Domination 05 Demo Reviews

Latest revision as of 23:15, 17 July 2008

• Legal Reviews *

This time a selection of demos, previews and a music collection get a review in the Domination. Some great demos have been released lately, such as the 'Extremes' by Byterapers and the two sided 'Love' by Agony Designs.

In this issue however, we will review;

• Best of Arne II by Alpha Flight.
• Spik I Foten 3 by Booze Design.
• It's Coming by Crest. (Preview)

Great to see the return of some of the older demo groups such as Crest, Light, Panoramic Designs etc... Let's delve into these productions and give our honest opinion on them...

Best of Arne II by Alpha Flight.

A sequel of tunes by the main composer of AFL, Arne. In this collection there are 25 tunes and a bonus quadro tune on a separate loadable file.

Upon loading the intro, you are confronted with a zooming grey square, which fills the whole screen. After this the screen goes black and a star field begins to illuminate the background. Then the main menu appears. Using the arrow keys up and down you can choose to go to the actual music collection, to the bonus track and lastly the note of credits on the demo. Firstly going to the note of credit, it looks like this;

Code by Xenox/Alpha Flight. Char by Calypso/Amnesia/Alpha Flight. Graphics by RRR/Oxyron. Packing system by The Ignorance/Alpha Flight. Music by Arne/Alpha Flight.

Choosing the bonus track is somewhat different, a black & white background with the quadro tune playing. It all feels and sounds nice. No wonder it’s the bonus track. Getting finally to the full music collection.

Firstly appearing on the bottom is a nice 16 colour logo by RRR/Oxyron; 'Best of Arne II'. The menu on the left has the music table which can be controlled from up & down, choosing one with the fire button, IRQ loads it into play. On the right side of the screen is the actual playing time status for the music and also the raster timing in low and maximum gauge. On the top is some flashing 1x1 font text giving the credits for the collection.

On the very top over the collection menu layout is some graphics similar to the Domination arrows below. Each << >> gives a fast forward, forward one song, a pause and stop, all done in nice button type graphics by RRR/Oxyron.

The tunes themselves are of mixed variety, certainly a large percentage would be happy-style catchy tunes and of course classics that were used in the 'Relax' magazine. Certainly a nice collection, which supports a well coded nice compact and fast outfit. Arne himself is certainly an underrated musician who deserves higher for is music in game crack intros, magazines and music collections. 84/100.

It's Coming by Crest.

This is really only a preview release for their forth coming demo "Meet Crest" which is a display of scanned real photos of the Crest gang.

With this preview, upon loading we are presented with the usual well styled music by Xayne of Crest and some comical visuals by Crossbow of Crest, former number one coder. There is several comic strip styled pictures in black and white that follow telling a funny story leading up to the 'Meet Crest' logo and some comical characters. After this the first music changes to a new tune which gives a detailed information screen presenting the team behind the new demo and the member status of Crest.

Quite a nice and enjoying little one file demo, which shows a different side to Crest in the way of their earlier releases. 82/100.

Incidentally Crest will also be releasing a music collection soon containing the latest from the brilliant Xayne/Crest.

Spik I Foten 3 by Booze Design.

Having thought this group was dead after main members HCL joined Censor and graphician Vodka joined Fairlight. This demonstration proved it's really something released just for fun, but still has some nice programming. Each part is styled in the traditional press space design. Being a multi part two sided demo containing a separate 16 parts.

Part 1 - Starts with a picture of a man which is moving up and down moving to some music by The Syndrom. The picture of the man speaks also whilst text is displayed on the middle right of the screen. Small Spik I Foten three coloured logo on the bottom left with the 3 a moving piece, bouncing into the main logo. Next part.

Part 2 - Some text appears on the screen in a 1x1 font. Which is soon followed by two more 1x3 scrollers underneath... On the top screen is a nice 16 colour Spik I Foten logo. Very old styled. Part 3 - Begins with two 1x1 FLD scroll text, which FLD's vertically across the majority of the screen. Also covering with every upper movement the background plasma.

Part 4 - Appears in a simple logo with a average hollow square below. Rasterbars move through this up the screen.

Part 5 - This is simple techno part which contains a pulsing colourful background screen with different 2x2 characters appearing on the screen to the music.

Part 6 - Dot patterns that evolve into different shapes and colours. No other effects here. Part 7 - A big scroller displaying some normal funny text from the drunken coders. Above this is some stretched rasterbars.

Part 8 - Next comes some interlacing spheres, which bounce into each other. A small 1x1 scroller glides rapidly across the screen.

Part 9 - Very short part containing only a full screen plasma, which changes to different patterns.

Part 10 - Picture of "FLE II" in 16 colours with a Swedish flag to the right of the logo plus a 1x1 scroller underneath.

Part 11 - The screen flashes with yellow shapes such as a large foot (!) to a techno beat.

Part 12 - On the top of the screen in a nice three colour logo by HCL. Below this is three 1x2 scrollers that contain each their own texts. To the beat the scrollers enlargen and shrink.

Part 13 - Very small part with a 'Fiat' logo with a DYCP scroller in 1x1 font. Very short again.

Part 14 - A huge flashing blind which has text moves vertically revealing under a half screen plasma. Which moves over the screen displaying many flashing colour patterns.

Part 15 - Two 1x3 font scrollers with a huge array of flashing colour circles and triangles that pulse to the beat of the music.

Part 16 - Some vertical raster bars take up the upper portion of the screen. Below runs a 5x5 scroller, after this some text appears and a digi begins.

This demo looks like and older released ware from the late 1980's, with some nice parts coded by HCL. But as it looks like a fun release we can't judge it too seriously. Some of it looks quite ugly, unstyled and rushed, but the majority is of an older styled demo that gives a refreshing atmosphere in this world of trackmos. 51/100.

This is all in the legal section this time, hopefully next issue will be out after some major party to catch up on a flood of new demo releases.

Until next time.

Jazzcat!