... So many of my racer friends gave up on WipEout because "its too hard to control".
There is basically just one control scheme; full-throttle, steer left, and steer
right. What you and your friends have experience as "too hard to control" is
that each craft in WipEout (HD) has a different handling which needs to be
practiced to get the most out it. Each craft has such many nuances which people
do overlook easily when saying the crafts are hard to control, because they may
think the game is an arcade and as such needs to have easy handling.
Another interesting aspect of WipEout is that you can't tune the crafts. This
has some advantages as well as disadvantages. One huge advantages is that you
have to master the craft to make it go fast. You really have to learn the
intrinsic characteristics of each craft. Any tuning, because you weren't fast
enough etc., will take you out of the game/race because you may think you
haven't tuned your craft rightfully to become any good. In WipEout, you either
race or stood aside, but you won't fiddle around with any tuning or technology
trees you can pimp your craft with. These things sound nice from the outset, but
they add -- nothing -- to racing. That's something many developers don't get
right. They add tons of stuff, but almost none does anything for improving the
sole essence of any racing game, i.e. racing. In today's world many developers
think they have to put some huge weight into their game by make it look big,
cool, bombastic, by adding thousands of effects, smear, gadgets etc. on the
screen, but at the end of the day non if these add anything for racing. I still
need to see any racing game that can copy the clean razor sharp racing style of
what is WipEout.
I know this sounds harsh (and I appreciate the great work theyre doing) but yeah, WipEout holds a very special place in my gaming heart 
