I also wanted to tell you a little about the ships that you’re going to get to play in the new game. Choosing the right ship couldn’t be more important. Take the wrong ship to the track, and you’re going to struggle. So here’s some insider information to help you make those all-important ship choices as you get started with Wipeout 2048.

Speed Ships are the F1 cars of anti-gravity racing. They’re sleek, delta-winged craft with minimal liveries. To look at, they’re the closest to the original, classic dart-shaped Wipeout ships. These ships are all about going fast, but to go fast, they need to be light. To shed weight, Speed Ships sacrifice bulkier components such as the extra defensive and offensive systems. Racing aside, Speed Ships are great for Time Trials and Speed laps.

Next up are our Agility Ships, and if Speed Ships are F1 cars, then Agility Ships are rally cars. These things are heavily liveried and have amazing handling. The increase in manoeuvrability is down to a second set of airbrakes, additional forward facing wings, and extra spoilers underneath to create more down-force. Agility Ships are the ideal choice for the serious Zone Mode pilot.

Fighters are exactly what you expect – combatants. These guys are tough, heavily armoured and pack a serious punch. Obviously, with all the extra weight they carry, they lose out on some speed and manoeuvrability, but that doesn’t matter, because their job is to destroy the opposition. If you’re going into a Combat event, it’s a no brainer that you’re gonna want to show up in one of these diamond-shaped destroyers.

The last class of ship is the Prototype Ship, but I’m not going to tell you anything about those. You can have fun experimenting with them.

I hope you enjoy the fast-paced, adrenaline rush of anti-gravity racing in this latest installment to the Wipeout franchise. In addition to these sleek ships, you’ll be racing along with the pumping soundtrack of 10 exclusive new tracks from some of today’s global dance music, including DeadMau5, The Chemical Brothers and Kraftwerk, that will be sure to keep you energized throughout the campaign.

Well, that’s all from me for now. I hope to see you online for some high-speed competition with Wipeout 2048’s eight-player online multiplayer mode. You can also race against Wipeout HD Fury players on the PS3 with the PS Vita’s Cross-Play feature. So heads-up PS3 owners! Be sure to download the new patch available today to enable Cross Play with the new Wipeout 2048 Vita title. As a reminder, Wipeout 2048 will require an Online Pass voucher code that is included with your copy of the game. You can redeem your code via the PlayStation Store icon on the home screen of your PS Vita.

Enjoy!

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!