In Japan and the USA, the console that changed the course of games history, that became synonymous with video games, was Nintendo’s Famicom/NES in the ‘80s. As Super Chart Island to date has shown, that wasn’t how it worked in the UK. We had computer games instead; we had the ZX Spectrum, and then made America’s Amiga our own. Nintendo and the British public had a mutual suspicion thing going on. Sega were more successful but blew it before fully overtaking computers. But Rare made the right decision in jumping to consoles, and Super Chart Island will be mostly a story of console games from now on. In the UK, the game-changer was the Sony PlayStation, and British games were central to why.
Microcosm may have been unloved to the point it’s now next-to-impossible to play, but this is where its importance becomes clear. Signed up by Sony on the basis of Microcosm’s demonstration of their capability with 3D and CD-ROMs, Liverpool developers Psygnosis were given an early chance to make a game for the PlayStation, and made a launch game that was revolutionary. Nick Burcombe turned down the volume on his TV while playing Super Mario Kart to replace it with trance track “Age of Love”, had an inspiring experience, and with his colleagues came up with the idea of an aggressive futuristic racing game soundtracked by dance music. Wipeout became the PlayStation’s best-selling launch title in the UK and a defining part of the aesthetic identity that set the console apart.
Licenced music from well known musicians was not a new thing to games. Microcosm itself included music from Rick Wakeman, and Rise of the Robots had tracks by Brian May. They were hardly the lively sound of the moment in the ‘90s, though, and were also rather tacked on. Wipeout wouldn’t be Wipeout without its more cutting edge music. Psygnosis managed to persuade electronic duo Orbital to record something for it, and went on from there to get Leftfield and The Chemical Brothers as well. They slotted them all alongside music by CoLD SToRAGE, a.k.a. Psygnosis’s own Tim Wright, whose compositions for Lemmings still sound like the future of electronic music in their own way. That music provided the atmosphere to the game’s racing and more of its identity besides.
Even the cover art for Wipeout (and its sequel), by The Designers Republic, dense with futuristic design, looks more like the cover to a dance single than any video game cover to date. They also contrived to make the lettering include an oversized E for a bit of a The Shamen-style nudge-nudge drugs reference that’s entirely in keeping with the spirit of the times. (Though matching the cover’s use of actual Japanese text with putting the title in fake katakana style is the part which has aged the worst, not least thanks to the restaurant chain Yo! Sushi running with the same idea a couple of years later.)
Wipeout provided a thrilling, electric new experience and people responded, helping the PlayStation to reach new audiences for games. People played it in nightclubs, both in the movie Hackers and for real, and whether the latter was a mere marketing stunt or not, it was representative of the kind of cool and reach to young adults that other companies were not managing. Sony marketed the PlayStation more generally accordingly, to clear success. It wasn’t a case of “games – not just for kids any more!” as a look at the success of Trivial Pursuit or Microsoft Flight Simulator will confirm, and more that combining artistry and edge in a different way was a way into an increasing number of adults with greater technological familiarity. A year after Wipeout’s release, and a year further into dance music’s growth, Wipeout 2097 was a victory lap.
One musical act that Psygnosis tried and failed to get on board for the original game was The Prodigy. When I first started playing Wipeout 2097, I started my first race and was greeted with the unmistakable sound of The Breeders’ distorted guitar wail as sampled into the intro to “Firestarter”. I accelerated my gravity-defying future spaceship away as it continued to roar, and just as I started having to seriously jerk from side to side to get round corners and avoid opponents, lights flashing all around, adrenaline and the song’s breakbeat kicked in together. That was a rare moment of synthesised perfection: visuals, sound, interaction all pushing one overwhelming sensory experience. Twenty seconds was all it took and I understood, deeply, the appeal of Wipeout.
Wipeout 2097 follows on from that initial moment, too. Its undulating tracks, its harsh angles and scenery all add to its feel, and induce a lot more jaw-dropping moments. Sections of racing in near-complete darkness, the way lit if you are lucky by the blue light trails from the rear of opponents’ vehicles, are a bold vision of its club aesthetic, and are thrilling and terrifying. Toning down the difficulty from the original game and adding in a little more strategy, in the form of repairable damage, makes it easier for newcomers to get to its ecstatic highs, without making it too simplistic. Its racing in terms of competition with the other drivers on track comes off as more finely balanced than many a racer without so many other things going on.
All of that skillful detail alone isn’t enough to own a moment in the way that it did. Game matched music matched mood. The Prodigy’s “Firestarter” was, for three weeks in March and April 1996, the UK’s #1 single. The country’s bestselling song, now in the country’s bestselling video game. The music and inspiration of Wipeout was completely mainstream, but not yet divested of its cool. I can only imagine what it must have been like at the time when it had more of the thrill of the new to go with it as well. It wasn’t just exactly the right thing, but exactly the right thing at the right time.
