Skyhigh 14 ch18 MAD Reviews

               mad reviews







this chapter was supposed to be in a
previous issue, but it never arrived in
time so i decided to bring it now!

                                biz kid

----------------------------------------

            - the reviews -


welcome to this months reviews, and also
to a new reviewer... MAD/PADUA.

you will notice in the reviews that no
marks are given for code, gfx, music or
the demo itself. all you will get is my
humble opinion, make your own mind up
when you view the stuff yourselves...

now on with the reviews...


i'll start with COMALIGHT 12/OXYRON.
before any of you start crying about an
oxyron review in an oxyron mag... get a
life! i wrote this review for UPDATE,
before i had even started writing for
SKYHIGH. besides, i'm not an oxyron
member, so why should you care???

the coder(s):      TTS
                   AXIS
                   GRAHAM

the artist(s):     BIZ KID
                   RRR
                   ASMODIS

the composer(s):   P.R.I.

the format of the demo is a one-sided
trackmo (text screen loader).

oxyron demos are (in)famous for their
innovative routines, that many sceners
thought impossible on a 1mhz breadcase.
comalight 12 is certainly no exception!
some of the technical delights in this
production are: realtime mandelbrot,
which is wrapped around a sphere (blocky
but colourful and fast!), realtime
rotating zoomer (a zooming, flexing,
twisting colour extravaganza!), realtime
gourand shaded vector cube (slow, but it
can be done!), side (and top) border
zoomscroller, realtime texture mapping
(a real 3-d maze) and a spaceballs
inspired dancer (160 animations- which
are rotated, outlined and inversed!)

there are plenty more little effects
which really give the whole demo a very
proffesional look.

about the code: well, all i can say is
that it is sickeningly good... oxyron
show they have no idea what the word
'limitation' means (a dictionary is in
the post guys...). i'm glad to see
GRAHAM taking a more active role also,
this guy deserves to join tts and axis
in the coder charts! oxyron show great
capabilities in both timing-code and
maths-code.

about the graphics: biz kid shows he has
alot of artistic talent (both on and off
the c64- check out his funky diskcover!)
rrr also should not be forgotten (except
the dice piccy...) the best examples of
the graphics are logos.

about the music: p.r.i. provides a good
soundtrack, with varied styles (funky
to classical!).

about the design: oxyron have really
improved their demo styling over the
past year, and CL12 is simply dripping
with design. everything fades in and out
(in some really nice ways), the effects
and gfx are displayed in unusual ways.

the bad points: apart from the ORIGINAL
title, not much at all! if anything is
at fault, it is the slight blockiness of
some of the routines (although they are
still remarkable to look at!) i guess it
was either blockiness or a smaller (and
less impressive) routine. oxyron made
the right choice. read my (mad's) other
chapter for more discussion on this...

overall: quite simply a remarkable demo.
easily the best i've seen this year so
far. it is a shame that oxyron didn't
release it at a party, it would have won
for sure.
no doubt we can expect COMALIGHT 13 at
the x-mas party! roll on december...



next up, from the assembly party,
ATTACK OF STUBIDOS 3/BEYOND FORCE.

the coder(s):      GREMLIN

due to sufficient lack of credits, i
won't mention artists or composers. all
the graphics and musics have been used
before (i think...).

this four part demo uses a standard load
with no special effects...

effects featured in this demo:
+full screen, one colour plasma (smooth,
but an old idea).
+zooming, rotating skyscrapers (nice)
+sirpinski triangles (very cool part!
(and very cleverly done!) features
single, double, hidden-side pyramidal
and removed-side bi-pyramidal shapes.)
+vector part (with the usual 3 colour
polygons, transforming glenz (nice!) and
stencil-sided polyhedrons...

about the coding: gremlin easily shows
his quality as a coder. his routines are
smooth and fast, and he deserves chart
status!

about the graphics: nice selection, pity
they arn't new.

about the musics: ditto...

about the design: very average... no
attempt has been made to fade in or out.

the bad points: i would have liked to
see new graphics and hear new musics in
this demo. i'm sure if gremlin asked
some guys for exclusive gfx or musics,
he would be swamped with them! also more
styling of his parts would be good.

overall: worthy of keeping, just for the
code.



another demo from the assembly party:
WORLD OF CODE 2/BYTERAPERS.

the coder(s):      MR.SEX

the artist(s):     MR.SEX
                   DEADBEAT/SHARKS

the music in this demo is old, so don't
expect much of a review about musics.

the demo uses the trackmo format (text
screen loader).

effects featured:

+pixel morpher
+zooming skyscrapers
+3-d rasters
+3 col picture rotater+zoomer
+full screen(in top+bottom borders)
 jelly dragonball.
+stencil vector using pictures (3 col)
+pixel sprutter
+upscroller over 'ifli' (NOT!) picture

about the code: not bad at all! not as
impressive as world of code 1, but good
anyway. the stencil vector part and
(blocky) dragonball were very good. the
stencil vector used moving pictures in
the stencil to give a cool impression of
light-sourcing!

about the graphics: quite poor really.
the end picture is okay, and the good
fonts look ported (true?). there is a
ifli pic half way through ported from
the amiga, why i don't know, because it
is so ugly and flickery! the loading
font is also really bad...

about the music: old but good tunes from
the vibrants family. the end tune is a
recent one, and they all sound good.

about the design: well, i like trackmo's
but i'd like to see something a little
more interesting than a text screen when
loading.

the bad points: most graphics, lack of
new musics.

overall: a good demo, spoiled by a few
things that could have been avoided. it
is the same problem with beyond force -
there is one great coder, with no visual
or audial backup...



as i've mentioned the assembly party,
i'll mention the graphics and music
competitions. only one from each compo
really stunned me. AMJ/TOPAZ's music was
cool, playing in twin speed. amj is a
very good composer, he deserves higher
in the music charts.
ELECTRIC/EXTEND's ifli pic just blew me
away. the colours mix so well, and the
usual flickering isn't that apparent.
this pic must be the best i've seen in
ifli format. electric/extend is one of
the finest (and active) artists that
this scene has ever known...



the last demo review for this month is
none other than CAMEL-PARK/CAMELOT!!!

the guys responsible are...

coder(s):          RAZ
                   CRUZER
                   GLASNOST

artist(s):         VIC
                   ROB


musician(s):       JEFF
                   DUCK LA ROCK
                   LAXITY/???
                   DRAX/vibrants

the demo runs in a mixture of styles,
ranging from pressing space to load the
next part(or loader), to true trackmo
style (cruzer's parts).

effects featured:

+realtime gravity calc.ed fireworks,
+colour plasma,
+bouncing balls (realtime gravity etc),
+row zooming chessboard,
+real zoomer/morpher,
+eci waterfall plotter,
+cybervector (with glenzing),
+256 radius-plotter,
+'heat fun' (see below... !),
+decaying bobs,
+
+fractal calculator,
+expanded floffys.

i saw some previews of this demo at the
party in HERNING, and i've been waiting
to review it ever since.
was i disappointed??? NO!

the styling of the demo wasn't quite as
proffesional as in TOWER POWER, C-PARK
went for the more humourous approach
(the all singing, all dancing camel
loader in raz's parts for example (with
a great monty python part!))

about the code: raz's parts come first,
(start to the waterfall part). raz's
zoomer in particular is really nice...





and so ends another chapter of SKYHIGH!
i hope this chapter is regarded by you
readers as fair. if you have any praise
or complaints, send them along to any
of the skyhigh staff, and i'll reply in
the reactions chapter...

(MAD)