Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-10-14 | 38KB | 43 lines
MPARTICLE
~fg>fg>
>fg>~g?
P`P @
& Hello readers and welcome to a&rather new and hopefully interesting&column in which I will be talking&about just about anything that&interests me, and with a bit of luck,
you to.& But before I start, all remarks&about this column be it good or bad&should be sent in to CyberCraft for&inclusion in the Letters column. Don't&be afraid to speak your mind as we are&all individuals you know, and we&shouldn't be discouraged by other's thoughts.& Now I would like to talk about a&subject that has had me thinking over&the last few days... and this being&the demos of '89 compared to the demos&of later years. When I look back at&the Demos of '89 which I like to refer&to as the "Golden Years" of the demo&scene, and the Demos of modern days, I&get the strange feeling that we have&taken a step back not forward. (Gasp I&hear you say.) The years of '89 were&great years indeed, the demo scene had&found a new lease of life, the sort of&energy that I thought couldn't be
stopped.& Unfortunately I think that I was&wrong. What made the demos of this&year so great? Well... Maybe it was&because they were very experimental&and so being created a great feel, one&effort of this time was the Mahoney&and Kaktus Music Disk 2. This disk&provided many (44 in fact!!) off beat&tunes that still to this day are&highly original. Effects on the coding&side ran from weird overlapping&effects to a childish cartoon of a&runaway towtruck, with many witty and&colourful scrolls thrown in for good
measure.& On to the 9/9/89 in Venlo, where&RedSector Inc's great R.S.I Megademo&first sees the light of day. This in&my mind is the greatest Demo EVER released.& Because from the mechanical drawl&of the opening, to the ending credits&this Demo never fails to inspire. With&tracks from Romeo Knight, which ranges&from excellent to excellent&throughout. The many great demos&including the original "circle twist",&(the father of a million demos!) and&with a hardened tough feel throughout
this Demo is great, a classic.& So is it the music that makes the&Demo? Scoopex's Metal Hangover shows&this with the track "Madness took me".&A great piece of composing by Uncle&Tom, this reflects the ideas behind&the Demo in a fine style, by using&strange "warbled" effects with&electronic sounding beeps etc... that
we all know.& I also know that a great soundtrack&brings a Demo from bad to good and&from good to excellent. Magazine disks
[3mR.S.I Megademo A must for all demo freaks!
[23m&like Zine, Sledgehammer, Raw etc...&all use this and sometimes providing&more than one track, after all&everyone is different, but it does&puzzle me somewhat why Megademos don't&do this as well, I can't remember a&Megademo that gives you a choice at&all. Perhaps stubborn thinking by the
[3mNice graphics.....
Designers?& And what about the Demos of recent&years... Well in the last few years&the amount of Demos being released has&really increased tenfold which is&making it more and more difficult to&make a Demo really stand out above the&crowd. Demos like Phenomena's Enigma,&Anarchy's 3D Demo 2, Kefren's Guardian&Dragon, have all been released in the&last 3 years, But I wonder how many of&the above will survive the test of&time? Well in my personal opinion I&think that only Phenomena's Enigma&will last. It's about the only one&that I keep interested in. I don't&really know why, it just does. Weird.&Enigma is very polished in terms of&presentation, which is credit to the
designers, good work fellas!& Design as well as music seems to be&another thing that makes or breaks a&Demo. Speaking of great execution&another Phenomena production excel's&at this, Joyride a nice piece of work&indeed including some very nice demo&parts tied in with the usual text-&screens. Don't groan because these are¬ of the usual "painful" type and&are not that bad to read at all.&Although these last two productions&that I have talked about may be of a&high quality, I don't think that they&are of a "classic" type, but are of a&more modern type. Maybe all of these&demos are a sort of fashion statement&of sorts, like a reflection of time,&in that era. This seems a possible&thought and would explain a lot of
things... or does it?& Other interesting works of recent&days is Spaceballs' amazing "State of&the Art" demo. In case you haven't&seen it, it runs just like a music&video, with rapidly moving screens and&music to match. Maybe this is a new&style of Demo. The effects are little&short of amazing, but it does however&have limited appeal, maybe not to you,
but to me.& I know that I had to mention this&sometime, so here goes... Crionics and&Silents great Hardwired. What can I&say, great in every aspect, with a&great intro thrown in for no extra%cost. Awesome sound, a total package.& 1993 I think has been a better year&for demo's than the last two, with at&last original ideas that have been&combined with mostly good design,&which makes of course for interesting
viewing...& A nice demo entitled "242" by&Virtual Dreams/Fairlight is a good&example of this year's work, following&on from Spaceballs' "State of the art"&style. All in all it's a rather nice"
[3mSomething Different...
[23m&piece, maybe a little repetitive at
times, But still very nice.& So have demos improved over the&years? Well in terms of graphics and&coding they have, although there have¬ been all that many experimental&things tried which is a bit of a&shame. Could this be because the&humble A500 is getting closer to its&seeming endless boundaries? To be&honest with you, I don't think so. I&always believe that things are never&perfect and can always be improved if&enough time and thought is put into&it. Which reminds me of a quote that&Salvador Dali (my favourite artist!)&once said. It went something like&this. "Do not be afraid of perfection&because it can hardly ever be
achieved".& Well that's about all I have to say&for this issue of Amy PD and Shareware&Review. I hope that this brief view of&how the demo scene was and how it is&today has been of some interest to you&and I look forward to reading your
comments in the letters column.
Splatman, signing off.
----& Those wishing to contact Splatman&direct can do so by writing to&Splatman, c/o CyberCraft, at the usual
(.txt)