Domination 02 ch16 Reviews

Review Section

Things are being prepared, some big parties are coming up and among these will be The Tribute party held in Sweden with this a lot of releases are planned so looks like us poor magazine editors are going to be typing like wild!

Let's begin...

Splash #14 by Accuracy. size: 600 blks

After an extreme delay the members of Accuracy are back and with them comes a new edition of their popular mag, Splash. Firstly let's take a look at the intro. Some nice music begins with some text fading on which partially explains the absence of the mag. After some nice effects a Splash logo appears and then the credits of the intro which look like this: Graphics: French Flair/ACY, Exclusive Music: PRI/Oxyron/TIA, Binary calculations: Digahole/ACY. Pressing space gets you out of this nice little intro and takes you to the magazine. The first thing you notice in the main outfit is the nice graphics of a statue and horizon. On top of the horizon the chapter names appear in an upscrolling chapter menu. Apart from a nice Splash logo above all this, some nice effects have been used with the water below, in which fish can be seen jumping in and out. When finally selecting a chapter the text IRQ loads to one of the three tunes, which can be selected by pressing the Commodore key. The text appears on the screen and the same Splash logo remains over what seems to be a "rolled-script" in which the text is seen. The text itself may be read vertically, in two different speeds. All in all a nice outfit and easy to control.

Credits:
Coding: Kadem and Dragon Jager
Artwork: Kadem
Splash logo: Death
Exclusive tune: Brian/Graffity/TIA
Other music: The Syndrom and SMC

There are 21 chapters to choose from, which have a nice range of interesting text edited by Mr. Brain/ACY. Among the usual chapters such as addies, news and charts. Accuracy have done some original stuff with the scene puzzle, which is a small inbuilt game based on the scene past and present. Also a BBS commercial with lo-res gfx which is quite a nice touch.

Overall: a good mag which will improve with more often release rate. Some of the English isn't too good, but with Mr. Brain's first go at editing with the departure of former editor, Falcon, he preforms a nice job. Let's hope it continues: 72/100

Lunacy 6 by Antic size: 400 blks

Sub-titles as "Lunacy 6: The Lost Sequel" because of its completion after Lunacy 7 this is the first trackmo styled demo from Antic Productions. To begin with two eyes appear, they then look left and right and then some words appear weirdly giving some credits of the three Antic members behind the production, Depeh, Creeper and Zyron. The text eventually fades out and some music by Zyron begins the production. After further text a ray-traced object appears. This object moves inwards allowing more room for further raytracing animations. In the meanwhile a Lunacy 6 logo is falling from top to bottom of the screen. After a while the ray-traced object disappears and a white cube is left remaining. After a brief time the cube turns into a pic by Creeper. The next part then tracks into memory. This contains a rotating twister which calculates 1008 real-time pictures in 7 colours. The first calculation is one of a face which changes and animates before being destroyed from the middle by a hurricane type object. Next comes some more pics from Creeper, which look quite nice, this moves swiftly into a "shadow-vector" part, the routine itself is quite fast. Another piccy by Creeper appears, when this fades off one of the eyes is left remaining. This moves into the lower middle of the screen, where credits are given. eventually the eye can be seen to contain 32 lines, which transform into numerous different objects. This new C64 routine is called "shadow morphing", in which superb animation is possible. The last part appears which consists of a hi-res picture in the background screen with 3-dimensional Antic logos and a upscroller.

Credits:
Code headaches: Depeh/Antic
Graphics: Creeper/Antic
Sound: Zyron/Antic

Overall: a very original smaller demo, which contains a few new routines and some nice work. Certainly one for the collection and another victory for the cool people in Antic. 81/100

No Limit/Chromance size: 664 blks

This full price game wasn't well spread but is still found my modem and I gave it a test drive. This car racing game was released by 576 KByte and is of average quality. Upon entering the game you can choose between different drivers and vehicles and view the fastest lap times. The cars you can choose are: 959 Porsche, Lotus SE, Ruf Twin Turbo and a Eslan GTI. I tend to drive the Ruf Twin Turbo. After choosing your car and drive (with face portraits shown) the main game loads. Once in the main part, the game itself reminds you of Hot Rod 1 and 2, but the in game graphics are of below average quality and sometimes confuse the player of the track. There are three other racers to compete against and a course which involves some quite rough territory to drive over, consisting of water, mud, obstacles and of course the other contestants' obstructiveness.

Overall: the game is a little too high on the difficulty level for a beginning player and the graphics colour-schemes make it difficult to sometimes determine the track from the off-road graphics. Still something to play and its good to see not another German puzzle game, it receives average: 51/100

"Palace-great kondom cover" by Electric/Extend

This is another classic from the master paper artist Electric/Extend. As most have seen from his past covers, Tommmi shows great detail and exactness to make the picture stand out. On the front side it features a large Palace logo. Above the logo you can observe a condom that flies through the picture. Beneath the logo a long haired tough guy looks at you with hatred.

On the back-side, the same character as on the front appears in full-size. He wears a black coat and a stick. And is still staring with his menacing view. Overall: the cover isn't as complicated as some of Electric's other covers but its design and original idea rank it high. A must to have: 89/100

If you wish your own group product to be reviewed, send it in with a note and it will be examined.

Regards,

Jazzcat/Legend.