Back in 1997, the original publisher of Grand Theft Auto BMG Interactive released Spider: The Video Game — Boss Game Studios' bizarre PS1 platformer about a scientist who has accidentally had his mind transplanted into the body of a cybernetic spider.
Despite the odd premise, it did okay at the time (shifting over 200,000 copies and generating some decent reviews from places like GamePro and GameFan) making it a bit of an interesting oddity for those who want to dive a little deeper into the PS1 library. Among its better features were its clever level design and atmospheric soundtrack — the latter of which was the work of the prolific Scottish game composer Barry Leitch.
If you're wondering why we're mentioning this obscure PS1 game up in 2024, well, there is some method to this nostalgic rambling, as recently Leitch has revisited and remastered his original score for the game for a digital rerelease. The 21-track OST is available to purchase now on Bandcamp and costs $10. So, if you fancy owning a copy of the bass-heavy, synth-laden soundtrack, that's where you'll be able to grab a copy.
Here's what Leitch had to say about the soundtrack on Bandcamp:
"Written in 1996, over the course of pretty much the whole year. A young 26 year old me, with very little experience of creating CD audio tracks embarked on what I wanted to be my best work to date. Of course, I had absolutely zero knowledge of mixing and mastering properly, and had simply blown the audio budget on as many synths as I could buy. (besides, at the time there wasn't any readily available courses you could take that would reference the latest in digital audio production). So like the Spider in the game, I was armed and dangerous.
"Like the Kill Team Soundtrack, the games mixes suffered from absolutely masses of bass as my studio monitors Tannoy 6.5's) had absolutely incredible bass reproduction, and I took full advantage of that! Of course, nobody else had a pair and all the music sounded overly bassy! I've taken the time to go back and remaster these as well as I can from the only surviving source media I have. For reference the synths used were Kurzweil K2500RS, Korg Trinity Pro, 2 Roland JV-1080's complete with as many expansion cards as I could fit in them. Some Digitech FX unit. and every guitarist I could sweet talk into coming in to lay down live guitar. These include Keith Sawka, Rob Povey's Guitar teacher, Luke Anderson, and someone else whose name I've long forgotten.. The bonus track is a remix of the 70's room bonus level."
Did you play Spider: The Video Game back when it was first released? Or remember seeing it in magazines at the time? Let us know in the comments!