Queen music on Flash Gordon pinball machine ?

August 6, 2007 3:04 PM

Does the Flash Gordon pinball machine from 1981 feature any sound effects with Queen music from the movie soundtrack ?
posted by jurczyk to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (9 answers total)

I could have swore it used a bit of that stupid Flash Gordon song by queen.
posted by DieHipsterDie at 3:59 PM on August 6, 2007

Pinball machines from this era weren't capable of playing true "music". It was more a series of tones and beeps.
If you were to load the roms on that page into PinMAME, you'd be able to hear what it sounds like.
posted by cosmicbandito at 4:06 PM on August 6, 2007

I don't think that's true. I remember the same thing... a recording of the Queen song: "Flash! Ah-aaaah!"
posted by Doohickie at 4:37 PM on August 6, 2007

Black Knight which came out a year earlier had voices, so the idea of a sample from a song isn't impossible.
posted by DieHipsterDie at 5:27 PM on August 6, 2007

I also recall the Flash Gordon sound bites on that machine. DiehipsterDie, I haven't thought about Black Knight in forever, that was one of my favorites. Multiball was the best.
posted by doctor_negative at 6:18 PM on August 6, 2007

Dude, you're giving me flashbacks. "AH-Aaaaa! Savior of the Universe!" I don't know much about pinball machines, but I have this memory too.
posted by Area Control at 7:18 PM on August 6, 2007

I loaded this up in pinmame to get some idea what it sounds like.Here's an mp3 of the game going through it's soundtest. That should be all of the speech the game was capable of making. Games of this age really didn't have music. The electronics were pretty primitive, and just having speech was considered huge.
posted by cosmicbandito at 8:20 PM on August 6, 2007

All I can say is that the version I played at the traveling pinball machine museum did not have real music. I played it last year, and I believe it was a mint version, though there were a fair amount of prototypes there.
posted by klangklangston at 8:23 PM on August 6, 2007

The Official Queen Fan Club magazine (yes, I was a member, so shoot me) said at the time that the Flash Gordon pinball machine played a snippet of the theme song from the film. I wasted 50 cents at the arcade trying to "play" the game so I could hear the "ah-ahhh", but I was more of a Centipede/Robotron person; I was no good at pinball. I did not hear any Queen music or samples, but perhaps you needed to get a certain score or to a certain level to hear everything? Maybe it was too loud in the arcade? Maybe the Fan Club was misinformed (wouldn't be the first time they were wrong)?
posted by Oriole Adams at 9:33 PM on August 6, 2007