home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
The CDPD Public Domain Collection for CDTV 4
/
CDPD_IV.bin
/
amfm
/
amfm7
/
text
/
project-x.txt.pp
/
project-x.txt
Wrap
Text File
|
1994-06-20
|
5KB
|
96 lines
1.Project -X-
-------------
Tis' the wacky-blockbusting-chart_topping shooty game from the boys in
Wakefield first.. Title/game over music and SFX by Allister Brimble,
end-game music by DENS Design. so for reasons of bias I'd better not
mention that in the review, although if you get there, have a good listen,
cos it's awesome :-(
The first bit of music we here is the title music (god, what a surprise?)
which starts off quietly with a repetition of a note on the high 'g'
followed by a somewhat 'housey' 'train' type of sound (well how else do you
explain it?) and the classic house-beat comes in. Altogether, it comes
over well, as a through composed house tune with all the elements required
to make a good song in the genre.
MELODY]--- 57% The reason that this has a low mark, is because house
music doesn't usually have a theme as such, more like
loud noises, and piano chords, but it's not something
you could whistle down the street.
FEELING]-- 45% Bleurgh! It's nothing to Allister's tune, it's just
that I don't personally like house music.
SAMPLES]-- 88% These are good, they are clean, crisp with no signs
of hiss.
ORIGINALITY]-- 40% Can you really get an original sounding house tune on
the amiga these days? To me, after a while, it all
starts to sound the same. Good to dance to, but not
much else.
--< OVERALL >-- 66% For a house tune, and coming from me, that's quite a
respectable mark. The reason I give it a relatively
high mark is because of what Allister has done. A
shoot-em up needs a fast paced beginning to set the
pace of the game and increase the adrenalin flow.
This tune does that well. It is a bit repetitive
after a while, but then again, what house tune isn't?
There is an old-timer music mode in the game, which is activated on the
title-screen and it's another tune, which is opposite in style to the dance
track, being more in the mould of the 'classical' amiga tune. To me, this
doesn't quite come off, and therefore does not warrant being given a full
review, since it is not 'main' music, and I would've only given it about
50%
When you start the game, you are given a little 'ditty' while each level
loads in. This is composed mainly of drums, with a little bass line
creeping in now and then. The drums are very simple (and off the SR-16 if
I'm not much mistaken) and probably written in 10 minutes. That's not to
say that they don't serve the purpose. It is my view that this is again
written to increase the pace just before the game begins to prepare the
player. It has very clear samples once again, but is a bit too cute and
dinky (especially the bass line which is doo doo, dah dah dow dow etc.
(well can you think of a better way to describe a bassline, if you do, then
please tell me!)) and not powerful enough.
Now, the sound-effects..
I can quite easily say that they are probably the most varied sound-effects
I have ever heard on an amiga game, I was well impressed with the amount of
speech, diversity of shooting effects. It had speech for almost
everything, very 'arcadey' even tho' it's a bit obvious that the samples
are not all from the same voice!! A couple of different explosion
sound-effects wouldn't have gone a miss, 'cos the one sample they have is a
bit dinky and not like the satisfying feeling you get from a POWERFUL
explosion (like say, the smart-bomb from Silkworm) but other than that, a
definite thumbs up on that front. What you also get is a low bass synth
sound in the background during the game, which changes from level to level.
In level 2 for instance, you get a whooshing wind sample. These are very
effective, especially the wind, and serve to waste another channel (!)
"GUNS!....POWER UP!....DESTROY WAVES FOR POWER UPS!....SHIELD....ON!..."
(How much memory on samples? Nuff!)
SFX ]----- 92%
The only other bit of music in the game I have heard is a little played on
the bonus level, which basically consists of a little drum beat in the
background, with a bass line. The tempo of this is fast and goes well to
enhance the feeling of speed in this part of the game. Yet another thumbs
up from me!
Whoops, silly me, I almost forgot the game-over tune. Is it worth
reviewing this tune, nah! The reason why, is because it basically is a
couple of long samples from the 1812 overture by Tchaikovsky interspersed
with a couple of 'cannon shot' samples. It works very well with the
visuals although the samples are 'quite' bad quality, obviously sampled at
around 'G-1' on the 'tracker' samplers, but that's not his fault, they
probably ran out of chip-mem.