Iron Maiden Album: “Ed Hunter [Box]”

The song rock, the game is realy cool too, its a realy cool shooter, its a chalenging game so if you like games you actualy have to try to beat you should like 'ed hunter'!

Obviously, no band's "best of" compilation is going to satisfy every one of their fans. This is especially true when it comes to Iron Maiden, whose every song seems to be one fan's favorite yet some other fan's least favorite. So how do you make the fairest compilation?

In 1998 Iron Maiden took a poll, asking all fans to go to ironmaiden.com and vote for their favorite Iron Maiden songs. Any song from any of their albums was elligable. The top 20 results were taken to make up the audio portion of ED HUNTER. And as if that wasn't enough, the band then proceeded with a tour in support of ED HUNTER, with a setlist based exclusively on these 20 songs! I find it beyond refreshing to see a band dare to do such a thing, in light of so many who haven't changed their setlist in decades (AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne, etc.), or refuse to acknowledge cult favorites entirely (Van Halen with "Fair Warning", Def Leppard with "On Through The Night", etc.). But anyway, back to ED HUNTER. Quite simply, you have no right to complain about the choice of songs here: Iron Maiden did their best to compile what the fans wanted. Oddly enough, the songs span the catalog well, with at least one song featured from all 11 of their studio albums released up to that time.

The CDs work normal as audio CDs, but taking up most of the data on that second disc is the ED HUNTER cd-rom game. It's a pretty straight forward shoot-everybody-on-the-screen type of game. Each level's graphics are based on enviroments from Iron Maiden album covers, with one of their songs playing in the background. But you can't save your place, so once you're dead, it's back to square one! It was a simple idea to make the game more difficult, and I think here it works. If you're looking for some state of the art game, I'm sure there are plenty of newer games that appeal more to the general crowds. I wouldn't give this game in and of itself 5 stars. But if you want to see Eddie and those albums of your youth come to life right in front of your eyes, then this is the game to get.

This is a must-have album for any fan of hard rock/metal. All the songs are classics. Even if you are a tride and true Maiden fan, you gotta get it anyway for the game. The game itself is like "House of the Dead," but with much better music. Each level is based on a Maiden song and has that song playing in the background. The only problem I have with the game itself is that if you want to play great and don't want to break your mouse, you're gonna have to invest some money in a light gun. Even so, the package as a whole is 100 times worth the price. So get it before Ed Hunter gets you!

I very much enjoy every single song on both cds. This was the first Iron Maiden cd I ever bought, and if you don't like it, you get a video game with it. I haven't played the game so I don't know if thats any good or not. "Hallowed Be Thy Name" is my favorite song of them all. It is also one of my favorite songs in general. It is missing a few Maiden classics, but, you can't possibly put all of their classics into just a few cds.

This CD comes across as two things to the Iron Maiden fan. First and foremost it's a Greatest Hits; the songs were supposedly chosen on the band's website a few years back. Many classic Maiden songs like Hallowed Be Thy Name and Powerslave are here; however longtime fan fave Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, among others, are not included, which lends many classic Maiden fans the assumption that no such vote was ever held. (Or maybe nobody heard about it - I didn't!)

Second, it's a game and a bad one at that. It's a second rate House Of The Dead (one of Sega's more miniscule accomplishments IMHO). You cannot control your movement - only what you shoot. The game is so pathetic that you find yourself losing because of boredom of shooting people before they shoot you. One drawback is that you cannot save in the middle of a mission - only between levels. The ending is not very rewarding, either. One cool thing about the game is that, ahead of time, you can choose which Ed Hunter song plays during each level. The drawback to this is that that song loops over and over and over.

The music is all right if incomplete and the game is a waste of space on your computer, but if you're a longtime fan and collector, or if you want a decent preview of Iron Maiden as a "new" fan, you should check it out if you can pick it up cheap, otherwise, just wait for an official "Greatest Hits" package. Sadly, Iron Maiden isn't at their peak and the really good Greatest Hits packages come, as we all know, when the record label just wants to milk more money from the band's name.

Peace.