WipEout HD Approaching, Dust Off the Trophy Case

Well, it’s been a while, but WipEout HD is almost out the studio door and on the virtual shelves of the PSN. What started life as a simple port has grown into a full-fledged game in its own right, with an extensive list of features. One of the things we’re very happy to support is PSN Trophies, 37 of them to be exact (well, 38 including Platinum)… and that’s what I’m going to talk a bit about today.

Internally, we decided to ensure our trophies covered four main areas – game progression, stat milestones, novelty and skill. You’ll notice these categories reflected in the actual visual look of the trophies themselves, as and when you earn them. There’s are good mix of stuff you’ll earn naturally (through playing ‘normally’), and some bespoke stuff you might have to set some time aside for. For example, you may never have thought of playing Zone Mode with just airbrakes up to Zone 50, but that’s what you’ll have to do if you want the silver ‘Airbreaker’ Trophy in your collection. Then there’s another type of trophy, which falls kind of between those two areas, like the gold ‘Beat Zico’ trophy.

Actually, I’ll go off on a little tangent here.

A few of us in the team had a long running competition with a very specific ruleset – Anulpha Pass/Forwards/Speed Lap/Venom/Pirahna. We were setting some impressive times. Every now and then someone would find a new tactic, a new line to take through a corner or another barrel roll opportunity, and shave a fraction of a second off the fastest time. We think we’ve found the optimal route now, so it’s all about a flawless execution of that line. We spent a lot of time on this competition, so we decided to make a trophy out of it. When it came to submitting the lap time, Zico Liu (one of our programmers) was top of the table, so he got the naming rights. Obtaining the gold ‘Beat Zico’ trophy is no easy task, so best of luck. Zico has since beaten his own time, and so has Stephen Taylor (another of our programmers), but like I say to them, Time Trials and Speed Laps are like punching a bag – nobody’s hitting you back. Online is where the big boys play, and I’m sure they’ll agree that that’s MY world. In fact I’d like to take this opportunity to trash talk some of our team – Ste, Zico, Tony, Col/s, Ian, Gaz, Matt/s, Sandy, James – I OWN you all.

I won’t go on about specifics and spoil them for you (although I’m sure the internet will do that given enough time), so I’ll leave it there. To summarize, WipEout HD has trophies. There’s one platinum, some gold, more silver and lots of bronze. There’s a good range of difficulty ranging from very easy to damn hard. I take my hat off to anybody that earns themselves the platinum ‘Transcendence’ trophy any time soon.

WipEout HD is available on 09/25 for $19.99. The team are very proud of this game and are just as happy as the fans to see this benchmark title finally get onto the PLAYSTATION Store. Oh, and don’t let the price tag fool you, WipEout HD is no run of the mill port. I can assure you that the PSN bar has been well and truly raised.

Thanks for your all your support and patience, it’ll be worth it.

3, 2, 1 – GO!