»CL6:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- »CL0: TRSAC 2001 Production Review »CL6:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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»