Futuristic racing games have always had their place in gaming. Tron, F-Zero, Xtreme-G, Kenetika, WipEout and a host of other games have driven extreme speeds of the distant futures roads with varying success. One of the franchises that has spanned over 10 years over 6 consoles is WipEout. Normally associated with Sony's PlayStation consoles, there have been plenty of WipEout games that have appeared else where until the developers behind the games were eventually bought by Sony.

The PSP has seen its share of WipEout love. Launching the system with WipEout Pure, gamers were thrust face first into the handheld with no seat belt. The game featured some intense tracks and blistering speeds. Gamers have waited on baited breath to get some more futuristic racing action. The good news is your don't have to hold your breath any longer. Kombo has recently been sent a preview copy of WipEout Pulse, the heir to the WipEout Pure throne and we had our hands all over the title.



The techno-slick menus and futuristic styling are back. The art style is very geometric; leaving sharp, clean lines for your eyes to follow, if they can keep up. As the tracks and environments whip past you in the blink of an eye, you'll notice how detailed the racing tracks are. The different vehicles have their own personalities and sport cool paint jobs to match.

The Sony Studio at Liverpool has the gameplay down to a science. There are no major surprises in Pulse. The only change is the smoother gameplay all around at every corner. The vehicles themselves will feel differently, not all racing games can say that. What that means for gamers is that you can take different vehicles in same situations and get different results.

For those wondering how different Pulse is from Pure, you'd be shocked at playing the games back to back, it doesn't feel like the same game. Everything about Pulse is better than Pure. The sense of speed in Pulse makes all other efforts on the PSP look like a Sunday Driver simulator. It is only aided by the improved framerate that keeps the graphics look stunning and clipping along at a blazing rate.

The only criticism we could draw from our hands-on time was that the feature set for Pulse is fairly identical with Pure, which released almost three years ago. The largest new feature is online multiplayer which, admittedly, is a really important feature. Still, the single player experience doesn't see any additions.

Unfortunately, we didn't get online for some matches but expect that by the time the final review comes around. Pulse is a wonderful extension of the WipEout franchise and surpasses Pure's first attempt with a whole new layer of polish. The full game will arrive on our desk sometime soon so stay posted for the full review.