The Link 13 Demo Review
From C64 Diskmag Wiki
DEMO REVIEW ----------- g'day, it's ALCHEMY here, reviewing two demos, RESURGENCE by THE ANCIENT TEMPLE and FLATLINE by CADGERS. the scores out of ten go as follows: CODE : the newer & better the routines the higher the score. GFX : logos, pics etc. SOUND : music & sfx and how well they fit in with the parts. APPEAL : how the total package goes together. OVERALL: a summarised score. ok? i've saved the BEST till LAST... RESURGENCE by THE ANCIENT TEMPLE -------------------------------- INTRO: the demo starts off with a pic of mickey mouse in wizard robes and a logo. these clear off,a few titles flash on and then off again and big RESURGENCE logo then sits in the middle of the screen while a top & bottom scroller (with same text) scrolls along. nothing greatly special. the way in which the logos and pics clear themselves after you hit space, make up for the seemingly repetive parts in the demo. 1: this part contains and ANCIENT logo, and a scroller, which after a while, the logo starts swinging, a T.A.T logo comes up down the bottom and two RESURGENCE logos (probably sprites) bounce in tandem. 2: another T.A.T logo which starts swinging,a VIRUS sprite which constantly scrolls from left to right, and a logo in the middle that changes to the beat, cycling through ANCIENT,TEMPLE, and RESURGENCE. INTERUDE 1: FREDDIES FOE these parts are the only parts that stand out.these were ripped from FRANTIC FREDDIE a platform game by CDS SOFTWARE and released by AUDIOGENIC. freddie runs onto the screen closely followed by a big green monster, after running for a while, the green monster's tounge shoots out and grabs freddie who gets eaten. absolutely wicked stuff. too bad the other parts aren't as good as this! 3: there's a huge gfx scroller, a T.A.T logo and scrolly starfield which has 2 VIRUS logos swinging back and forth. 4: an ANCIENT logo and a TEMPLE logo constantly overlap each other at the top of the screen, while a VIRUS logo sits at the bottom. the interesting bit about this part is the weird combine harvester blade sort of scroll, which rotates in cirles. unfortunately, after a while, the scroller screws up. INTERLUDE 2: FREDDIES REVENGE another reallt cool bit, ripped from the same game. freddie once again is running from the monster but when he runs off the screen,he returns in a tank and blows the monster off the screen.WOW 5: theres a RESURGENCE logo, a VIRUS logo and a sinewave scroller with a reflection that is out of sync (about the only the makes this demo different). END PART: this is an ok part. theres a cool THE END logo up the top which gets marred by the RESURGENCE sprites bouncing up and down over the top of it. the rest of the screen is text, giving credits and greetings. the good thing about this is it is like a noter and you can press space to turn the page, letting you read it at you own pace. ok, thats the demo. nothing new, nothing great, but it could be worse. the routines are good, the music fits in well with the parts, and there are no major faults its just that it's all been done before, lots of times before. not bad for one side. heres the score: CODE : 5 - normal routines GFX : 7 - some nice logos SOUND : 7 - nice zaks APPEAL : 7 - especially freddie OVERALL: 6 - doesn't differ from what other groups do. nothing new. FLATLINE by CADGERS ------------------- INTRO: upon typing run, the screen wipes it- self from left to right, then it swings itself off past the border, it looks really cool and you know this demo is probably going to be good from the start which it is. a scroller and a bouncy CADGERS logo welcome you to the demo. 1: a CADGERS logo bounces down the bottom of the screen while a really cool afli shadow-dycper (A 15 COLOUR SHADOW SCROLL) scrolls across the screen. also has a FLATLINE sprite logo bouncing over the bottom. this routine looks great! 2: this part starts with a stop-start scroll and an empty screen, after a few seconds, a tech tech (the things that make the logos shimmer) FLATLINE logo appears. after a little while more, the tech tech routine turns into a tech tech split routine with rasters. anyway, it looks really cool. 3: next up is some 2 colour line art.the pictures are of a lady (naked ofcourse), a really cool gargoyle, and the last pic is of two dragons and a wraith. the part has a scroller called a "eci-doublesine dxpp". well it goes from the bottom to top and follows along a sinewave path. 4: this part has a (not too crash hot) pic,logos,and a METAMORPHOSISING scroll which changes from one scroll to another which makes reading it VERY hard but the effect looks really cool. 5: the next part apparently beats the plotter record with 950 dots. it isn't to amazing to look at but i guess the beauty is in the coding. 6: this part has a lot of different side border flex scroll effects. some of the effects are borderline unreadable. the are some good effects though. the scroll is best looked at from a distance. 7: a short wait while you listen to the music, well a medium wait, ok a long ... ahh.. a FLATLINE logo comes up with a CADGERS sprite swinging over it. that must be all it does. well they call it a 16 char wide afli-tech with sprites, is that special?probably the most unamazing part of the demo, but it still looks good. 8: the last part before the end. it starts off with a CADGERS logo scrolling up,then a cool 20 sideborder bob scroll in a dxycp. nothing special? well then it changes to a 40 sideborder bob scroll in a dxycp.still nothing too special? well it then changes to an 80 sideborder bob scroll in a dxycp. GENESIS had the record with 64 bobs but it looks like not anymore. this routine is also all real time. END PART: a side border drop scroller which scrolls from the bottom up and has the credits, the utils used, etc. it is a nice end to finish the demo. this demo is the best of the two. there are some cool routines here. it really stands this demo out. great music as well. heres the score: CODE : 9 - great routines GFX : 7 - not too bad SOUND : 8 - good tunes APPEAL : 9 - lots of appeal OVERALL: 9 - a great demo well that's the two demos for this issue if your group has done a demo that you want reviewed then send it in to the editor or me. if you want any of the demos that have been reviewed by me, tsr wares, or normal swapping then send to me (addy in the addies section). until next time, catch you all later.