WipEout doesn’t bother with a story, and frankly, I don’t care; I don’t think it would suit the game, and would come across badly. In fact, this is a good design decision from Sony!
The gameplay in WipEout is very traditional for the series. This is perhaps unsurprising considering the package is like a greatest hits. The biggest flaw about the game is that none of the content is technically new. The ships have been taken from many of the past games, whilst the tracks and weapons have all been taken from the PSP version of the game, along with the game modes. Obviously it all looks and runs much better, but if you have played the PSP games to death, the value here is significantly lowered. Some people may be put off by the very traditional nature of the game. You take part in pretty random selections of event modes at random tracks, and just aim to place in the top 3 each time. Also, the difficulty is pretty old-school, with multiple attempts needed even to get a bronze in some of the highest speed & difficulty events. You will be punished over and over until you know the tracks and weapon/speed boost locations. This was always true of the game in the past, but to new players to the game, this may seem odd, foreign, and frankly annoying.