-bought as a love/hate situation of it driving me insane when I'd be on a great lap to have it ruined by stopping dead by just slightly touching the side 😂

Remember playing demos from the Official PlayStation magazines. Looking forward to the documentary.

Playing the demo in the dark 1996 with the soundtrack/sfx blasting and the anti gravity feeling in your brain/body like a roller-coaster. That was The Playstation feeling like having a Arcade at home. Great seeing this again. Totally Hype.

The amazing BallisticNG game is a modern day version of the great Wipeout games.

Soundtracks of all games are legendary! Hope you'll also reach out Orbital (Hartnoll brothers) for an interview as well.

Love the soundtrack to Wipeout XL. I still have the CD. It was on Apple Music but when I went to play it I see it has been removed. The game was also the first time I had seen an ad for Red Bull.

7:17 "I'm so used to games now with the Forza trails where you just follow where to go" Optimizing the fun out of racing games like this is pretty depressing for me as a game developer, but I understand why its there. It should be a learning aid, but so often its the main way folks play a game as a kind of relaxing highway-hypnosis I guess? Its so strange to me. Good video, and I really enjoyed the video on Wipeout's music! Great stuff!

Yeeesssss, let's gooo, looking forward to the documentary!! :D

One of the few games that had an awesome vision of the future that I wish I could explore more of.