Wipeout 2

Wipeout 2 is a licensed party and minigame adaptation of ABC's Wipeout television game show, not a sequel to the futuristic WipEout racing series. Its obstacle-course contests turn spectacular falls into the joke: contestants race across oversized hazards, miss a landing, and tumble into water or mud while the commentators keep up the comedy.

The Nintendo DS version was developed by Behaviour Interactive and published by Activision. It reached North America on October 11, 2011. The game draws on the programme's summer and winter settings, mixing ice, snow, foam and familiar physical obstacles into its course designs.

On DS, players take a caricatured contestant through eight courses built around running, jumping, balance and timing. Obstacles include the Big Balls, Sucker Punch, Spinning Slapshot and Knee Sweeper. The basic running and jumping actions are straightforward, while airborne sections such as the balls and trampolines demand more careful timing.

The handheld edition includes tutorials for simple and advanced obstacles, plus practice options for most courses. New avatars can be unlocked, and an obstacle may usually be skipped if it proves troublesome; the final obstacle is the exception. The goal is to post the fastest route through the course, even when a wipeout interrupts the run.

Four players can share one Nintendo DS in Hot Seat play, taking turns rather than racing simultaneously. That is distinct from the Wii edition's revised motion-oriented controls, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions' ways to interfere with rivals using paintballs or snowballs, and the Nintendo 3DS edition's stereoscopic presentation.