Falcon 030 Power 2/F030_POWER2.iso/ST_STE/MAGS/STOSBTS1.ARJ/stosbts1.msa/DATA/PMHUGEPD.DAT

Text File | 1987-04-22 | 6KB | 104 lines

The Cool Carrot's Public Domain Review.
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This is the Cool Carrot with a Giant Public Domain Review. Thanks
to Steve Delaney and Eddie Byran for supplying the demos. (By the
way, all the disk numbers are from FloppyShop ST unless otherwise
stated. Many of the demos will be carried by other libraries.)

 I'll start with some of the worse ones. The Antidisestablish-
mentarianism Demo (DEM 242.C) is by The SPL Crew, and includes a
three-picture show, and three MasterSound demos on a D/S disk,
although it will run on a half-meg of memory. As well as being
only 1-screen with a sample and scroller, like all MasterSound
demos, the music is not chosen too well. Edelweiss and the
Collosal demos aren't bad, I suppose, but Jive Bunny? If you are
COMPLETLY tasteless you might like it. I didn't. (One point:
these days you could probably produce a chart-topper with
MasterSound alone. Is this a good or bad point? Discuss....)
 One demo that was slightly better was the Red Dwarf Demo (which
I saw somewhere else so I do not know where to get it) by the
Cool Crew. It was written with Autoplay (a GFA program I used
to write my first demo) and is not bad. It has five (digitised)
pics and three samples, some of which are quite long. It does
have long loading waits, though.

 Going to a couple of REALLY digitised demos, there is a Star
Wars demo (DEM 221.C) (D/S disk; half-meg memory) available. It
has (so it says, and I believe it!) 150 digitised pics and a
fully sampled soundtrack. It runs for a minute, and despite being
in black and white with only a quarter-screen, it is dead brill!
It really looks like the movie with no really long waits and some
brill little moments. (Look at the end for a quote!) The similar
Snowman demo was only available on 1 Meg machines for a long
while but a half-meg version is now available (DEM 274.C) (D/S
disk) and is similar to Star Wars. I didn't like it as much
(partly as I'm more violent than soppy. Now, where did I put that
flamethrower?) as it is a bit jerky, as instead of 1 quarter-
screen it has 4. However, it does still have all the musical
quality.

 A couple of other demos before my big finale. A Space Ace demo
has been produced (DEM 375.C) that will, unfortunatly, only run
on a 60 Hz display. It's unfortunate as the demo is so good
everyone should see it! Some sampled sound and the wonderful
quality of graphics are tied together in a regrettably short
demo. (It seems a shame that a) the game is so expensive and b)
it appears to have no gameplay!) And secondly, an old demo but
still a goodie. The Juggling Lamps Demo (DEM 43.C) includes an ST
version of the (in)famous juggling lamps and also a Dafttop with
funny faces. Not quite "a must for everyones collection",
although it almost is.

 The finale! (Trumpets fanfare!) First the most well known demo
in the ST world: the Union demo (DEM 97.C). A superb bit of 68000
programming with rasters, no borders, 512 colours, etc, etc. It
has at least 10 subdemos, of which my favourites are the ones with
the three balls in time to the music and TNT's 3D routines with a
wonderful "holed ball". This is one demo everyone should have. It
runs on any machine, with a "more you have, more you get" system.
Seems only a little bit dated, despite being nearlt two years
old. However, it can only be copied with its built in copier on a
D/S disk.
 Secondly, a demo likely to become as famous as the Union. It's
the Lost Boys MindBomb Demo (sorry, I don't knopw its
number). Steve Delaney (he of FloppyShop fame) said of the
Lost Boys Definitive demo, "Is  this the British challenge to
the Union Demo? Perhaps not but it must rank very close." Well,
MindBomb blows Union out iof the disk drive! The best part of
MindBomb (the Red Sector 3D demo) was running on at least 4
of the stands at Atari's June show, and I suspect selling like
hot cakes. It also has a four-track sample player, with four
tunes composed by the Boys themselves (Return OF The Mutant Wafer
Biscuits, I ask you!) and two P.S.B (Pet Shop Boys: wake up,
guys!) tunes (Including the classic In The Night, theme tune to
the Clothes Show). Other good bits include the SWUS demo,
feturing a classic wait message. In fact, without two computers
(one to run the program, one to type in a review) it is
impossible to do it justice. The only way to see it all is to buy
the thing, and I strongly reccomend that! One word of warning: it
is almost impossible to copy.
 Lastly, Genesys by Aenigmatica. Released through Budgie, like
MindBomb, in April, I felt dissapointed by it. With only 6
screens it felt far too small, and none of it was stunningly
original. Even the sample player seemed boring and old-hat,
although it did have a screen to stop you getting bored while it
was loading. (I have an idea to revolutinise them, but it's a
secret. You'll know it if you see it!) Best bits were the text-
scroller with huge text (which was smoother than its competitors)
and the first screen with what looked to me like three singing
Neil Kinnocks! Whether or not this was intentional or not is a
very moot point. (Aenigmatica are, I think, Germans like TEX.
Proof: their messages aren't perfect, plus the stupid name. Well,
I think so, anyway!) If you haven't got a recent machine-code
demo you may like this, as it is very competently programmed. But
these days (as I've found out!) you need something new to break
into the ST demo market, and this doesn't supply it. For
Aenigmatica to become a real household name, they'll have to do a
bit (not much, though) better.

"Come on, Artoo. We're going," C3P0, on Star Wars (and the demo!)

 The Cool Carrot, 26/10/90.
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