The gamer's guide to the Wilhelm Scream
I obviously haven't been spending near enough time plumbing GiantBomb's user-generated depths, because this is the first I've noticed of the growing list of games that use the ubiquitous Wilhelm Scream. As the description notes, the Scream is a delightfully obscure in-joke amongst Hollywood sound-mixers, who've been tucking the clip into anywhere and everywhere they could, and once you've heard it a few times in a row, you'll never be able to un-hear it again.
The biggest repeat offender on the list is the LEGO series (Star Wars and Indy) and various other Star Wars titles, which is no coincidence, as LucasFilm sound effect designers Ben Burtt and Richard Anderson were the pair credited with starting the trend. I'm going to have to replay Bionic Commando Rearmed and Team Fortress 2 with more open ears next time, though, and apparently even Halo 3 got in on the action.
Wilhelm Scream (video game concept) [GiantBomb]
gene
2:41 PM December 1, 2008 – #1
There's a woman's scream I hear over and over too. Used to hear it in X-COM: Apocalypse a lot.
Anonymous
2:54 PM December 1, 2008 – #2
When I was writing NPC dialogue on a short-term contract for Star Wars Galaxies in early 2003, I named a Corellian Imperial Lieutenant Governor "Wilhalm Skrim" in honest tribute to this sound effect.
--Allen Varney
Boinkology
11:55 PM December 1, 2008 – #3
We put the Wilhelm Scream in The Incredible Hulk game that came out this past summer. If you pick up and throw a male pedestrian, there is a random chance of getting the Wilhelm.
Its totally true, that once you hear it a few times, you can never stop noticing it.
Nostranoodle
3:37 AM December 2, 2008 – #4
The sound effect I always notice in games and movies is the one that John Romeros head makes when it shoots out demons in the last level of Doom II.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfSoVSiUEyo
Anyone know who invented this noise? I remember hearing it on a manga called Ninja Scroll that apparently came out before Doom II...
monstrinho_do_biscoito
3:47 AM December 2, 2008 – #5
it's also in Force unleashed on the Cloud City levels
Lemon
4:43 AM December 2, 2008 – #6
I think you can hear it Halo 3 when one of the marines die. In TF2 it could be one of death screams of the scout.
Baldhead
10:56 AM December 2, 2008 – #7
There's another scream I've heard in various movies, TV, games like Starcraft (actually it's generated by clicking on one of the human units)
Anonymous
6:06 PM December 2, 2008 – #8
It's the Terran Academy building that screams. I guess its pretty rough learning to be a space marine.
Anonymous
6:29 AM December 3, 2008 – #9
Instant Wilhelm!
http://wilhelmscream.net/
maus
3:37 PM December 10, 2008 – #10
Apropos again to Doom, I want to know who invented the sound that doors make in that game- the "shreeeeeSHLUNK" that I have since heard crop up in cartoons, movies, and Battlestar Galactica. I imagine it's older than Doom- I think I heard it during Alien, but that may be a memory glitch.