Vultan's Theme (Attack of the Hawk Men)

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Vultan's Theme
Composer Queen
Released 1980-12-05
Title Origin Official

Vultan's Theme (Attack of the Hawk Men) was composed by Freddie Mercury and the rock band Queen for the 1980 movie, Flash Gordon. The tune's popularity caused it to be "borrowed" by a couple composers of videogame music. None of the games that use the song ever give credit to Queen, but the song is very recognizable because the "flying" bars. Due to the hardware constraints of the time, no game actually uses a recording of the song, they all use a lo-fi rearrangement with the same notes. This coupled with the lax copyright laws of the 1980s allowed to song to be used over and over again without any lawsuits.

Games

Released

Game

Arranger

Length

Format

Listen

1981-10-?? Vanguard (ARC) Unknown UNK
1982-??-?? Vanguard (A8) Unknown UNK
1982-??-?? Vanguard (A26) Dave Payne 0:10 UNK
1983-??-?? Vanguard (A52) Unknown UNK
1987-??-?? Apache Strike (MAC) Unknown UNK
1989-??-?? Apache Strike (C64) Unknown 1:47 SID
1989-??-?? Apache Strike (DOS) Chris Teslak 1:44 UNK


Vanguard (ARC)

Vanguard - ARC - Energy.png

The song was used without permission by TOSE Co., Ltd. in the original arcade game. The tune plays whenever you touch an energy pod.


Vanguard (A8)

Like the arcade game, Vultan's Theme plays when you touch an energy pod in the Atari 800 game.


Vanguard (A26)

Vanguard - A26 - Energy.png

Like the arcade game, Vultan's Theme plays when you touch an energy pod. The music fidelity is notably lower for the Atari 2600.


Vanguard (A52)

Vanguard - A52 - Energy.png

The Atari 5200 port is much closer to the arcade version than the Atari 2600 release, and the tune matches up with the arcade release quite closely. Vultan's Theme plays every time you touch an energy box, and each time the game begins.

Apache Strike (MAC)

The title music of Apache Strike (MAC) borrows heavily from Vultan's Theme.

Apache Strike (C64)

The title music of Apache Strike (C64) borrows heavily from Vultan's Theme.

Apache Strike (DOS)

The title music of Apache Strike (DOS) is very simular with the tune from C64 version. It loops like MAC and C64, contrary to the Vanguard games.

Links