Many cult games become so because there’s more than the games themselves. What they represented for their time, the culture of a specific time and place, are inseparable from the game itself. This may seem crazy to some people, for whom video games are just entertainment and nothing more, but it makes sense. Sometimes video games are something more.
A great example of this was the first PlayStation. It was the first console that was not only a mass phenomenon but a cultural event in itself. And among its games, none managed to inspire the culture in such a meaningful way as WipEout. The world of electronic music, nightclubs, drugs, and WipEout were so interconnected that it’s hard to talk about one without the others.
That’s why Noclip has dedicated a half-hour documentary to WipEout 2097, the second title in the franchise. Or more specifically, to its soundtrack. Talking to Tim “CoLD SToRAGE” Wright, composer of the soundtrack, Noclip sheds light not only on how the music was made, but how the game itself was developed.
The importance of this documentary should not be underestimated for several reasons. WipEout was one of the launch titles for the first PlayStation and one of the most celebrated, and WipEout 2097 improved practically everything about it. In addition, it featured electronic music luminaries of that time, names like Leftfield, Underworld, The Prodigy, and The Chemical Brothers. It became somewhat of a who’s who of electronic music.
If you experienced the WipEout phenomenon, this documentary will take you back to a moment in time that you know would be impossible to replicate today. If you didn’t experience it, it’ll allow you to see the importance of a video game that understood its era in a way that practically no other video game has understood. Something worth witnessing for yourself.
