- NA release: 4th November 1998
- PAL release: 5th February 1999
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: Psygnosis
- Publisher: Midway
- N64 Magazine Score: 88%
It’s always a shame when you know a game is good quality but you just can’t seem to gel with it. I enjoyed playing F-Zero X for the first time, even though I played F-Zero GX first, so I was hoping the same would be true with Wipeout 64, as I had played Wipeout 2048 on Vita. Sadly, I really could not get the hang of this game at all.
What I think is throwing me off is the camera. It’s not in line with your vehicle, it seems to be instead stuck to the track or something. Your racer is often towards the side of the screen, appearing at an angle. It looks fancy in screenshots, but I think it’s messing with my ability to judge turns. You also seem to “hit” the sides before it seems like you should be doing.
Instead of just having a series of races, there are challenges in multiple categories: racing, time trial and killing enemies. When you’ve completed all these, you then unlock a “super combo” mode where you have to win races while killing enough opponents.
It’s a good idea for extending the singleplayer, especially with only 7 tracks, I just wish I found the gameplay itself to be fun.
Fun
To start off with, Wipeout 64 is one of the most irritating games you’ll have ever played and, even when you’ve mastered it, it still penalises you for errors that F-Zero X and this month’s XG2 would be quite happy to let pass. But, in doing so, Wipeout 64 has secured itself as a bit of a rarity on N64: a racing game that you won’t have completed within a week of buying it. Not a perfect racing game, admittedly, but still a thrill-packed slice of racing brilliance.
Tim Weaver, N64 Magazine #23
Remake or remaster?
A Wipeout remastered collection really should be done with the PS1 games, Wipeout 64 and the PS2 and PSP games. Even if they end up renaming Wipeout 64 as Wipeout 2098 or something.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get Wipeout 64
Europe
Japan
North America
N64 Games by Date
1997: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1998: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1999: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2000: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
Ehh, , Wipeout has always been a bit pants when it comes to gameplay. It’s not even a poor man’s F-Zero, it’s actually a poor man’s Mario Kart.
It’s absolutely dripping with style though, and that’s what really sold the series back in the late 90s/early 2000s. It was exactly the right game at the right time, as it successfully tapped into British club culture and helped the Playstation brand to supplant SEGA’s position amongst older game players.
Still, Wipeout 64 is one of those neat little weird anomolies from just before Psygnosis got absorbed into Sony proper (who later became Sony Studios Liverpool; before being made defunct in 2012 after being turned into a F1/Wipeout games factory for around a decade beforehand). Something that supposedly Sony weren’t too happy about; in fact, they actually tried to sell Psygnosis in 1996 after they got their hands on Psygnosis’ real crown jewel (SN Systems), but eventually weren’t able to, so they ended up reigning Psygnosis in and eventually absorbed the company proper.
Indeed, Sony’s treatment of Psygnosis isn’t that dissimilar from how Microsoft would end up treating Bethesda. Both were similarily prolific publishers in their day too.