Talented Rareware Musicians: David Wise

Rareware, the once wonderful video game developer from England, has been gradually falling apart. A lot of their recent games have had mixed reviews, and some of their most talented members have departed from the company. One such member who recently parted company with Rare was David Wise, a wonderful musician whose scores were featured in a number of Rare games. In fact, he was the company's only musician for a number of years, but even when other musicians such as Grant Kirkhope and Robin Beanland joined the team with equally impressive talents, Wise would continue to contribute superb musical scores for a variety of games. Let me tell you more about this incredibly talented person.

When Rare moved on to develop games mostly for Nintendo's systems, with a few released for the Sega Genesis, Wise would end up composing the music for these titles. Some Rare series, such as Battletoads and Wizards and Warriors, had all of their music composed by Wise, and these tunes would often end up being favorites among Rare fans. Other games such as the Mario Party-style Anticipation, Snake Rattle N' Roll, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit also contained Wise's superb tunes. All of his hard work would often pay off, especially considering he was the only composer on the team and was rarely credited by name at the time.

It was not until 1994 that other musicians began to join Rare. However, Wise was hardly done creating musical masterpieces of his own. When Donkey Kong Country was released for the Super NES, one of the reasons that it received a great deal of praise was because of the atmospheric soundtrack, which sounded close to CD quality. The soundtrack was a joint effort between Wise, Beanland, and Eveline Fischer, and it was Wise who did the music for such areas as the coral, cave, and factory levels. When the spin off game Donkey Kong Land was released for the Game Boy the following year, Wise composed some truly amazing songs that sounded quite impressive for the venerable hand held system.

Perhaps Wise's greatest contribution in his nearly 25-year career with Rare was the soundtrack to Donkey Kong Country 2, which featured some of the most memorable songs heard in any Rareware game. To this day, people enjoy listening to, and talking about, the game's soundtrack, with the atmospheric Stickerbrush Symphony being a particular favorite. Other great songs on the soundtrack could be heard on the roller coaster, forest, mine, and castle stages, among others. When the time came to do the music for Donkey Kong Country 3, however, Wise only offered a few new tracks, such as the tunes heard in Wrinkly's Save Cave and the Brothers Bears' houses, with Fischer handling the rest of the music. Nevertheless, the songs that he did offer were often catchy and memorable. For the 2005 Game Boy Advance version, the entire soundtrack was replaced with a new score by Wise, which received mixed reviews from fans who were divided as to whether or not the new music was superior to the original.

While the era in which Rare developed games for the Nintendo 64 is often regarded as being the peak of their history, Wise was largely uninvolved in creating music for the company's games for that system. The lone exception was 1997's Diddy Kong Racing, where he contributed a techno-style score that was rather catchy. In 2007, when the game was ported to the Nintendo DS, Wise would remix many of its tracks, as well as compose some new songs which took the place of existing tracks on certain courses. Again, the reaction among fans of the original version was mixed.

Wise was up to the challenge of composing the music of what would be Rare's last game to appear on a Nintendo console before moving on to Microsoft. The soundtrack for Star Fox Adventures was filled with tribal beats that fit the environment well and sometimes changed depending on the time of day. For all of the game's shortcomings, its music and graphics were still quite impressive. Wise has not composed music for any X-Box or X-Box 360 game; instead, he has focused on doing the music for some of Rare's hand held games, including the aforementioned ports. His last project for the company was 2008's Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise, a DS version of the popular Xbox 360 simulator.

Recently, it was announced that Wise had left Rare after being a part of the company for nearly a quarter of a century. Wise confirmed the news on his Facebook page, adding that the company has changed to such an extent that the chance to compose the amazing music that was a part of what made them so well respected was gone. His future will now involve freelance work as a composer. His departure follows those of other composers such as Grant Kirkhope and Steven Burke, as well as other members such as Chris and Tim Stamper, the founders of Rare. Thus, one could argue that Rare's downfall is slowly becoming more and more apparent.

Having listened to many of Wise's songs over the years, I feel that it is a shame that he has departed from Rare, because his talents were simply impressive. Whether it was the atmospheric songs of the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, the funky soundtrack of Diddy Kong Racing, or the prehistoric vibes of Star Fox Adventures, this man never failed to offer music that was often the icing of an already sweet cake. To me, the music made the games even better, and it is a part of why I continue to be a fan of Rare to this day. While I support Wise's decision to leave Rare and wish him luck, I also feel that this is further proof that this once great company has fallen into a sad state of affairs from which it may never recover, or if it does, it may not happen for a long time. Luckily, we can still play the games that Wise composed for, as well as listen to the tracks on YouTube, to be reminded of a man whose musical talents helped shaped Rare as we have known it for almost 25 years. This person is truly a musical genius, and his contributions to Rare will be sorely missed, but at least we can enjoy his classic tracks for many years to come.