Wipeout is as well known for its soundtrack and visual aesthetic as it is for its actual gameplay. As one of the original Playstation’s signature titles, the futuristic anti-gravity racer was a visual and aural feast. The influence of The Designers Republic on the game’s iconography and visuals inspired an entire school of angular technofuturistic design, and the original score—done by a Psygnosis employee under the alias of Cold Storage—set a new standard for video game soundtracks, which had until recently consisted mostly of simple MIDI tracks. The second game in the series, Wipeout XL/2097, was one of the first games to release an actual soundtrack on CD seperately from the game. Through some combination of luck, cultural trendspotting and market research, Astralwerks jumped on the bandwagon just as the electronica movement exploded in North America. As a result, the Wipeout XL soundtrack is a surprisingly excellent artifact of the era, and proof that video game soundtracks had hit the big time. With exclusive tracks and mixes from Daft Punk, Source Direct and Fluke, as well as seminal tracks from the Chemical Brothers, Underworld and Future Sound of London, the Wipeout XL soundtrack was like a who’s who of mid-90s electronica.

After the wildly popular second game, both the Wipeout series of games and electronica took a bit of a nosedive. Wipeout 3 didn’t get a seperate soundtrack release, despite the presence of several exclusive Sasha tracks and the help of Paul Van Dyk, Orbital and the Propellerheads. By the time Wipeout Fusion came out in 2002, the train had left the station; Fusion was passed over by Sony for a North American release, the first game in the series to merit such a dubious fate; eventually it was released stateside by a third-party publisher. But then a funny thing happened: just when everyone figured Wipeout had disappeared into the annals of video game history, Sony announced a launch lineup for its new PSP system that included Wipeout Pure. And then that game went on to win critical raves and awards after its release. Suddenly Wipeout had been brought to an entirely new generation of gamers a decade after the first game, and its visual and musical style had been left largely intact.

Wipeout Pure was only the second game in the series to get its own soundtrack, this time through Distinctive Records in the UK. The packaging of the Pure soundtrack is a stark reminder that electronica’s heyday has long since passed; it’s far less lavish and detailed than the Wipeout XL soundtrack, which contained more TDR design goodness and full bios on every artist featured on the compilation. But the CD itself is still Wipeout pedigree, with the likes of Aphex Twin, LFO and Photek contributing tracks. It’s not the revelation Wipeout XL was, but it’s still a decent compilation and a worthy addition to the series. It’s also a sign of everything coming full circle: one of the tracks on the soundtrack was composed by none other than Cold Storage, the man who started the Wipeout techno revolution.