Just yesterday I received an email from Play-Asia announcing the availability of the Super Famicom Classic Controller. Today, it’s totally sold out. Gone. Kapish.

Talk about madness …

I was actually half way done writing a review for this game when I decided to just scrap the entire thing and just rant out what I wanted to rant in the first place. Here goes.

On the outside this game is a great remake. Beautifully drawn characters coupled with nice remixed music. Gameplay is exactly the same as I remembered and Super Akuma is still a pain in the ass. I only beat him once in my entire life and that’s back in 1995 on the 3DO system. More than a decade ago!

On the inside as a fan of the original SSF2T, I was disappointed. Disappointed that Capcom used the music from the arcade version instead of the more superior arranged version for its classic sound setting. Call me nuts but the reason why I was soooooooo looking forward to the HD version was because I thought I would finally see the light of the ‘arranged music’ appearing on my favourite Street Fighter game.

Unfortunately someone shut off that damn light.

P.S Akuma’s arranged version still sounds better [Click here for HQ version]

As compared to the arcade CPS2 version [Click here for HQ version]

“Welcome to Delta Squad” – Marcus Fenix

Neko recently purchased Wipeout HD from PlayStation Store and we gave it a spin last Monday. First impression? Wow!

The game is everything I would expect of a Wipeout game and more.  Having played on a 4 : 3 ratio using component cables, I didn’t expect much from the graphics. Man, was I wrong. The graphics were absolutely fantastic, mesmerizing. I can’t imagine how good the game will look like if we ran it on full HD 1080p resolution.

Music from the game is top-notched, although I’m sure it will be promptly replaced by your own. Like Pulse, Wipeout HD also supports external music (mp3 format) which is placed inside the HDD. Changing the music is a bit tedious as you have to access the ‘Audio’ option each time. Bad implementation if you ask me. They should just allow you to change the music the moment you hit the pause button instead of navigating through menus. A ‘rotation of songs’ options would be a big welcome as well.

Overall the game plays exactly the same as its PSP counterpart, with the exception of Zone races. Not much in terms of gameplay but I like the way how the tracks turn different colors as you hit different zone levels. At the side you see a ‘speedo meter’ lookalike that shows which zone you are at now, along with the help of an announcer. Simple yet interesting touches.

Here are some of the minor bad parts about Wipeout HD. Apart from the music problem mentioned above, it was sad to see that Elimination type races has been omitted from HD. It was great fun playing it on Pulse, so kinda wonder why they took it out. AI and the learning curve could have ease up a little. Normally things start to get nasty after the 4th grid. For HD, 2nd grid was enough to make you replay the same race over and over again to hit gold medal (Skilled setting).

Get past these minor setbacks and its all good.

Final comment : A must have for any PlayStation 3 owners who is in need of a good racing game. Then again racing enthusiast would probably have gotten the game aeons ago.