It's been a while since the Spice Girls have headlined the news, and even longer since anyone thought about their video game. The 1998 PlayStation game Spice World gave players the chance to live out their Spice Girl dreams. While the game seemed primarily to be a vehicle for Spice Girl fandom, it also did some inventive work for music video games. It's time to recognize the work that Spice World did and to repurpose its style for modern pop stars.
Spice World tells the very simple story of the Spice Girls preparing for a performance. Players select one of the spice girls and follow them through the process, from selecting and arranging a song to learning the dance moves. With voice acting by the Spice Girls themselves and interview clips of the girls up to their entertaining antics, it's clear the game was intended for fans of the band and not necessarily video game connoisseurs. In fact, the game also includes a cheat-code to make the player's chosen Spice Girl five times her normal size or to gain handbags, showing a focus on the characters.
The song mixing process gives players a chance to rearrange Spice Girls' songs in real-time. Each of the available songs has been divided into small, 8-count sound-bites. Players can arrange these in any order, repeating guitar riffs or drops until they have their own perfect arrangement of "Wannabe" or "Spice World." Sometimes these mixes sound clumsy or repetitive, but they can also be really unique and offer players a chance to get creative with familiar favorites.
After creating their Spice Girls mix, players then move onto dance practice, where they guide their main through a series of possible moves in a button-pressing mini-game. Each dance move, from the freestyle wave to the knee wiggle, is a combination of four of these buttons. Once players have learned the moves, they can choreograph a series of steps to go along with their song. Starting with their main Spice Girl, they end up choreographing moves for each one independently. The final step is to perform and record the entire routine that the player has put together.
Spice World offers some intensely interactive music video creation and some great '90s nostalgia, yet it's generally remembered as a bit of a flop. With limited options for songs, or for clips of the songs to mix, some complained that the music got repetitive. There's also a noticeable lack of an overarching storyline, which doesn't seem necessary for a game about creating a music video but was done well in other games like PaRappa the Rapper.
Despite the generally negative reviews and its consignment to video game oblivion, Spice World may be just the game style to bring back to life. With super fandoms for many K-Pop, J-Pop and even western pop stars, there's an audience for more of these music video-creation games. But it's not only about these modern pop-stars' ability to sell a game; it's also high-time to revisit some of the mechanics of Spice World.
The ability to remix beloved songs is actually pretty cool. While modern technology has allowed players to mix songs more seamlessly and interestingly, this early attempt can still create some really unique results. Giving players the ability to mix versions of their favorite group's club bangers but using much cleaner and more powerful audio mixing techniques seems like a great mechanic for modern games.
Incorporating rhythm gaming into a song mixing game is also an excellent genre mash-up that makes total narrative sense -- of course, players would create their song and the dance to go with it. While hitting buttons doesn't mimic dancing quite as well as a Dance Dance Revolution interface does, it still adds an interesting skill component to the game.
Spice World may have flopped at its release, but underneath its polygonal, roughly-animated characters, it's hiding some solid design ideas. It's time for a renaissance of music video games in the style of Spice World, allowing players to embody their favorite music artists in games of creation and skill.