Paul’s an expert in Videogames, Star Trek, flannel shirts – in that order. For PCGamesN he covers GTA, Arc Raiders, PUBG, and more.
Published:
It took me all of about two minutes to get whiplash from Star Wars Galactic Racer – and I hadn’t even set foot inside a speeder. Before I start competing in the Galactic League in earnest, there’s the small task of meeting my team, which is where I heard a familiar voice in a place I least expected it.
A Scouse bark came out of nowhere, and it caught me off guard. Liverpool accents are rare in games unless someone is making a medieval affair and wants a few lines for some peasant shovelling shit. These often sound like they’re done by someone who’s never bumped into a Liverpool accent but thinks they can give it a go. Thankfully this wasn’t quite the case here.
The voice was coming from my mechanic, Hibi. A four-armed Ardennian who’s obsessed with making things go really, really fast, and not at all concerned about the safety of the person sitting in the cockpit. I wanted to know why, so I went straight to the source and asked Matt Webster and Kieran Crimmins, CEO and Creative Director of Fuse Games, respectively, what the deal was with my Scouse mechanic.
“Here we go” was the first thing I heard when I mentioned that I was from Liverpool. Possibly expecting a barrage of abuse, I only wanted to know… why? The actor who plays Hibi, Lucy Montgomery, isn’t from anywhere near my neck of the woods, so what’s going on there?
Crimmins appears to be the driving force behind the decision, and he tells me about his connection to the city: “So, all my family are from Liverpool, and I grew up up north. My cousin Ian was the one that got me into Star Wars when I was younger. So for me, the Liverpool Star Wars connection has always been quite strong.”
The fact that there was an actual story, and a real connection there is great. It isn’t just mechanic equals northern equals Scouse; why not. Crimmins continues by saying that Montgomery’s accent and energy reminded him of his auntie. “I was like, she is so this character. She reminds me of [her] so much that it had to be the direction as soon as we heard it … I knew that kind of vibe so well that it was a match made in heaven.”
To me, Hibi sounded like plenty of people from my childhood, so it was funny hearing Crimmings talk about how it was basically his auntie. She sounded like Margaret from Bootle. Margaret – Maggie to her friends – has been going to Goodison Park to watch her beloved Everton for decades now. She goes with her best mate Maureen, and they like to get there early to watch the team train with a hot cup of tea.
It isn’t Maggie, of course, because although she probably does exist somewhere in Liverpool, there would be very little reason for her to be on Jakku.
Galactic Racer is great; it’s up there as not only the best Star Wars racing game for me, but one of the best, full stop. Yes, the speeders are fast, and the roguelike campaign is more-ish, but really, it’s the Scouse mechanic that puts it over the top. Next stop: hire more Scousers for voice work. Let Barry Sloane do Captain Price as a lad from Toxteth, put Peter Serafinowicz in basically anything, and let him talk like he used to. Let’s avoid those chicken-an-a-can-of-Coke impressions, though; I’ve heard them all before.
Keep scrolling for next article