Racing Archives - The Greatest Game Music

8-Bit Rally Soundtrack

8-Bit Rally Soundtrack, poisoncut, 2011

Despite the album title, this is not one of the many retro exercises in NES-style chiptune. Instead, composer poisoncut’s work here makes full use of contemporary sounds and production techniques. At the same time, he subtly alludes to the music of the games that inspired 8-Bit Rally – the Lotus and Top Gear franchises. In a way, poisoncut is in a fortunate situation. The Lotus and Top Gear soundtracks never really developed an unmistakable signature sound, despite some recurring stylistic features. This means that poisoncut doesn’t need to mimic particular musical gestures. Instead he is free to work within his own style of melodic, high-octane electronic music. And in the end, that is enough to maintain consistency with 8-Bit Rally’s musical inspirations.

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Extreme Bike Trip Soundtrack

Extreme Bike Trip Soundtrack, Big Giant Circles, 2013

Extreme Bike Trip – both game and soundtrack – are a product of the era of digital technologies. Both are short, sharp blasts of fun that precisely know their purpose. Before the dawn of digital distribution channels, it’s unlikely they would have seen the light of day as standalone releases. They also never pretend to be more than what they are – but within their limited scope of ambition, they achieve everything they’re aiming for.

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Fast RMX Soundtrack

Fast RMX Soundtrack, Bjulin / Manfred Linzner / Martin Schioeler, 2017

One of gamers’ great frustrations (at least at the timing of writing in 2020) remains Nintendo’s steadfast refusal to revive its classic F-Zero franchise. The last time fans got to enjoy a new F-Zero title dates back to 2004, when F-Zero Climax was released for the Game Boy Advance – only in Japan, adding insult to injury for Western gamers. Thankfully, German developer and Nintendo loyalist Shin’en Multimedia seemed determined to fill the gap with its Fast franchise. Kicking off in 2011 with WiiWare title Fast – Racing League, the franchise went from strength to strength with 2015’s Fast Racing Neo for the WiiU and 2017’s Fast RMX, a launch title for the Nintendo Switch. All three games received applause from reviewers for their stellar presentations and gameplay that created an overwhelming sense of speed, as well as its Ikaruga-style system of polarity switching to receive extra speed boosts.

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Formula 1 Soundtrack

Formula 1 Soundtrack, Mike Clarke / Stuart Ellis, 1996

If you developed a racing video game in the mid-90s, there was apparently little choice other than to score it with electronic beats. And few companies knew this rule as well as Psygnosis. After all, they actually helped write this musical law with their enormously successful Wipeout franchise. Those games helped to take video game soundtracks into the mainstream like few other titles before.

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Mickey’s Speedway USA Soundtrack (N64)

Mickey’s Speedway USA Soundtrack (N64), Ben Cullum, 2000

For a few years, it felt like Rare just couldn’t help producing outstanding games for the Nintendo 64, titles that were bound to be classics – Blast Corps, GoldenEye 007, Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo-Kazooie, Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark… it seemed that Rare couldn’t go wrong. That winning streak came to an end in late 2000 with Mickey’s Speedway USA. The verdict from reviewers was almost universally that yes, this was a decent enough game, with the usual depth and amount of content one had come to expect from a Rare title. But compared to its spiritual predecessor Diddy Kong Racing, Mickey’s Speedway USA fell decidedly short – unlike GoldenEye 007, this was not a game that transcended its origins as a licensed title.

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Psybadek Soundtrack

Psybadek Soundtrack, Mike Clarke, 1998

Including Psybadek in a list of “The WORST Playstation Game[s] Ever Made” (as a YouTube reviewer does) is probably taking things a bit far – remember that there were loads of horrendous shovelware for Sony’s console, particularly in its later years. Still, Psybadek remains a bit of a mystery. This is a game by one of the 32-bit era’s most successful and trendiest developers (Psygnosis), released in between heavy-hitters by that company like the WipeOut, Colony Wars, Destruction Derby and Formula 1 titles. Yet, according to both contemporary and more recent reviewers, Psybadek falls flat on its face, with nary any redeeming features. At least Psybadek’s mix of racing and platforming elements showed that the developers were thinking outside of the box, even if that genre combination was ultimately poorly implemented.

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Racing Hero Soundtrack

Racing Hero Soundtrack, Hikoshi Hashimoto, 1989

Starting with Hang-On in 1985, Sega commenced a run of classic arcade titles that made full use of the company’s revolutionary Super Scaler technology, providing a spectacular illusion of 3D gaming unrivalled by anything on home consoles. However, not all Super Scaler games are equally well-remembered. Take Racing Hero, obviously an update of the Hang-On formula of lighting-fast motorcycle-racing. With its colourful, impressively fluid graphics, varied courses and solid gameplay, Racing Hero was hardly a disappointment upon release. However, it also didn’t differentiate itself much from previous Sega arcade racers, which had turned into their own genre. And since no arcade compilations on consoles included Racing Hero, the game has mostly slipped from view when fans consider Sega’s arcade glory days.

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Top Gear 2 Soundtrack (Amiga)

Top Gear 2 Soundtrack (Amiga), Patrick Phelan, 1994

At least in its SNES incarnation, the Top Gear franchise remains quite fondly remembered to this day. However, looking at contemporary reviews, it’s evident that the series has always proved somewhat divisive. More than a few critics pointed out that the Top Gear games presented a no-frills, arcade-style approach to racing that produced solid but not necessarily spectacular results. The fact that developer Gremlin Graphics (later Gremlin Interactive) used the Top Gear games to effectively regurgitate its Lotus titles only amplified the feeling of ‘been there, done that’. Still, Top Gear 2 remains the franchise’s best-regarded entry – while it played like a mere expansion pack of its predecessor, it made enough tweaks to improve upon Top Gear.

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Top Gear Rally Soundtrack (N64)

Top Gear Rally Soundtrack (N64), Barry Leitch, 1997

After two generally well-received entries in the Top Gear franchise, developer Gremlin Interactive must have felt that the series needed a bit of a shakeup. That was probably correct, given Top Gear 2 had felt like an expansion pack of Top Gear – and considering that these two games didn’t look very different from Gremlin’s earlier Lotus trilogy of racing games. The result was Top Gear 3000 – the original trilogy’s black sheep, with its sci-fi trappings and weapons system. While swiftly forgotten, Top Gear 3000 kicked off the Top Gear franchise’s experimental phase. The results of this attempt to reinvent the series and keep it relevant hit the Nintendo 64 in quick succession: Top Gear Rally, Top Gear: Overdrive, Top Gear Rally 2 and Top Gear Hyper-Bike. Reviews for all these titles were reasonably strong, with critics commending Top Gear Rally for its realistic gameplay and accurate physics.

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