F Zero AX vs WipEout Omega Collection
54So, I kind of felt compelled to put this video comparison together after a comment from Joe Redifer from @GameSack where, in a retrospective feature on the PSP, he described the WipEout series as being 'a poor man's F-Zero'. Now, I normally love GameSack, but that comment really chaps my arse. I think the WipEout series of games are superb (well, apart from Fusion on the PS2...) and that dismissing them in such an offhand way is doing a massive disservice to one of the best futuristic racing series around. And I'm saying this as someone that absolutely adores F-Zero GX on the Gamecube.
I've made a couple of F-Zero GX Vs WipEout HD videos before, but unfortunately, this was back when YouTube kept just absolutely destroying the video quality of anything I uploaded in 1080p. No matter what the bitrate of the finished video was or how crisp and smooth the finished video looked, by the time YouTube had finished processing them, my beautiful 1080p 60,000 kbps videos would look like horrifically pixelated 360p shit-shows. I subsequently found out, the way to get around this is to just upload everything in 4K.
As a video hastily cobbled together as a response to another video, this was created with an F-Zero video and a WipEout Omega Collection video I'd kept on an external hardrive from previous uploads, that were both good quality. I'm aware that this is a comparison between a GameCube game (6th generation console) versus a PS4 game (8th generation console). However, I'm playing F-Zero GX here using Dolphin Emulator which has the benefit of allowing me to upscale the game into HD and to also improve the anti-aliasing, making the game look almost like a current generation title. I've also used special Gecko (like Action Replay) codes in the emulator to access the 'hidden' version of the F-Zero AX arcade game that's buried away in the F-Zero GX ISO (I'll always get someone at this point going on about how the version of AX you find in the GC disc isn't really the true arcade AX, because the way the drifting works is different, but honestly, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck).
Although both games are futuristic racers, they do differ a bit in the gameplay department. WipEout tends to have more of a focus on narrower courses with fewer ships that you tend to encounter in smaller groups. F-Zero GX tends to have big open courses with a lot more ships (30 in total) that seem to bunch together a lot, so you can easily go from 1st to 30th in the space of seconds if you're not careful. WipEout has weapons and power ups that are obtained throughout the race for one off use by driving over special pads, whereas the ships in F-Zero GX have a spin attack they can use (not that that I ever really tend to use it).
Both games run at 60fps and look and sound absolutely amazing and I think F-Zero GX really pushed the GameCube to its limits. Obviously, being 2 generations later, the PS4 has the upper hand graphically. However, played on Dolphin, upscaled into HD, I think F-Zero GX/AX could easily pass as a current gen game. I can remember seeing WipEout HD for the first time on a mate's PS3 and just being absolutely gobsmacked at how good it looked. Suffice to say it was not long after that I also got a PS3 and a copy of the game. I actually specifically got a PS4 when Omega collection came out, after I found out the PS Vita WipEout 2048 stages were included in it, in a massively graphically beefed up form. Before F-Zero GX came out, I had a promo disc (that came with a UK GameCube mag) that showed early footage of it running. After seeing it I was chomping at the bit to get the game, it looked soooo good. I actually uploaded the footage from that promo disk aaaages ago. You can view it here if you're interested: https://youtu.be/nZj8NigjzM8
F-Zero's default default speed is fast - like, eyeball meltingly fast. Wipeout Omega Collection (in both it's HD Fury and 2048 variants) starts off at a more reasonable pace and then gets progressively faster as you unlock higher speed classes by completing events in it. By the time you get to the fastest ones it's every bit as fast as F-Zero, if not faster. F-Zero GX is definitely the harder of the two in my opinion. The game is notorious difficult on the higher difficulties, especially the Story Mode. There's a very funny, expletive filled, rant about it here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=711267
That's not to say that Wipeout HD isn't challenging though, it can be pretty tough in places too. Which is the better game? I'm going to have to give a cop out answer here and say, in my opinion, they are both equally awesome. Trying to pick a favourite out of these two series would be like trying to pick a favourite sibling. TBH, I don't know why it's even necessary to have a favourite, they both compliment each other so well.
#FZeroAX #WipEoutOmegaCollection #FZeroGX
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