Virgin PLAY

Background

Virgin Interactive Espana S.A. was founded as the Spanish distribution arm of Virgin Interactive in 1995, distributing the company's games alongside other companies such as The 3DO Company and Midas Interactive Entertainment.

In May 2002, Titus Interactive, Virgin Interactive's owner, announced that the Spanish branch would undergo a management buyout led by former Virgin Interactive CEO Tim Chansey, which was finalised in October, and afterwards rebranded as Virgin PLAY S.A.. When VIE re-branded as Avalon Interactive in 2003, Virgin Play became the only interactive asset bearing the Virgin identity.

The company extended to video game publishing in 2005, which itself was renamed to "V.2 PLAY" in 2007 alongside the opening of an office in Portugal.

Tim Chansey left the company in 2008, and Virgin PLAY soon filed for liquidation in 2009, ending the last traces of Virgin Interactive's legacy in the process.

1st Logo (2005-2007)

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Visuals: The sequence starts on a black background with a circle rising up turning into the animation. There is a cartoon-styled building site with red skies and a gold crane working up some white cargo. An operator manages the remote below, whistling and watching the crane. Then we see one of the fastenings loose and break off, with the heavy cargo causing the rest of the fastenings breaking off as well, making the cargo fall. Realizing this, the operator yells in terror with his hard hat flying off and then closer up into the screen. The falling block hits the white construction with a loud thud and the background becomes completely red. The construction quickly zooms out and shows to be part of the "A" in "PLAY" in a pixelated font. Then the gold gyroscope circle appears spinning around the world and then the Virgin logo fades in next to it. After that the logo drops to the bottom with a white background showing, and then fades to black.

Variants:

• On the PSP version of Final Armada, when the box falls on the operator, his face turns completely black and the hat vanishes. This is possibly an animation error.
• On Dead 'n' Furious, the logo is still, and the "PLAY" text is in a more basic font.

Technique: 2D digital animation.

Audio: The crane working and other site sounds, the whistling and screams of terror from the man, the yellow circle flips with the sound and a Ping when the Virgin logo appears.

Availability: The animated version appears on Torrente 3: The Protector for the PC and PS2, and Final Armada for the PS2 and PSP. It is also likely seen on games Virgin Play distributed in Spain. The still version appears on Dead 'n' Furious for Nintendo DS (The American version, Touch the Dead has the V.2 Play logo instead of this one)

2nd Logo (2007-2009)

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Visuals: The same animation as the previous logo, but the V.2 Play logo (A red orb which has the white name "V.2" written on the left and "PLAY" in the pixelated font on the right, encircled by a thin gold border) appears instead of the Virgin Play logo.

Trivia: The main logo is poorly edited, as if one looks very closely, the Virgin Play logo appears behind the V.2 Play logo.

Variants:

• On Donkey Xote, A trademark disclaimer saying "v.2 PLAY is a registered trademark of Virgin PLAY" appears below after the ping. It fades out before the logo drops to the bottom.
• A more common still version exists, which can appear on a black or white background.
• On Super Hind, a different trademark disclaimer, saying "Published by V.2 PLAY V.2 PLAY®is a registered trademark of Virgin Play S.A." appears below the still logo.
• On DS games, the trademark disclaimer can appear with the logo or on the touch screen.
• On Virgin Play's website, the last part of the logo is cut off.

Technique: 2D digital animation.

Audio: Same as before. On Virgin Play's website, the sound is of low quality.

Availability: The animated version appeared on the virginplay.es site for a time. On games it appears on the European version of War Leaders: Clash of Nations, V.2 Play versions of Crusaders: Thy Kingdom Come, Donkey Xote and Real Madrid: The Game. The still version appears on all Nintendo DS games published by Virgin Play (Except for Dead 'n' Furious, which has the previous logo, but the American version of the game Touch the Dead does have this logo, which appears after the Eidos and Secret Stash logos), Snow X-Racing for the PlayStation 2, On some versions of Crusaders: Thy Kingdom Come for the PC and Super Hind for PSP.