on Hulu you can queue up just so that whatever mundane task you find yourself grinding through

has the occasional punctuation of a distressingly over-eager person getting hit with a foam-rubber

obstacle really, really hard and falling into water. And then John Henson makes some vaguely

salacious remark at said over-eager person's expense. So when they take this idea of a

giant, video-game-style obstacle course for real people and turn it into an ACTUAL video

game, which requires attention and direct input... I dunno, I'm kinda lost. Sure, they

can do bigger and badder contraptions, defy the laws of physics in new and interesting

ways... and have a giant badger as a competitor... but you're actually paying ATTENTION to it,

and you can see all the seams and flaws. Especially when, y'know, it just acts all freaky.

So your ultimate goal is GET TO THE FINISH LINE, across any number of hazards, balance

beams, rotating drums, series of giant red balls of questionable physics, hockey equipment,

cheese, nutcrackers... figuratively AND literally... all negotiated through use of your nunchuck

and Wiimote. And when I say "Negotiated," I mean "move forward or don't, jump, jump,

slide, slide, and occasionally crouch." Sometimes you'll get some quicktimey events if you need

to fit through vaguely person-shaped holes in platforms. That's really all you need.

(And trust me, seeing those I thought, "AT LEAST I'M NOT PLAYING A KINECT VERSION, AMIRITE?")

With this thin but functional arsenal of tricks, you run. You run so far away, along a completely

linear path fraught with danger and rather strange traction. Sometimes you'll get going

so fast you'll be unable to stop and wind up crashing into something, costing you...

well, time and that's pretty much it. Fail three times on any particular obstacle and

you get a pass, though that's unlikely since the actual difficulty of any given segment

is fairly low, once you've got it figured out.

So, in order to make up for a perceived lack of difficulty, each stage is studded with

rings that float in midair for you to collect. Presumably, this is because the developers

- in an act of utter delusion - thought they were in fact making a Sonic the Hedgehog game,

one that just happened to have humans running around instead of stylized anthropomorphic

mammals. So that explains the badger. With the prize money you collect at the end of

each episode - because you're running through them more or less alone, setting record times

that Usain Bolt would be hard-pressed to challenge - you can buy new gear for your runners. New

characters, up to and including the producers and hosts of the show, unlock at intervals

according to your experience points - yes, there's EXP to be gained even in this monstrosity

- as do new episodes with new and interesting ways to kill a man. Wait. That's a Final Fantasy

XII reference, and if I'm throwing allusions to anything it should be that episode of Space

Ghost John Henson appeared on.

Wipeout 3, just like the two before it, isn't about to win any awards for gameplay, physics,

writing... it's a distraction at best, and a bad distraction at worst. But sometimes

you're of a mind where you need something absolutely stupid, and it's at least entertaining...

until you take a step back and wonder where your life took a turn. If you can avoid that

moment, you should be golden. Still, I feel like I'm missing something... um... oh yeah,

certain points in each stage cover you in mud, just for the purpose of obstructing your

view! It's a brown, onion-flavored nightmare down there! There ya go. My work here is done.