The PlayStation’s original launch so many years ago was boosted by many great games. One of the first developers was Psygnosis, who built a little game that really made waves.

WipEout was revolutionary at its launch. This new game gave the player a course with tight turns and banks that mirrored a good roller coaster. Oh, and you had to race it in a high speed anti-gravity vehicle. Easy, right?

After everything that has happened, Sony is now ready to get back to basics. Well back to basics again. WipEout already has one version on the PSP, WipEout Pure. This much lauded game has been selected as one of the best games out for the system. This one goes a lot further though.

Some things have obviously stayed the same. WipEout Pulse still features the player at the helm of an anti-grav racer using all of their equipment and skill to get through the course as quickly as possible without becoming a skid mark on the wall.

One of the most notable changes has to be the great single-player. The difficulty was toned down a little bit to actually make the many different course fun. They are still hard and you will crash, but they shouldn’t feel as impossible as the old ones.

Each one features all of the standard challenges you’ve come to expect. You’ll have to get around chicanes, hairpin turns and some ridiculously sharp corners that can easily rip your little ship to shreds. This makes for some white knuckle action though, as you desperately hit the air brake to cut through the turn at full speed.

The anti-social will be happy to have some computer playmates to challenge. Some of the races have other racers with decent AI to give you a good challenge, but with all of the weapons at your disposal, you should be able to easily blast them out of the sky.

All of the tracks are just part of a big puzzle. You beat one piece to open up the next part. This gives a good sense of purpose to your racing.

Lighting up the board won’t be too easy though. The tracks have some new tricks. You now have to deal with tricks like magnetic strips, which is basically just an excuse to go upside down in a loop going at a ridiculous speed that Richard Hammond would gasp at.

The social player will be happy to see that they can now take their gaming online through any wireless internet connection, with ad hoc games available for up to eight gamers. They is also the promise of some new features and bonus content that will be available online in the future, so things should stay new for awhile.

The graphics for this edition set the bar for PSP games. All of the ship models and tracks are beautifully animated and made. The explosions are pretty too. If you are tired of your friends bragging about their DS, then you should buy this game to show them what your little baby is really able to do.

There’s really nothing bad about this game. It is still essentially WipEout, so don’t expect anything too new. Also, you will sometimes be forced to play tracks over again, but they are still nice the second time around.

None of these are actually big problems to what is easily one of the best releases for the PSP. WipEout Pulse is still a great racing game that gives you intense action in a beautiful setting, and now it is more portable than ever.