Amiga Plus 2004 #2

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Wrap

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»PIC:barclip2.ilbm» »CL9: The Underrated Groups »PIC:barclip2.ilbm» »CL4: By Zerox/Gods »CL7:INTRODUCTION »CL1:As I always try to write some articles concerning the parties, productions, persons and groups, this issue of the EuroChart can't be any exception. But during the last years I've nearly written about every single group left in this scene of ours. So this time I've decided to mention five groups which you don't read much about anywhere. It's time to write about some rather underrated groups; some who are very active and release a lot, and some who release productions more seldomly but always deliver quality. This time you'll get some more information concerning low-profile groups such as Apathy, Contraz, Creative Minds, Kangoroo and Nature. »CL9:THE GROUPS »CL8:APATHY: »CL7:THE FIRST YEARS »CL1:This is a norwegian based group that got founded at the end of 1994/beginning of 1995, but it wasn't offically founded before early 1995 I guess. »CL0:It didn't take very long before this group started to throw out various productions, from intros and demos, to musicdisks and packs. So far the flow of productions hasn't stopped. »CL7:THE HIGHLIGHTS »CL1:Even though not many of all the Apathy productions released are famous, I'm sure quite many people have heard about productions such as Feedback, Dreams, Implant and Digital Chips. As you know, most of these productions were musicpacks. »CL0:If I'm not very much mistaken, from the start in 1996, there have been released 7 issues of Feedback, 26 issues of Dreams, 2 or 3 issues of Implant (the code was later improved and released as the mag Retro by Instinct), but now I guess there won't be more issues of these packs out. »CL1:Digital Chips however, is still very much alive, and the last issue so far is number 31 released in July 2002. Issue 31 got improved code and therefore this musicpack also included a good magpart. Digital Chips was originally released by Eltech/Massive, but turned into an Apathy production around 1997 (from issue 21). »CL0:Other more famous Apathy productions got to be the Aha intro that got released at the Mekka-Symposium 2000 and did very well, and managed to come second in the intro compo at the Gathering party in 2001 with the Aha-remix intro. »CL7:100 % ACTIVE »CL1:When looking at my harddisk I've found lots of Apathy productions, and some of you have probably heard about productions such as Wormhole, Klimat, SBS, Bøfftro, Very Best Demo, XXXVideo, 4K Is Too Much, Assfart, Astrosyn 4k, Attention, Doddle, Hiusten, Jointro, Just4Fun, Nothing, Pretty Fly, Punisher Advertro, Rebel, Silvahball, Stop Bombing, The Byout, Vote Now and others. »CL0:Even though some of these productions aren't exactly great, it's amazing how many productions Apathy have managed to release during these years. I would say that quite many of the Apathy productions reveal great humour. »CL7:THIS YEAR »CL1:In 2003 Apathy released an 64k intro in coop with Up Rough at the Kindergarden party. The intro was called Hakon and came second in the compo. »CL7:THE FUTURE »CL1:It's hard to predict the future of this crew, but the organizer and coder Strife is quite busy nowadays programming at his work. But I'm certain more issues of Digital Chips will be out neverthwless, as the musician Maze is still the most active chip-musician around. So far he has composed more than 500 chip-mods. Before we know it, another Apathy productions will be out. »CL0:Even though Apathy is a big group with around 20 members, they've managed to stay together through good organizing and amazingly 12 Apathy members managed to vote in the last issue of EuroChart. »CL1:I guess the most famous members of this group are Strife, Maze, Accede, Chriz and Leia. »CL0:As a curiousity I can mention that Accede is working on a game called Civtarion, but under another label. »CL8:CONTRAZ: »CL1:Contraz or Contras as the group was called in the beginning, is a result of two groups joining forces back in the beginning of the 90s. Those groups were Black Spiders and No Shit Software (later Computer Arts), but they never managed to make anything good as both groups were lacking enough talented members. When joining forces, they got what they both lacked. And many of the members in the start, are actually still members, like; Dran (before Mr.Mouse), Drifter (Synchronizer), Enex, Pinocchio (Maniac) and Zelow (Aztech). But some are not, like Arator and Wolzoc. The new group was first named Anathema (do not confuse it with the English Anathema). Since there was another group with the same name, they decided to rename to Damage Incorporated. But there was also a group called Damage. After a while the name Contras or Contraz appeared, and some new members like Skjeggspir, Brekke and Whisper joined. In the beginning all releases were done in AMOS, but now some of the new coders also did some asm-coding. And so it all began... »CL7:THE FIRST ATTENTION »CL1:The Gathering 1995 was the first time I ever noticed Contraz, and probably also the same time when most other norwegian sceners saw their productions. Contraz came up with quite much, a 64k intro, a 4k intro, and contributions to the 4-channel, picture and animation-competitions. The 4k intro was quite special as it had music, something which wasn't usual back then. Infact, 4k intros weren't usual either. One contribution was coded in amos, and one in assembler I think. »CL0:In 1995 Contraz also got a PC-section with the group called Mercurite. Some members left, and new ones joined, like Phlaton, Micro and Nirvana. At the Hell-party in Oslo/Norway Contraz released a 64k-intro called Forces From Hell. At the Kindergarden party they released their first demo coded in asm. It was called Legs. »CL7:THE VICTORY »CL1:The year after, at The Gathering 1996, Contraz released a PC-demo called Green Cake Going Insane. At the same party they also released an Amiga demo named Mystiq, and it actually came 4th in the competition. Contraz won the wildcompo with the anim Aircombat. »CL0:At the Kindergarden party Contraz met a new member & coder called Niteraver. He released a fast demo called Buying Time, but under the label of Crap 'Ohoy. Anyway, Contraz also released a demo called Domination done by Skjeggspir, Brekke, Zelow and Enex (code), the music was done by Drifter and gfx by Mr. Figaro, Nirvana and Dran. For the first time, Contraz managed to win a real amiga demo-competition! And as a bonus, the coder Chauple joined them as a doublemember. »CL7:THE FALL? »CL1:After the Kindergarden party Contraz went silent, until The Gathering 1997 where they released the demo Plong. It didn't get a very good ranking at all, and some members got very disappointed and demotivated. It took them about a half year before another demo project was planned. They worked on a demo with the name Sands Of Time for The Gathering 1998, but they failed and the project got cancelled afterwards. Previously a coder named Accede had joined from Donut Fetish, and surprisinly he managed to come up with a 64k-intro named A Very Long Precalc, and it came 5th in the competition. »CL0:After the Gathering party more and more Contraz members were becoming demotivated. But at the Kindergarden party 1998 Skjeggspir came up with a demo more or less on his own, with the help of external graphicians. It was called Retrospectacular, and won! »CL1:This could have given a boost to many members, but that didn't really happen even though Dran made an attempt to make an intro for the Gathering 1999 but failed due to various reasons. Contraz became very silent. »CL7:ONE MAN GANG »CL1:Dran didn't give up on his project, and at the Mekka Symposium 2000 he released the intro called Radianze. Even though the intro got some very nice design and more, it got a very bad ranking in the competition. Dran also made an intro called WWWebster which competed in the demo-competition at The Gathering at the same time, and it got ranked third. »CL0:At the Assembly party Contraz competed in the oldskool democompo with a demo called TimeTunnel. It came 6 out of 12, and was again done by Dran. »CL1:Late in 2000, Contraz arranged another Kindergarden party and Dran made the invitation intro for that also. »CL0:Now it was more or less apparent that Contraz had been reduced to one very active coder, and it was Dran. It seemed like all the other coders in Contraz had become inactive. »CL1:In 2001 Contraz released another production, it was yet another intro done by Dran and named 1 Week. It got released at the Mekka-Symposium party where it got an extremely bad ranking to be such a cool intro. It has a very nice design and idea, in addition to several cool effects. »CL0:Another Kindergarden party was held late that year also, and again Dran made the invitationintro for it. This time also a java-version was made. It was looking exactly the same as the Amiga-version, but also Enex helped coding this one. »CL1:In 2002 Contraz released the demo Snop at the Gathering party, and it came second in the competition. It was quite a good demo. »CL7:THIS YEAR »CL1:So far this year Contraz has released another flash intro to promote their Kindergarden party which was held in late February. They also released a wild demo called Penh King at this party, and it won. »CL0:At the Gathering 2003 party Dran and Contraz released the demo Micromonster in the combined Amiga/PC compo. It only got ranked as nr. 14 despite of good effects and good design. »PIC:z6» »CL7:THE FUTURE »CL1:Lately some rumours are indicating that certain old Contraz members will become more active again and make another comeback, like the coder Skjeggspir for instance. »CL0:Contraz will as always arrange the Kindergarden party, and the Kindergarden 2004 called KGb will be held in September. »CL8:CREATIVE MINDS: »CL7:THE BEGINNING »CL1:This is a very small group with members only from Germany. Unlike many other scene groups, Creative Minds aren't very active at all. However, when they first release something, we know it's quality. »CL0:The group got founded back in 1999, so it's a rather new scene group. And after my information, there are only 3 members; Spirit (coder), iNFiNiTY (3d-modeller) and tentacle (musician & designer). Even though it's a rather new group, the members have been sceners far longer. »CL7:THE PRODUCTIONS »CL1:Quite many sceners got surprised when the first Creative Minds production got released at the Mekka & Symposium party 2000. It was a demo called First Awakening, and it came third in the competition. »CL0:The year after, Creative Minds came up with another demo at the Mekka & Symposium party. It was called Velocity and came six in a rather hard competition. »CL1:The last demo from Creative Minds so far, was released at the Mekka & Symposium party 2002. It's called Demoskope and is really great. »CL0:Even though Creative Minds are making PPC-demos, I would say they make demos which also attract old sceners. Especially their latest demo offers a nice variety. It get most watchers into a good atmosphere. »CL7:FUTURE »CL1:We haven't seen any demos from Creative Minds in 2003. I did see representatives from the group at the Breakpoint party this eastern, but according to rumours the group was working on a demo there which didn't get finished in time. »CL0:As all the members of Creative Minds are working as software developers, I guess they're all quite busy. Nevertheless, I wouldn't be very surprised if the group releases another great demo at the Breakpoint party next eastern. »CL1:Until then I guess it will be very silent from these sceners as the group is having quite a low profile. »CL8:KANGOROO: »CL7:THE FIRST YEARS »CL1:Kangoroo is something so rare as a Hungarian group. The crew got founded in the summer of 1997, but the members had already been working together in their previous group Impulse from 1995. Impulse by the way, released two great demos back in 1996; Storm and Muscles. Muscles is still one of my all-time favourite demos. »CL7:THE PRODUCTIONS »CL1:The first production under the Kangoroo label was released in 1998, it was the invitation intro for Amiganica Hungarica'98. »CL0:The year after the group managed to release a 64k-intro named B.us at the Assembly'99 party, and it came 5th in the competition. The same year Kangoroo also released the 64k-intro United, which came 1st at the Antiq party. This was also the last release of the fantastic coder EFT so far, perhaps the last production ever from him? »CL1:In the year 2000 some more talented members joined Kangoroo, and the first result of this was Flow. This PPC 64k-intro got released at the Fuckya 2000 party and won. »CL0:The year after the 64k-intro Late Night Trip got released, and it managed to get the third place in the combined compo at the Euskal party. »CL1:The last production so far from Kangoroo, is the 64k-intro Back To Planet Earth which got ranked third at the Mekka & Symposium party 2002. »CL7:THE FUTURE »CL1:This year we haven't seen any productions from Kangoroo, but we definately hope this talented gang will strike back again. Even though the new members have done the latest productions, we always hope that EFT will manage sometime to finish his long-awaited demo also. This group is certainly underrated, just like Impulse was in the past. »CL8:NATURE »CL7:THE BEGINNING »CL1:Nature is a Swedish group that is known to release a good intro now and then. »CL0:I'm not sure when this group got founded, but probably around mid' 90s or so. It's also hard to say how many productions this group has released, as Nature themselves only mention the better productions. So far I've never seen any of their 4k-intros mentioned anywhere, even though they've released some 4k-intros at least the latest years, like at the Mekka & Symposium and TRSAC. »CL7:THE PRODUCTIONS »CL1:Nature has released some programs in the past, like FlowerAssign back in 1997. They also released a slideshow with The Party pictures back in 1998. »CL0:Not many people are aware of this or could mention any demo from Nature, but the group has actually released quite many demos during their existence. The first demo was probably Eccentric Bass, followed by Standard Raise and Standard Raise 2, until Wannabe got released at the Icing party in 1997. »CL1:The year after their Kicker demo got released, and the same did the demos Goya released at the LCP party and Automatic released at the Remedy party. Automatic is quite ok. Nature didn't release a demo again until 2001. Then they released the oldskool demo Dentisty at the Underscore party. Even though some of the demos could be described as ok, just the same as their 4k-intros and other releases, Nature are much better in creating normal intros. »CL0:Did I say Nature are better doing intros? Well, Nature are making great intros! The first intro from Nature got released at the Mekka & Symposium party 1999, it's called Grid and won! The year after Grid 2 got released at the Party 2000, and it also won the intro competition. Really cool. The intro Zeon released at the Mekka & Symposium party 2001 is really good, but it "only" got ranked second. The last production from Nature so far, is the intro One, which won the Underscore party this year. It got to be one of the very best intros released in 2003. »CL7:THE FUTURE »CL1:The latest years Nature have become a bit more inactive, but still they're able to come up with stunning intros. We're all hoping they'll come up with some more productions soon. Rumours are at least indicating that Nature will release a 4k intro at the Breakpoint party next year. »CL9:CONCLUSION »CL1:Now I've just mentioned 5 groups that we don't hear much about. There's not much more to tell about either the active forces of Apathy nor Contraz, or the underrated groups Creative Minds, Kangoroo and Nature. But we do hope to see many more productions from these low-profiled crews in the future.