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Partake in my recent WipeOut clone addiction

Curratum

Guest
After spending over 100 hours in Forza Horizon 4, I got a little tired of "proper" driving games and dipped my toes in the wonderful world of antigrav / magnetic / whatever the fuck ultra-high-speed future racing games that are available on PC.

My research over several days and my digging through forgotten games in my library, as well as some Steam key hunting, led me to the following selection of games that belong to the genre and that I consider good enough and fun enough to recommend after spending a few hours with each one.

I won't be giving you reviews for each one, just use your eyes. All I have to say is that while controlling them all is challenging at first and they all have their own quirks and "things" going for them, overall they're all fun to play and will take some time to master.


BallisticNG is the one that is the best value for money, costing 6 EUR non-discounted and coming with a bunch of dev-made tracks and Steam workshop where you can find 300 mostly high quality custom tracks, both WipeOut remakes and originals, with custom assets and everything. Has one of the best CRT filters I've ever seen as well, if you're going for that PS1 feel.


Got this for 10 EUR, with all DLC which is something like 50 tracks in total. Sadly, the difficulty and AI are stupid-hard, even on the lowest difficulty setting, but still very fun to zoom around. Lots of race modes and modifiers / mutators.

======

Edit: After playtesting and spending a couple more hours with each of the 4 games I originally posted, I ran into enough performance and gameplay / design issues to narrow it down to just BallisticNG and RedOut.

In short, if you like Wipeout, get BallisticNG. If you're not a Wipeout fan but like F-Zero a lot more, get RedOut.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Melcar

Melcar

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Joined
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Messages
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Merida, again
I have BallisticNG and Redout. Fun games. BallisticNG is basically WipeOut and I like it very much. Controls are what you expect, good variety in tracks, good music and nice clean graphics. Play it constantly. Redout is a bit too much like F-Zero for me and therefore I don't enjoy it as much. It's not an exact F-Zero clone since it has some WipeOuty elements, but if you are looking for a straight WipeOut clone you may not like the game. Music is kind of lame and graphics are a bit "messy". Tracks are boring to be honest. Controls are alright, but a touch more sensitive than in BallisticNG.
The other two in the list I never heard of. I may try them out.
 

A horse of course

Guest
There was some WipeOut-esque VR gnome I tried on the quest 2 but the controls were really shitty.
 

Curratum

Guest
Ed123 said:
There was some WipeOut-esque VR gnome I tried on the quest 2 but the controls were really shitty.
Click to expand...

I have never tried any sort of VR, but my first impression when I touched most of those games was the same. I needed around 20-30 minutes to just get used to controls, I'm still learning and getting better, it's a bit of a steep curve, but it's really fun when you start getting it.
 

Curratum

Guest
deama said:
Were you able to run Pacer at 120+fps? What resolution and GPU you used?
Click to expand...

I'm playing at 1080p on an RX 570 4gb. Even at that, it still drops below 60 fps occasionally. It's relatively rare, but it still does happen when you make sharp turns and large new chunks of track come into view. I imagine you'd need something REALLY beefy for stable 120 fps.
 

Curratum

Guest
kangaxx said:
I used to play WipeOut to death on my Saturn. Shame the port from PSX was bad...

Might give BallisticNG a look, cheers.
Click to expand...

Definitely do look into it! The base content is excellent, plenty of speed categories and pretty tracks.

Additionally, I discovered one of Skyrim's most popular modders has produced SEVENTY stunning custom tracks for the game, all of them look and play incredibly well.

Here's a link to a "one-click subscribe to all tracks" collection by that modder. This is basically as much content as you get in the base game, for free. Almost all (or all?) tracks have custom geometry and textures and are just incredible. Click around and see for yourself, all tracks have video previews on the workshop as well.

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1948759147

This all comes at 6 EUR for the base game, I mean, damn...

At this point, seeing all the modes and just raw amount of content contained in BallisticNG, it's become my favorite game of the bunch.
 

Curratum

Guest
kangaxx said:
How does it play with keyboard & mouse? I don't have a controller at my disposal.
Click to expand...

Haven't tried it with keyboard, I play with an x360 controller, but your acceleration is a digital on/off input and it feels like the airbrakes are digital on/off as well, so I don't imagine you will have any trouble.
 

Curratum

Guest
udm said:
Curratum have you also tried GRIP? I think you might like that a lot.
Click to expand...

I literally just quit GRIP before opening the browser :D

It's a cool game, but I'm not too keep on the handling and physics. It feels a bit on-rails and some of the landings and spins feel a bit like early 2000s canned physics.

Just left a positive review on Steam, though. It's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, it's just, well, it could have been better with more advanced and sensitive / fine-tuned / responsive physics.
 
Melcar

Melcar

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Joined
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Messages
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Location
Merida, again
Well GRIP isn't a WipeOut clone by any stretch. It's more of a vehicle combat racer. Think Mario Kart with hover vehicles.
 

Curratum

Guest
Update for deama : Stay away from Pacer. I was getting good FPS in the first few unlocked tracks but as I unlocked a few more, performance in those is laughable.

I'm dropping to 40-something fps for no reason, at 1080p, even after lowering some settings and there's nothing much going on onscreen. The devs obviously have no clue how to handle UE4, there is no visible reason for those frame drops.

I'll just leave this here instead and remove Pacer and Quantum Rush from the original post as after spending more time with both of them, they are all not really worth your time and money, in a world where BallisticNG exists and costs so little cash.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/curratum/recommended/389670/

Basically, if you like Wipeout, play BallisticNG. If you're more of an F-Zero fan, play RedOut. It's that simple. :D
 
DJOGamer PT

DJOGamer PT

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Lusitânia
Curratum said:
Basically, if you like Wipeout, play BallisticNG. If you're more of an F-Zero fan, play RedOut. It's that simple. :D
Click to expand...

BNG is great, and I find it better than Wipeout
RedOut on the other than tries to be a mix between Wipeout and F-Zero, and as such fails at both

Really in the whole anti-grav racer subgenre, F-Zero is unique in gameplay
And so far all game indie games that say they were inspired F-Zero are in truth much closer to Wipeout

EDIT:
Well it seems this one guy is actually trying to make something more akin to F-Zero (although with some clear changes)...

 
Last edited:
Melcar

Melcar

Arcane
Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
36,587
Location
Merida, again
Curratum said:
Update for deama : Stay away from Pacer. I was getting good FPS in the first few unlocked tracks but as I unlocked a few more, performance in those is laughable.

I'm dropping to 40-something fps for no reason, at 1080p, even after lowering some settings and there's nothing much going on onscreen. The devs obviously have no clue how to handle UE4, there is no visible reason for those frame drops.

I'll just leave this here instead and remove Pacer and Quantum Rush from the original post as after spending more time with both of them, they are all not really worth your time and money, in a world where BallisticNG exists and costs so little cash.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/curratum/recommended/389670/

Basically, if you like Wipeout, play BallisticNG. If you're more of an F-Zero fan, play RedOut. It's that simple. :D
Click to expand...

That's pretty much my stance. Right now I only have BallisticNG and Grip installed. Redout is just not for me, especially with all the shit graphics (shit as in blur and filters).
 
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