Are you enjoying the high-octane fun of futuristic racer WipEout Pulse? Did you like what the development team did for this installment of the popular WipEout franchise? During the GDC, game designer Clark Davies talked about how each game type should be approached when making a sequel. He also talked about how his team used this understanding to develop WipEout Pulse. Full details can be found after the jump.

 

Speaking to Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell, WipEout Designer, Clark Davies from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) notes that they're confident that the control in the upcoming WipEout Pulse is the best in the series to date.

Davies says that they took everything from the core gameplay in Pure, and polished and refined it as much as they can. He says that the handling is now smoother, and the ships are now more evenly balanced. Davies also hints that each of the tracks in Pulse will have what they call a Black Run and a White Run, or alternative routes which should offer the player different challenges depending on his speed class and game mode.

As for other changes they've implemented, Davies says that one of the biggest is that the single-player Race campaign now takes place over a series of grids each filled with a series of predefined events. They're still finalizing these grids, but he reassures that they're doing their best to give players a proper single-player game to work their way through.

There's also MP3 support now so that players can play their own songs, the game also has a new HUD that reacts when you get hit, and players should now have the ability to take photos in-race.

The game has now seven game modes. A straight list of them would look like such: Single Race, Tournament, Time Trial, Zone, Head To Head, Speed Lap, and Eliminator. You all probably know the first four already if you've played the previous game, so we'll skip them. Head to Head is a two player race mode which should be more "personal" compared to a regular race. Speed Lap is an offshoot of Time Trial. Lastly, Eliminator, is something that makes a return from the pre-Pure gamesp; weapons should factor into Eliminator greatly.

As for the power-ups and the weapons, Davies notes that they've decided to remove the Disruptor weapon from Pure as it proved to be too random. They're adding in three new weapons, and will be returning one weapon. Oh, and yes, they're keeping the Absorb mechanic.

As for future downloadable content, Clark Davies says that they do plan to offer them, but for now, he can't talk about it.

For the complete interview feel free to head to it via the Read link below. For now, we'll leave you with this interesting quote from the good Mister Davies: "WipEout PS3... yeah, can't really talk about that one yet. Too soon. Sorry!"