Post by Witchfynde on Apr 14, 2005 22:32:38 GMT -5
Pretty cool news today ;D
Ok. Brief history, about 10 years ago, I got the Heart of the Alien game for the Sega CD. When I beat it, I was very surprised to see the mighty BOLT THROWER listed in the credits. I always wondered why they were mentioned, but never could find out why; a few years later, once I got online, I scooted over to the Virgin records web site to find out why, but of course, never got a response from my e-mail about it, since I couldn't find the Virgin video games section (which I assumed they were out of business, and still are nowadays). Occasionally I'd bring it up in a video game forum and do a search over the years, but to no avail.
Ok, now fast forwarding to last weekend: as it occasionally happens, something reminded me of my on/off, eventual quest, and I found one of those web sites that they're the "unofficial site of ____", yet they're actually pretty damn good, even though they're not "official". That's the case here, with the "unofficial Bolt Thrower forums". The guy had some pretty good information up on his B. Thrower FAQ and all, so I figured if anyone would know, it'd be him. Nope, he hadn't heard of it either. He did find out upon a search that some music was sampled from two of their albums and put into the game. I told him that was bunk, as I would have recognized it, but there are some things that can be taken out of context (like not picking it up when things are going on all around you in the game) and you won't recognize it, so I listened to the cd again in my cd player (the only other time I listened to it by itself was when I was driving home when I first bought it, since the music isn't that great) just to make sure. Nope, pretty sure that's a bogus rumor; if Virgin DID do that, they changed it around so much that B. Thrower's music was totally unrecognizable, and since the Sega CD didn't sell in huge numbers (plus B. Thrower doesn't exactly sell millions of cds either), there would have been NO WAY whatsoever the band would've found out about it in a million years.
The guy said B. Thrower's bassist and vocalist have popped up on the forums, and he said he'd ask the bassist about it (the vocalist has been in and out of the band several times over the years, for some reason, but the bassist has ALWAYS been there since she joined).
Well, he already got a response this morning:
"Hmm, interesting....
To be honest, it's the first i've heard of this. I've absolutely no idea whatsoever...
I thought if anyone wanted to use clips from a band, they need to ask permission, and no-one has asked us, unless they went through Earache (note: that was the record label they were with at the time as to when the samples would have allegedly been used).
And as for the thanks.... i'm stumped!
Sorry, can't help you on this one, you've got me really curious though.
Let me know if you find out anything!!
Cheers,
Jo"
Man, did *I* have a big smile on my face when I read that; after over 10 YEARS of them not knowing about this, *I* was the one who brought them the news! That rocks!!! They rock! I rock! (pathetically laughs at how much more awesome I make myself into being, rather than how I really am)
Anyway, he put the photo up of them being mentioned on his site, which it doesn't even say "thanks" or anything, it could be a "go to hell" list for all we know...after all, as I told him, maybe it was in regards to a programmer whose next door neighbor in his cubicle played them all day long and drove him nuts. However, in a thread on Classic Gaming that told about Bolt Thrower being on some SNES cart, I asked if the poster knew anything about them being on the Heart/Alien cd, which the guy said maybe the programmer was just a fan of the band. So that makes sense. The B. Thrower web guy also said he sent the pics to Jo Bench and gave me credit for them. So that's very cool.
Here's some of the stuff:
This looks fairly crappy, due to...well, actually, that's the way it LOOKS: in that slightly blurry font. Even if I had a video capture card on the computer here, it wouldn't look much better. (You can slightly make out B. Thrower's name fourth from the bottom.)
Then, a few seconds later, the game goes back to the normal title screen...gee, this one's actually mostly CLEAR! Thanks guys!!!
The Heart of the Alien box. B. Thrower isn't listed anywhere in the instructions, box, cd or anything.
Anyway, it says the game was only licensed to Virgin, so that just means they were the distributor, right? Interplay actually made it, and I think they're still around. So I'm going to try contacting them, although 11 years after this game being out, the chances of someone still being there at the company that could answer my question will be pretty slim. But I'll check it out anyway.
Ok. Brief history, about 10 years ago, I got the Heart of the Alien game for the Sega CD. When I beat it, I was very surprised to see the mighty BOLT THROWER listed in the credits. I always wondered why they were mentioned, but never could find out why; a few years later, once I got online, I scooted over to the Virgin records web site to find out why, but of course, never got a response from my e-mail about it, since I couldn't find the Virgin video games section (which I assumed they were out of business, and still are nowadays). Occasionally I'd bring it up in a video game forum and do a search over the years, but to no avail.
Ok, now fast forwarding to last weekend: as it occasionally happens, something reminded me of my on/off, eventual quest, and I found one of those web sites that they're the "unofficial site of ____", yet they're actually pretty damn good, even though they're not "official". That's the case here, with the "unofficial Bolt Thrower forums". The guy had some pretty good information up on his B. Thrower FAQ and all, so I figured if anyone would know, it'd be him. Nope, he hadn't heard of it either. He did find out upon a search that some music was sampled from two of their albums and put into the game. I told him that was bunk, as I would have recognized it, but there are some things that can be taken out of context (like not picking it up when things are going on all around you in the game) and you won't recognize it, so I listened to the cd again in my cd player (the only other time I listened to it by itself was when I was driving home when I first bought it, since the music isn't that great) just to make sure. Nope, pretty sure that's a bogus rumor; if Virgin DID do that, they changed it around so much that B. Thrower's music was totally unrecognizable, and since the Sega CD didn't sell in huge numbers (plus B. Thrower doesn't exactly sell millions of cds either), there would have been NO WAY whatsoever the band would've found out about it in a million years.
The guy said B. Thrower's bassist and vocalist have popped up on the forums, and he said he'd ask the bassist about it (the vocalist has been in and out of the band several times over the years, for some reason, but the bassist has ALWAYS been there since she joined).
Well, he already got a response this morning:
"Hmm, interesting....
To be honest, it's the first i've heard of this. I've absolutely no idea whatsoever...
I thought if anyone wanted to use clips from a band, they need to ask permission, and no-one has asked us, unless they went through Earache (note: that was the record label they were with at the time as to when the samples would have allegedly been used).
And as for the thanks.... i'm stumped!
Sorry, can't help you on this one, you've got me really curious though.
Let me know if you find out anything!!
Cheers,
Jo"
Man, did *I* have a big smile on my face when I read that; after over 10 YEARS of them not knowing about this, *I* was the one who brought them the news! That rocks!!! They rock! I rock! (pathetically laughs at how much more awesome I make myself into being, rather than how I really am)
Anyway, he put the photo up of them being mentioned on his site, which it doesn't even say "thanks" or anything, it could be a "go to hell" list for all we know...after all, as I told him, maybe it was in regards to a programmer whose next door neighbor in his cubicle played them all day long and drove him nuts. However, in a thread on Classic Gaming that told about Bolt Thrower being on some SNES cart, I asked if the poster knew anything about them being on the Heart/Alien cd, which the guy said maybe the programmer was just a fan of the band. So that makes sense. The B. Thrower web guy also said he sent the pics to Jo Bench and gave me credit for them. So that's very cool.
Here's some of the stuff:
This looks fairly crappy, due to...well, actually, that's the way it LOOKS: in that slightly blurry font. Even if I had a video capture card on the computer here, it wouldn't look much better. (You can slightly make out B. Thrower's name fourth from the bottom.)
Then, a few seconds later, the game goes back to the normal title screen...gee, this one's actually mostly CLEAR! Thanks guys!!!
The Heart of the Alien box. B. Thrower isn't listed anywhere in the instructions, box, cd or anything.
Anyway, it says the game was only licensed to Virgin, so that just means they were the distributor, right? Interplay actually made it, and I think they're still around. So I'm going to try contacting them, although 11 years after this game being out, the chances of someone still being there at the company that could answer my question will be pretty slim. But I'll check it out anyway.
). So I recently beat the game again and filmed several seconds of footage that has the names of producers and all, so hopefully I'll get somewhere there...
inform us when you find the truth 
;D 
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