Soundtrack Flashback – Top Gear
Welcome to one of our newest weekly features. Once or twice a week, we will discuss some of the best (or worst) soundtracks over the years. Some will be games you know and love. Others are ones in which you might not remember or may have never even played. Our window for gaming will go all the way up to the 64 bit era. However, we might stray if the soundtrack was just that awesome. We all have our favorites. It’s time for them to get the spotlight they deserve.
This week’s game is one that not many played but they should. It’s one of the simplest racers there were. While there aren’t any whimsical Brits telling you about the newest cars or taking on any zany challenges, Top Gear is a brilliant game by Gremlin Graphics and published by Kemco. It was released in 1992 for the Super Nintendo. It was a simple pick up and play racer. Pick your car and go. Each one gained and lacked something over other cars. It proved to be rather challenging once you passed the first stage. It was an absolute blast.
The music itself was energetic and once you heard it, you never forgot it. The sound was that of pulse pounding electronic music that eventually slowed down to a nice melody before kicking back up again. Take the opening title music for example.
I remember when I turned this title on as a kid, I would let the opening song play until it started over. Boy was I in for a treat when it would also play through the setup screen as well. Here is where it gets interesting though. The title screen music wasn’t written originally for Top Gear. It was written for an Amiga game a couple years earlier called Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 as the end game music. In fact most of the music is taken from or remixed from the Lotus trilogy. The song for track 3 of every country is remixed from Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge. The other tracks were great as well. Here is the tune for track 3. If you do a quick YouTube search for the title track of L.E.T.C, you’ll see the similarity.
Top Gear only has 5 music tracks but they are great enough to pop on your favorite iPhone or Android device and rock it. So go find it, do your thing, and enjoy.
That does it for this edition of Soundtrack Flashback. If you have any suggestions for a soundtrack that has been overlooked, let me know. It might be on my list. Comment below if you enjoyed this article. If you hated it, well, comment as well.
About the Author
Niko I'm a gamer who loves all sorts of gaming. Especially the golden days of Pinball and the 16-bit Era.
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Sweet article! I never played Top Gear, but I may have to track it down once I get to my SNES collecting. I'd like to see Rock 'n' Roll Racing highlighted!
