I recently did a video review of one of my favourite Amiga games, the first person shooter, Gloom. But when recording footage for the game, I was aware that there was something about this humble mid 90s first person shooter that had always caught my attention. It’s soundtrack. And how a bunch of sounds in the game appear to be lifted.
And I’ll say ‘appear to be lifted’, but what I mean is that they were definitely pinched from the James Cameron movie Aliens…at least in my opinion.
I will say the slight disclaimer that perhaps the sounds all come from a sound library that was commonly used, but as I’ll discuss, I doubt that is the case.
You see, the game has sounds in it that have been directly ripped from the movie Aliens, which was directed by James Cameron, starred Sigourney Weaver and released by Fox. Somehow, I doubt that that the team at Black Magic, who developed the game had licensed the sounds at all.
Now, the Alien franchise was a huge hit and certainly, it’s been common for the Xenomorphs to be ripped off for video games. If I’d just said that an Amiga shooter franchise had stolen stuff from Aliens, you’d all have just said it was Alien Breed where the aliens you fight look just like the Alien from Alien. There may even be a hidden disclaimer in the first Alien Breed game that says any resemblance to Ridley Scott’s aliens is coincidental. I read this was the case, but haven’t verified it.
But whilst lots of games have “taken inspiration” from Alien and Aliens, I don’t think any have borrowed from it quite as blatantly as Gloom.
I think the sound in Gloom is one of the best things about it. The music during the title screen and story scenes/title cards for each level is really genuinely awesome. As far as I can tell this is an original piece and not nicked from anywhere, but I welcome anyone in the comments to highlight if the music or other sound effects in the game beyond the ones I’m about to highlight may have origins elsewhere.
For those of you who have not played Gloom, it came out in an era where Doom was the most talked about game in the industry and popularised the first person shooter genre. I recently reviewed the game on the Geek Battle Gaming YouTube channel, and also shared a longplay, so this discussion, which I have also produced in video form, will complete my trilogy of Gloom based videos.
Aliens is the sequel to the movie Alien, and having been too young to watch Aliens when I was first playing Gloom, I didn’t notice the stolen sounds until a few years ago. I was watching Aliens and I literally did a doubletake when I heard a familiar sound effect. I half expected to look around and see a character in the movie playing Gloom on an Amiga.
So, what are the sounds in question?
At this point, I’ll just say if you want to hear the sound comparison, you’d be better served checking out the video I made as it allows you to listen and judge for yourself. But keep reading and I’ll describe what we have.
Now let’s find out from where they were stolen from so that next time you watch the movie with friends, you’ll be able to boast how this moment or that moment is another stolen sound.
The first scream is a short and sharp gaspy scream that sounds like the colonial marine was taken by surprise. That’s because he was when a Xenomorph grabs him from behind.
You’ll notice that the only sounds that they’ve stolen are ones that aren’t overlapped with music or dialogue and as such some clips are cut short in Gloom.
That being said, the second scream is a combination of a scream and one of the enemy marines exploding. To me this pretty much confirms that the sounds aren’t from some library of stock sounds and they did get it from the movie.
It’s taken from towards the end of the movie when Bishop is stabbed through his synthetic guts by the alien queen.
This next one comes from Aliens when Corporal Hicks looks at this poor sap who is worse for it.
Next up we have my favourite of the scream sounds from Gloom which has an almost Tom and Jerry like quality to how good and distinct a scream it is. This of course is from Bishop getting stabbed again.
But that is not all. During the course of Gloom you’ll also go up against a robot that looks more than a little like Ed-209 from Robocop. His sound effects however come from the robotic walking device Ripley wears in Aliens.
The sound of a door opening in Gloom is the sound of Ripley waking from cryogenic sleep in Aliens.
Its possible other sounds were stolen from Aliens too, so this one, I’ll throw on the maybe pile, as although it sounds similar, I think if it a stolen sound it was enhanced in some ways.
If you listen to hear Ripley buckle herself into the robot walker thing you’ll hear a familiar Gloom sound.
As for other sounds. It’s possible, and I’d even go so far as to say likely that most if not all other sound effects in Gloom have come either form Aliens or another movie.
There are only about fifteen or twenty sound effects in the entire game, so maybe the others come from other movies too.
The most interesting sounds that I couldn’t place come from the monsters you fight later in the game. I tried to see if they were perhaps altered versions of Xenomorph hisses and screams, but I can’t convince myself that these are the same sounds.
It’s very possible that some generic or stock sounds were used in the game, although I’d love to discover that the end of level warp sound effect comes from a cool 80s or early 1990s action film!
