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Im a fan of the Wipeout series, not a big fan but just a fan. I do like the thrill the series gives with super fast hovercrafts and the blazing techno soundtrack that is accompanied in the game. But this one just doesn't do it for me. I mean all you will notice is improved graphics which isn't really impressive, better and bigger environments but that is about it. No replay value to it. Of course you can play with a friend head to head but that's not much fun after a while. You'll also notice that the controls are alot and I mean ALOT stiffer than the previous wipeout games. The controls can get a little frustrating at times especially when you get to the higher levels of speed.
I say give this one a rental. I don't think it's worthy of a buy for your PS2 collection in my opinion. Such a disappointment but oh well. Oh and one more thing. THe soundtrack for the game is a little old and outdated for me.

Unfortunately I am one of those Wipeout 'fans' who have played and completed all of the various incarnations. Only very recently did I get my hands on a PS2 and a copy of wipeout fusion. To be honest, I thought it was a bit strange that the game moved forward so much in certain areas but lost so many of the features that define the wipeout experience.

Firstly I would like to say that I find both the graphics and the track design (there are a couple of minor exceptions outlined below) absolutely excellent. The attraction of the Wipeout series for myself and the majority of the fan-base was really the sense of speed, the 'coolness' factor and also the sheer satisfaction of linking up a couple of good corners by mastering the authentic feeling aircraft model. It was these things that kept you playing.

The speed issue is hard to understand. Wipeout fusion is just really slow compared with the upper leagues of the previous games. In addition to a new aircraft model that feels somehow synthetic and not really based on physics (sometime when cornering with the airbrake there is a conspicuous lack of momentum or something) the lack of speed puts an end to that heart-in-the-mouth feeling you got in fast sections in the other games. It is also probably the case that the sudden deceleration from hitting the side of the track in the earlier games was part of the addictiveness and thrill of getting it right and going fast. Additionally, there is no longer that drag sound as you air-brake which reinforces the sense of current speed and momentum and also deceleration - which removes a fraction of your immersion.

The aircraft model no longer lets you take a tight corner from a bad angle, slowly. In XL/ 2097 if you messed up your approach you could still airbrake like mad and avoid colliding with the side of the track - the penalty some speed, but not as significant as hitting the side of the track. Which is the other strange thing, given you cannot make corners at absurd angles anymore, you tend to hit the side of the track very often which doesn't really do much to slow you down. The penalty is shield energy which is not really the most attractive aspect of Fusion.

The weapons are bizarrely over-powerful and now you can race a perfect race and still come last due to luck alone. The most irritating are those that stop the player's craft entirely. The previous games would certainly not have put weapons over speed. The leagues are now a matter of trial and error and you get the impression that skill had a smaller part to play than probability. You are no longer awarded for you ability to fly the craft. A minor gripe is that pitting (which you have to do no matter how good you are) takes too long since you are forced to slow down.

The lack of the coolness factor is a bit inexplicable. The underground techno music of the previous games that lends a dark and industrial feel is gone and replaced with somewhat tacky trance music which is a bit weak. The menu music is optimistic like that of a football game instead of dark and gritty - a cue to get wired. The Designer's Republic did good work on the other games and the Fusion interface seems shallow and sterile by comparison. The 3d character designs look infantile next to the 2d anime-chic of the first game.

The other problem is that the speed/difficulty issue is gone. Leagues are not noticeably faster and even when they actually are, the effect of speed in determining difficulty is masked by the heavy bias of weapons and shields and pitting etc. Other minor issues are annoying 'open' areas that have you lost in a cave unable to see due to over-opaque particle effects. There is also an odd tendency for the aircraft model to change when you are exiting one of the open areas in such a way that you feel pulled toward the exit - or quite often a wall demarking the exit. The problem is, that the faults tend not to feel deliberate since there are clearly undesirable faults such as fairly bad slow-down. Also, I cannot be the first to mention the difference in handling of the craft between regular and widescreen display settings.

The overall impression is that the game has not been tested thoroughly and/or it has paid little notice of the fundamentals that made previous incarnations so great. I still load up the other games for a blast - just single arcade races around one of my favourite tracks - despite the improved graphics and tracks, I have no desire to do so with fusion which is a great pity. Nevertheless I pray that the series will find its feet and continue.

A hugely disappointed wipeout fanatic and software developer.

... there's something about it that has made me dump just about 150 hours of play time into it (according to the clock on my first saved game, and not including others). Fusion is odd because, although it is not the best of the series, and although it feels slightly disjointed and out of place in the franchise, it still affords me an immense amount of fun, as evidenced by the hours I've wracked up. I finished and unlocked everything easily enough, within a couple casual gaming months of purchase, yet I still enjoy turning the game on about once a week - sometimes when I'm waiting for friends, to go out, or just chilling out with a drink and clearing my head. The game is FUN.

Visually, it's not the best looking game on the PS2, nor is is the best designed of the WipeOut series, although it certainly has its moments. A few of the locations seem uninspired, but the majority of them are quite detailed, challenging, and just fun to race through. While the courses themselves may seem twisty and winding to a fault, they are in fact very intuitively designed and compliment the racing experience nicely, once you've gained some mastery of the controls. Tracks are wide in Fusion, much wider than in any previous games. There are narrow areas, but they are reserved for tunnels and cut-aways and such. Course diverge and converge regularly, and many of them have multiple routes at several points. Each location has a short, medium, and long course, and sometimes they overlap, which adds a new dimesnion of difficulty as the racer must reorient himself - but as the shorter ones can sometimes be as deadly as the longer ones, these are not so much tags of difficulty as merely separators.

Weaponry in the game is the biggest change - there are many new weapons and some of them are very, very cool. Teams now have unique super-weapons, gained via "license" through a series of challenges, and these are of course spectacular. Things like the Orbital Laser (a beam of light that comes down in a neat little clip and blows up any one competitor), Seismic Field (I think of it as a small, self-contained black hole that rumbles down the track and causes much mayhem), and Power Swarm (the coolest - little sentry drones that flight out and devastate whoever is nearest) are genuinely thrilling to unleash against competitors.

As you progress through the game, ships can be modified and upgraded - these upgrades represent four speed classes - although it is possible to have a very fast ship in favor of other essentials like shield power or handling. This aspect of the game holds promise but really seems to be rather pointless in this incarnation, as the teams themselves are predisposed to be more or less powerful, already.

The music in Fusion is not as catchy as in previous titles, though there are a few very good tracks here and there, and the sound effects are done in Dolby Pro Logic II surround, which is incredible and more than compensates for the music (in fact I play with the music off and turn on my own collections instead, with just the SFX coming from the game).

It isn't too hard (as a veteran of the series, and of future-racing in general, it afforded me a good amount of difficulty for several days, which I view as a good thing) nor is it too easy, even for an experienced player. One of the key points of all the WipeOut games, of any future-racer, is mastering the controls. Newcomers should be advised that it isn't easy - but that is part of the genre as a whole, not a flaw in the game design. In fact, the physics in Fusion actually make the game much more player-friendly than the previous titles of the series. Computer AI is a blast, too. The other racers will just as often blow themselves up as they will you - it's not 15 to 1 here; it's every pilot for themselves.

Overall, the wide range of customizations available to the ships, and the variety of courses (in seven locations with three parts each, both going forward and in "reverse" - equals to about 42 total racing experiences, plus one other limited location for a total of 45) and weaponry makes for a diverse and surprisingly deep, long lasting and satisfying gaming experience. This game is just what it should be, and no more: fun, easy to pick up and play, fast, and frantic. You need not think too much or otherwise engage your mind. Unfortunately, although it's primed for it, the game lacks a multiplayer capability, which would have truly set it apart, and only offers a two player mode. Now that console multiplayer is more common, we can hope the next game of the series will have it.