‘tank racer’ ost info-page

.tank.racer.the.mono211.game.soundtrack.
This page tells you about the Sony Playstation and PC game “Tank Racer”, which Mono211+Monotonik provided the soundtrack for – apart from the Lackluster limited CDR, it’s the only piece of real-world media Monotonik+friends have ever officially sanctioned, so there’s at least some cult value in there 😉
“Tank Racer” was produced by Glass Ghost/Grolier Interactive, and was released on March 19th 1999 in Europe only (check out the official site here.) Shortly after releasing it, Grolier Interactive stopped publishing games – so they had no interest in trying to get “Tank Racer” published in the US or Japan. If you add that to the fact that perhaps only 20,000 Playstation copies of the game were ever pressed for European release, then the console version becomes even more obscure – it’s one of the few European-only Playstation titles ever produced.

.the.lowdown.

Mono211 did a full soundtrack for “Tank Racer”, including front-end music, 8 in-game tracks, and a credits track. Also, I believe two of the Mono211 tracks, including Vim’s, played during the intro FMV to the game. Finally, Twilight, also a Mono member at the time, did the GUI and in-game sound effects for the game.

.mono211.tank.racer.soundtrack.tracklisting.

Waterloop (Prob.) – “Wait” (GUI-music)
Substance – “Cyclone Breaks”
D-Tour (Relief+Skizo) – “Our Tour”
Bay Tremore – “Tremors”
Vim! – “Lemonite”
Ramone+Trigger – “Blitz”
Substance – “Bazooka Groove”
D-Tour (Relief+Skizo) – “Upcoming”
Dharma – “gu-xaM-pa”
Ramone+Trigger – “Walther” (credits music)

There are 30-second mp3 clips from several of the above songs available for listening by clicking on the songnames. We kept the rights to the soundtrack for non-interactive purposes, which means we’re theoretically able to release it online, so we may do that at some point, as long as all the artists involved agree.

.critical.acclaim.for.mono211’s.tank.racer.soundtrack.

Total Playstation, UK –
“a stormin’ drum and bass soundtrack”

PC Gamer, UK –
“some of the best in-game music I’ve heard in months.”

Arcade magazine, UK –
“..well above the usual Big Beat dross we’ve come to expect.”

Planet Playstation, UK (kiddie magazine!)
“Oh yes.. this is nice.. background tracks, of the weird, electronic
beat variety that sound like the tummy rumbles of a robot.” 🙂

[oh, and some people said we sucked, but we’re ignoring them..]

.tank.racer.game.purchase.availability?.

As for sourcing the PSX version of the game, you may still be able to find it second-hand in local games stores in Europe, or perhaps on Ebay. There’s a cracked version of PSX “Tank Racer”, complete with a NTSC/PAL switch on it, for any Americans wanting to check out the Playstation version of the game, but obviously, we have _no_ idea where to source it from, don’t even ask. Oh, and there was a playable demo of the Playstation version of “Tank Racer”, complete with a partial version of “Upcoming” by Relief+Skizo, on the cover-CD to Europe-wide “Official Playstation Magazine” in early ’99 (Issue 44 in the UK).

The PC version of “Tank Racer” may be a little easier to find than the Playstation version, since it’s recently been re-released in the UK as a budget version for <10UKP – check out page here. Please note that it _requires_ a 3D graphics card to play it, however, and the Playstation version is the preferred version of the game – the PC sku was a basic+unenhanced conversion! You can download a PC demo of “Tank Racer” here, and it’s only 6.4 meg, but it’s missing all the music, doh!

.how.did.we.get.to.do.the.soundtrack?.

As a bunch of you may or may not know, h0l (monotonik-b0ss) works in the videogame industry – this was a project he worked on. He actually ended up using Mono211 to do the music to “Tank Racer” after trying to get Fused And Bruised (DJ Scissorkicks, Surreal Madrid..) to do it but not being able to sort out acceptable terms. But things turned out real nice after his attempt NOT to be nepotistic failed. Oh, and 3818919/w, another Mono artist, also worked on the game, hence the Rephlex logos all over the trackside (he’s a massive braindance fan!), plus 3818919/w and Mono211 logos in a bunch of places too.. Finally, the nicest “Tank Racer” review we could find: totalgames.net – s’perfect post-pub knockabout fare, innit? That was the idea, anyhow..

.playstation.screenshots.of.tank.racer.for.the.intrigued.