Ed Hunter

michaellegge

michaellegge

Prowler
Does anyone know the true story of Ed Hunter, the compilation album?

Supposedly, the tracks were chosen by fans as part of a poll, but that just can’t be true. Futureal gets picked, but Rime doesn’t? That seems really odd to me. Also, are those the actual poll results in order? As in, was Iron Maiden voted number 1, etc?
 
I don't think we ever got any info about the chosen songs, but some omissions stand out (Rime, for example). I'm guessing it was an online voting poll, perhaps with the rule that every album be featured? Results in order, I really doubt it.
 
Harris said before the first gig of Ed Hunter tour that Sign of the Cross got most votes but for some reason they postponed playing it live until the Brave New World tour. Also Bruce said before the last gig of Ed Hunter Tour that they can´t play all the epics at one go, so if its between Hallowed and To Tame A Land, Ancient Mariner or Alexander, its got to be Hallowed.
 
Blood On The World´s Hand said:
Harris said before the first gig of Ed Hunter tour that Sign of the Cross got most votes but for some reason they postponed playing it live until the Brave New World tour. Also Bruce said before the last gig of Ed Hunter Tour that they can´t play all the epics at one go, so if its between Hallowed and To Tame A Land, Ancient Mariner or Alexander, its got to be Hallowed.
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I remember this interview with Bruce, but didn't know that about Sign Of The Cross. So some songs were left out on purpose, despite the votes? Odd.
 
Kalata said:
I don't think we ever got any info about the chosen songs, but some omissions stand out (Rime, for example). I'm guessing it was an online voting poll, perhaps with the rule that every album be featured? Results in order, I really doubt it.
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I remember voting for the setlist back in the day. I don't remember all the songs I picked, but definitely made sure to get a handful of Blaze songs I wanted to hear Bruce do. Clansman, Sign, Futureal, Man on the Edge for sure. It was cool to get the setlist compilation CD with the game, but annoying that less than a year later (I believe), they did an updated pressing with Wrathchild '99 on it. Bought it again eventually when I found a used copy.
 
CA Bryers said:
I remember voting for the setlist back in the day. I don't remember all the songs I picked, but definitely made sure to get a handful of Blaze songs I wanted to hear Bruce do. Clansman, Sign, Futureal, Man on the Edge for sure. It was cool to get the setlist compilation CD with the game, but annoying that less than a year later (I believe), they did an updated pressing with Wrathchild '99 on it. Bought it again eventually when I found a used copy.
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I remember voting, but for the soundtrack of the game, not for the setlist of the tour (reunion had not been announced at that point if I remember correctly). My votes would definitely have been different had I known that Bruce and Adrian were rejoining the band.

Edit: On a related note, 5 days ago it was the 26th anniversary of the reunion. I can still remember the excitement when I read the announcement on the band’s website with a friend during a computer lab tutorial at Uni. Needless to say, my mate and I were both unable to focus for the rest of the tutorial!
 
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GhostofCain said:
Edit: On a related note, 5 days ago it was the 26th anniversary of the reunion. I can still remember the excitement when I read the announcement on the band’s website with a friend during a computer lab tutorial at Uni. Needless to say, my mate and I were both unable to focus for the rest of the tutorial!
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I was oddly the opposite. I was deeply bummed out that Blaze got sacked and Bruce was coming back. I was hopeful that the Blaze lineup could turn it around with the next album, but I also saw that Bruce had been stirring the reunion pot in interviews and his tactic to "out-Maiden Maiden" since Accident of Birth.

It was losing two streams of music that really sucked for me--Maiden and Bruce--and figured Blaze would either retreat back to Wolfsbane (which I was never a big fan of), or fade off into obscurity. Never had an inkling his solo output could be as good as it generally turned out to be. Losing Bruce's solo work was the bigger loss than Blaze era Maiden to me. He'd just done two of the best albums of his career (IMO), and would be chucking that aside for the safer (but more lucrative) option.

In the long run, yeah, we got a couple good Bruce solo albums out of the deal, but unsurprisingly, neither hit the heights AoB or Chemical Wedding did, and we got a more than decent batch of new Maiden albums, along with Blaze chugging along in the background. So, it generally worked out.
 
I remember that Steve said in a Rock Hard interview that he himself was surprised about seeing Futureal voted. I think the vote was rather a poll for the band to get an idea what fans would like to hear, but in no way binding. The ultimate decision would not be tied to the vote.

Oh, and we should seize the opportunity and remember that Ed Hunter (the "game") is by far the worst thing Maiden ever released.
 
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Eddie's Uncle said:
I remember that Steve said in a Rock Hard interview that he himself was surprised about seeing Futureal voted.
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The fans (even back then) to like songs with a classic Maiden approach (fast, anthemic, melodic) like Futureal and Man On The Edge should not be surprising to Steve. And both were singles and tour openers.
Eddie's Uncle said:
I think the vote was rather a poll for the band to get an idea what fans would like to hear, but in no way binding. The ultimate decision would not be tied to the vote.
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I guess so.
Eddie's Uncle said:
Oh, and we should seize the opportunity and remember that Ed Hunter (the "game") is by far the worst thing Maiden ever released.
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The game was cool for its time.
 
It really wasn’t. It was competing with Quake 2 and Half-Life and Unreal. Ed Hunter was about five years behind the times, it was laughably bad. And it had crappy midi soundtrack not digital audio. Just embarrassing. It was a game with 1993 tech released in 1999.
 
I would love to see a rundown of band themed video games and maybe a consensus on which one is the best? There aren't many, and it's a pretty weird genre. Off the top of my head I can think of Ed Hunter, Journey for the Atari, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, and I believe there was a Kiss video game in a similar style to Ed Hunter released around the same time. Anyone know of others or any that are actually good? It seems to me like the Michael Jackson game might be far and away the best one.

I would also love to read more about the development of Ed Hunter. I'm not sure of the exact details, but I know the game was in development as early as 95 or 96. Also not sure how much it evolved over time, not that it would be a good game in 95 either.

The ultimate sin really is that they mixed in Ed Hunter promotional graphics with their Virtual XI material. I don't mind the Maiden merchandising machine as long as it stays separate from the albums, and that is one where they crossed the streams too much. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that Maiden didn't release Senjutsu as Legacy of the Beast with mobile game imagery all over the booklets.
 
Mosh said:
I would also love to read more about the development of Ed Hunter. I'm not sure of the exact details, but I know the game was in development as early as 95 or 96. Also not sure how much it evolved over time, not that it would be a good game in 95 either.
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There was a game called Melt which was in development 95-97 kinda time which was scrapped in favour of cutting edge technology....
 
Mosh said:
I would love to see a rundown of band themed video games and maybe a consensus on which one is the best? There aren't many, and it's a pretty weird genre. Off the top of my head I can think of Ed Hunter, Journey for the Atari, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, and I believe there was a Kiss video game in a similar style to Ed Hunter released around the same time. Anyone know of others or any that are actually good? It seems to me like the Michael Jackson game might be far and away the best one.

I would also love to read more about the development of Ed Hunter. I'm not sure of the exact details, but I know the game was in development as early as 95 or 96. Also not sure how much it evolved over time, not that it would be a good game in 95 either.

The ultimate sin really is that they mixed in Ed Hunter promotional graphics with their Virtual XI material. I don't mind the Maiden merchandising machine as long as it stays separate from the albums, and that is one where they crossed the streams too much. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that Maiden didn't release Senjutsu as Legacy of the Beast with mobile game imagery all over the booklets.
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I was less concerned about the Ed Hunter crossover and rather hated the Football/Soccer crossover.

Steve saying “we figure our fans like what we like so we wanted to incorporate football” is dumb for a lot of reasons, not least of being that the majority of their fans don’t live in England or give a shit about Honey Baked West Ham.
 
chaosapiant said:
I was less concerned about the Ed Hunter crossover and rather hated the Football/Soccer crossover.

Steve saying “we figure our fans like what we like so we wanted to incorporate football” is dumb for a lot of reasons, not least of being that the majority of their fans don’t live in England or give a shit about Honey Baked West Ham.
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I'm a football fan and I also disliked it very much. It was the cringiest thing they ever did.
 
Yea I never saw the big deal with that. It's not my favorite but the football field on the cover of VXI is not nearly as ugly as the 3D Eddie renders throughout the booklet.
 
BludBrutha said:
It really wasn’t. It was competing with Quake 2 and Half-Life and Unreal. Ed Hunter was about five years behind the times, it was laughably bad. And it had crappy midi soundtrack not digital audio. Just embarrassing. It was a game with 1993 tech released in 1999.
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Ah, if only they had continued developing MELT.
 
Do we know that Melt was a different game or just something that evolved into what became Ed Hunter?
 
Mosh said:
Yea I never saw the big deal with that. It's not my favorite but the football field on the cover of VXI is not nearly as ugly as the 3D Eddie renders throughout the booklet.
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Actually I agree with this. I like the principle behind the Eddie’s more than the execution. And the art for the football stuff looks fine. It’s just the principle of that which rubs my buns the wrong way.
 
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