When video games copied from famous songs
In the era before the internet, video games sometimes copy their music from famous songs. It was a fairly common practice, listing all the cases would produce an endless list, but here are some of the more interesting ones.
The original arcade version of Rainbow Islands featured the remix of the song "Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz. This music was included in the Japanese versions of the game's Mega Drive, PC Engine, and Famicom, as well as Ocean Software's conversions for home computers (Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga and Atari ST).
However, in later console versions of the game (Master System, NES, Saturn, PS1, the Taito Memories and Taito Legends collections), the game's music was changed so as not to infringe copyright. The Game Boy Color version, for the same reason, simply uses Bubble Bobble themed music.
Additionally, Parasol Stars, the Rainbow Islands sequel, uses a suspiciously Lambada-like song as boss music.
Voices could also be copied from famous sources: many of the samples used for Golden Ax and its sequel were taken from the films "Rambo" and "Conan the Barbarian". When you kill bad guys every now and then they scream something like "Oooh God!" which is taken by Rambo, in the scene that takes place in the forest when one of the policemen falls into a trap and is impaled by sharp pieces of wood.
The sampling for the man being trampled by villains in Golden Ax and Death-Adder's cry as he falls from the dragon in the final scene of "Golden Ax - Revenge of Death-Adder" was taken by the policeman who fell from the helicopter chasing Rambo .
Finally, the battle cry used for big villains when they die in Golden Ax and the scream of the big green monster chained in level 3 of "Golden Ax - Revenge of Death-Adder" are the same and are taken from Conan's scene in which Arnold Schwarzenegger fights the two enemies in a background similar to Stonehenge and again one of them is impaled by a trap.
The musical theme of the first level (Round 1) of Bomb Jack is copied from the final theme of the Japanese cartoon 'Spoon Oba-san', known as "The strange world of Minù" in Italy, sung by Mari Ijima (1983). The anime premiered in 1983 ... at that time, Bomb Jack's development had only just begun: something more than a coincidence, then.
Instead, the musical theme of the second level (Round 2) is copied from the Beatles' 'Lady Madonna'.
Tsuruta-san, remembers that the royalties were paid for licensed music at the time; however, later ports (PS2 and Xbox) come with a replaced soundtrack (most notably Score Vs. Mighty Bomb Jack).
In Bomb Jack II for Commodore 64, the musical theme is based on the theme song from the cartoon Thundercats. In fact, Elite Systems had the rights to the Thundercats video games (it later published one of the same name) and Bomb Jack II itself was initially planned as another Thundercats game, then readjusted in the course of construction, a little forcibly, with the Bomb Jack theme.
Chris Hülsbeck made a good part of the soundtrack of the video game Turrican, at least in the Commodore 64 version. The latter includes, among other things, two songs that are rearrangements of Escape and parts of Death of Optimus Prime, taken from the soundtrack of the feature film by Transformers - The Movie animation from 1986, composed by Vince DiCola, and a track (also used in X-Out) that contains part of the Shadowfire soundtrack.
Many sound effects used by the famous video game of the 90s called Doom come from a library of royalty free audio effects, the Sound Ideas General series: for this reason, often the same effects can also be heard in films, TV series or other video games.
The music, composed by Bobby Prince, is in many cases heavily inspired by heavy metal pieces by famous bands such as Metallica, Pantera and Slayer among others; however, none of these have ever sued id Software for plagiarism. According to John Romero, who loaned the musician several records from the groups in question, this stems from the fact that Prince is also a lawyer, and therefore aware of how many identical lines it was possible to insert into the pieces without incurring copyright infringement.
The music track for Doom II level "Barrels o 'Fun" (MAP 23), titled "Bye Bye American Pie" (no relation to that song, by the way) is almost identical to "Them Bones" by Alice in Chains (1992 ), minus the vocal track. It is essentially a karaoke version.
In Duke Nukem 3D there is the music "In Hiding", the E3M1 theme, which looks similar to the music from the end credits of Blade Runner. Bobby Prince was involved in the production of the Duke 3D soundtrack (see Doom entry) so it's hardly surprising that there are suspiciously similar songs here as well.
In Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure the opening music was actually the instrumental copy of the ZZ Top song Tush, made even to say it by the usual Bobby Prince. The Apogee was pretty blatant about this. How cheeky? The file name in the game data is "MZZTOP.IMF".
The music for the first level of Duke Nukem II ("He's Back") was basically a slightly reworked version of Megadeth's "Angry Again". A next level track, "Squeaking By", was a similarly made cover of "Skin'O My Teeth".
The Mayhem in Monsterland theme for Commodore 64 sounds very similar to the initial music from the cartoon Tiny Toon Adventures.
The well-known "Ken Theme" from Street Fighter 2 (1991) is copied from the movie Top Gun, and more precisely from the song "Might Wings" by Cheap Trick (1986).
Super Mario Bros' famous "Underground Theme" for Nintendo Nes (1985) is copied from Friendship's "Let's not talk about it" (1979).
"Bridge Zone" from Sonic the Hedgehog for Sega Master System (1991) is copied from the telefilm Gli amici di papa (Full House), in particular from the track "Everywhere you look" by Jesse Frederick and Bennett Salvay (1987).
"I am man" from Ninja Gaiden (1988) is copied from "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath (1970).
"Ice Cap Zone" from Sonic 3 (1994) is copied from The Jetzons' "Hard Times" (1982).
Spy Hunter's "Spy hunter main theme" (1983) is copied from Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn Theme" (1959).
Title Music
"Main Theme" by Metal Gear Solid for Playstation 1 (1998) is copied from "Winter Road" by Gergy Sviridov "(1935).
" Super Villains "by Spider-man Venom Maximum Carnage for Super Nintendo (1993 ) is copied from Black Sabbath's "The Mob Rules" (1981).
Mother's "Hippie Battle" for Nintendo Nes (1989) is copied from Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" (1958).
"Devil's Call in your heart "by F-Zero X for Nintendo 64 (1998) is copied from" Heartwork "by Carcass (1993).
"Elec man stage" by Megaman for Nintendo Nes (1987) is copied from" Faithfully "by Journey (1983).
"Main menu theme" (title music) WWF Wrestlemania 2000 for Nintendo 64 (1999) is copied from Pantera's "Psycho Holiday" (1990).
"Spread the wings' Rock Howard" by Garou Mark of the wolves for Neo Geo (1999) is copied from "Children" by Robert Miles (1996).
"Marble Zone" by Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) is copied from "Music to Watch girls by" by Andy Williams (1967).
"Boss 2 theme" of POW Prisoners of war for Nintendo NES (1988) is copied from "The heat is on" by Glenn Frey (1984).
"Title Theme" of Commando 86 (1989) is copied from Mike Oldfield's "Thubolar Bells" (1973).
Battletoads & Double Dragon's "Main Theme" (1993) is copied from Duran Duran's "Girls on film" (1981).
"Mortal Kombat Theme" by Mortal Kombat (1994) is copied from "
Led Storm's "Title Music" (1988) is copied from Deep Purple's "Moke in the Water" (1972).
"Lei Wulong theme" from Tekken 3 for Playstation 1 (1997) is copied from East 17's "steam" (1994).
Final Fantasy VII's "20 still more fighting / thos who fight further" (1997) is copied from Motorhead's "Jailbait" (1980).
And so on for many others. However, with the spread of the internet this phenomenon has practically disappeared, perhaps due to the too much visibility that a copy or a musical plagiarism could have, and therefore due to the ease with which the news would have spread.
