Is the gameplay of Wipeout actually any good? Always admired the aesthetics, and I love F-Zero GX, but… The bonking against sides, the short view distance indu

Is the gameplay of Wipeout actually any good? Always admired the aesthetics, and I love F-Zero GX, but… The bonking against sides, the short view distance induced by excessively-curved tracks makes it feel like the NES game RC Pro-Am, but instead of an tightly-cropped overhead view of the track, you see the next fifty feet of track ahead (at 1,000 scifimeters/sec). The game felt brute-forceable through its brittle, unforgiving driving but it was so frustrating I never gelled with it. Was I missing anything?