Preview
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»CL0: TRSAC 2001 Production Review
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Written by »CL5:Darkhawk»CL6: of»CL5: IRIS
»CL1:Since the last production review (the
MS production review) was such a huge
success (we got feedback from 2-3
people, it left us absolutely
paralysed), we decided to do one for
this issue as well. »CL8:This time, we will
review the productions released at the
TRSAC party last year in Denmark.»CL1:
Yeah, we might have done a TP
production review, but there is
nothing to review, and besides, it is
no scene-party anymore.
The reviewers are Dr. Doom, Ransom,
and I, Darkhawk. Bear in mind that we
are highly subjective, juvenile and
consciously provoking, just to drag
you through the review, so do not
complain about the style afterwards,
mwahah.
Also, before we begin, a few lines
about the review strategy is in its
place. »CL7:We do not review these
productions with the aim of telling
you how they look, »CL1:whether you should
see them yourselves, or with the
intent of giving you a pre-viewing
review of the production. Many or most
reviews do that, but that is actually
rather pointless. »CL8:Nowadays, the scene
is so small that all sceners should be
able to get and watch all productions.»CL1:
Furthermore, these productions are for
free, and easy to get. Therefore, you
do not read reviews to decide whether
to get and watch a production, you
read reviews because you want to know
what others think about the
production, you want to compare your
own impression with that of others.
»CL7:This is especially true if you are the
developer of the production. Therefore
we aim to tell you our own impressions
about the demo, we do not talk much
about colours,»CL1: what effect follows
what effect, etc., that is simply too
boring, when you might as well check
that yourself. Instead, you get to
know what we think of the production,
and there will not be much irrelevant,
objective facts about the productions,
like number of effects, pictures, who
did what, etc. »CL6:Go read our articles in
this issue about precisely this topic
(how useless 'objectivity' is in a
scene review), if you have not done so
already.»CL1:
Ok, we start with the insanely huge
amount of intros, released there.
»CL0: Kukablargh (I thiiink) by IRIS
»CL1:Wow! Insanely cool! This intro
deserved to win (but of course did
not, due to Psycho's vote faking.. Not
surprising, given his past deeds..).
»CL8:The sheep pictured here is a symbol
for something rather deep, a hidden
meaning inside the mundane, what
amazingly brilliant design and subtle
hints.»CL1: It leaves us practically
speechless with the sheer ingenuity
the designers of this intro show us.
The font is so nicely coloured and
reminds me of good old copper-colour
times.. Sigh, a masterpiece! As a
bonus, I have heard that there is a
hidden part if you watch through the
intro for some time.. »CL7:We will leave it
up to you to discover this. »CL1:And ohh.
Do not go looking at our homepage in
order to get this production, it was
just a 10 minute quickie.. The tune is
sweet though.
»CL0: Faark by Loonies
»CL1:Tsk, tsk.. See how far vote faking can
get you.. This intro won the intro
competition, although it barely
deserves the term 'intro'. Here we
have a single 3d sheep, along with a
'mæææh' sample and that is it. »CL8:Such
shallowness and lack of ideas leaves
us shaking our heads in disgust, but
that is just Loonies for you.»CL1:
And now, onto the demos, and onto
more.. Let us say, discrete ways of
voicing our subjective opinions. We
start with the lowest placed, and work
our way up to the top.
»CL0: Brakke 2 by Hotdog
»CL1:This demo actually is not THAT bad,
really.. It has this techno tune,
coupled with 95' effects, childish
drawings as well as porno pictures..
Heh, sounds good, eh? Or as one of our
reviewers put it, when he had to
comment the demo: 'It has impressive
pictures, that work with your
subconsciousness'. »CL8:Well, the overall
effect is rather cool, because it has
its own style, and does not try to be
more than it is, it does not try to
fit in with relative demo-standards of
today. »CL1:On top of that, there is some
skill beneath it all, and the style is
quite funny (for seriously deranged
persons like ourselves). It certainly
does not deserve the last place, but
that is how it is.
»CL0: The Switch by Tulou
»CL1:No, everyone on the reviewing team
agree (even those of us, who are
normally not that judgemental) that
the last place should have been given
to this production. »CL7:Tulou has, in my
(Darkhawk's) opinion made one quite ok
production, Mortality, but since then.»CL1:
Well, since then, we have had
productions like this from them. Good
things about this production. Well,
the module is only somewhat bad, but
the rest. There is not much either, a
scroller, colour-cycling and then the
mod. So, a very fast production indeed
(ehr, nothing wrong with fast
productions btw.. Upps..)
»CL0: Live Kebab by Team Karbis
»CL1:This one is cute, and done by
Blueberry under a pseudonym I would
guess, since:
»CL7:1) »CL1:It is AMOS
»CL8:2) »CL1:There are many sheep!
This is a poorly veiled attempt at
subconsciously manipulating the viewer
into believing that sheep rule the
world, we think.. »CL8:Apart from that,
there is one effect and one sample,
a lot of sheep in a closure, moving
and bouncing off the fence, so to
speak. »CL1:Not that bad actually, but
naturally nothing spectacular either.
Seems like both Loonies and IRIS had
trouble releasing a bigger production
here. Of course, the money-grubbing
scum of »CL7:Loonies had already finished
their Impossible II intro, but since
they could not win as much money on
TRSAC as on the MS, they decided to
release the intro there instead.. Tsk,
tsk.»CL1:
»CL0: Megademo $D by GFB
»CL1:Yes, another (mega)demo from GFB, held
in the usual GFB style, so you should
know what to expect, namely melodic
music, ripped gfx, cute gfx and
typically one effect shown as the
centerpiece of each part of the demo.
It features some nice metaballs, some
ugly colours, very catchy music (for
us oldsk00l lovers anyway), and
oldskool effects restyled, like ahhh..
Glenz and.. Oh joy. The good old
box-in-a-box effect.. Aww, is that not
sweet? »CL8:Here in IRIS, we hope GFB will
not stop making megademos when they
reach $F, hehe. »CL1:
Now for the two clear competitors for
the first price. As usual, nobody can
stand against TBL in pure corporate
branding, so they won.. Ehrr no, they
might also have won because theirs and
UpRough's demo was the best one of
course, that IS a possibility, but let
us have a look.
»CL0: Bizare Love Triangle by Haujobb
»CL1:This is a quality demo, and it has a
lot of nice things worth mentioning..
First off, there is this sweet
oldskool horizontal logoscroller,
featuring a logo by IB. Of course only
done to impress Darkhawk, who loves
these things, and remembers the good
old PMC intro from 90', where they did
the same..»CL7: Ehrr! Anyway, it is sweet,
as is the scroller in that part. Then
there is the Polka-like linetunnel,
and naturally, these tunnels are
always an eye-pleaser amongst this
crowd of reviewers at least, »CL1:but we do
feel that if you have to copy effects,
they might as well be a little older
than that.. I mean.. Come on, Polka
did this tunnel in 94'! That is
practically yesterday.. Uhm, apart
from that, we know this is in chunky,
as opposed to planar, and we did like
it, we just want to be provocative,
ok? Do not hurt us Mr. Optima..
Please? »CL8:However, the demo does feature
some more recent code reuse, from
Optima's own, earlier productions, and
it is not the first time either, he
especially likes reusing a particular
tunnel time and time again, heh. »CL1:Apart
from that, the demo has a nice length,
is pretty varied, features very good
music and pleasing gfx, and is
structured in the usual Optima way,
effect on effect, though better
designed than his TP winner. Overall..
Absolutely a good demo, and although
we were not in complete agreement
here, I think this would have been our
winner, had only we voted.
»CL7:On a sidenote, Optima naturally had no
qualms about vote faking, but he was
so downcast by having to compete
against TBL, that he did not work
himself too hard, I only saw him
'convincing' 2-3 PC people that "I
will vote for your stuff, »CL1:if you vote
for mine", he likely thought the
matter decided in advance, vote fake
or no vote fake, hehe.
On yet another sidenote, it is quite
funny seeing how many people
approached us and told us that "we
will vote for your stuff, because we
do not care about the Amiga
productions, if you will vote for our
PC stuff, which you do not care about.
Deal?".. Hehe, had long discussions
with many people about the morality of
this, but of course I think this is
utterly lame. So, I only PROMISED I
would vote on the PC lamer stuff, but
when I saw they had voted for us, I
only pretended to record their
irrelevant productions on my
votesheet.. Hah! That will teach those
fakers...
»CL0: GBG by TBL/UpRough
»CL8:Yes, and here we have the winner. The
opinions we hold about TBL are varied,
if not heated, but I will try to sum
up our overall impressions, as well as
some more direct remarks.»CL1: So, this is
a 'design' demo, if there ever was
one, there are no standard effects
designed to be eyecatching, »CL7:and the
effects they have, are quite
primitive, and quite slow too,
thinking of how simple they are.»CL1:
Actually, we thought that the effects
would have no trouble running on A500,
and if that is the case, it is not as
bad as we make it out to be, heh. The
opinions on the music is diverse.. One
thinks the music good and well
fitting, one thinks it so-so, good in
the start, not so good later, and the
last reviewer thinks the music is
simply boring (what? You want names on
those opinions? Hah, as if we dare..).
Uhh, looking at our notes, »CL6:I can see
that one thinks the demo is nicely
designed, reminded him a bit about
smokebomb, »CL1:and it has a wonderful end
as well as very fitting music. There
is however, this 'tough guy'
mentality and design in the demo, and
we are all of a like mind, when we
think that this is simply too
'wannabe' to really catch on. The
style is alternative however, and
worth a look. »CL8:Lastly, let us have some
comments from our anonymous reviewers:
'too wannabe, bad framerate, design
demo, but not as consistent as e.g.»CL1:
Ephidrena's, toilet colours'. And:
'Fakes madly, the cool design that
seems to say "I wish I was a badass
motherfucker, and not a small
antisocial nerd"'. Hehe, I like this
comment! Ehr, truth be told, it is
also an ok demo though, and different
enough to be remembered a bit for that
fact alone.
And that is it! There was a nice A500
demo by Spaceballs too, but we forgot
to review that, and it was the only
entry in the A500 wildcompo too, so..
Let us just say it deserved to win,
hehe.
»PIC:3.iff»