Domination 07 Demo Reviews

---------------------------------------
                                 * Demo Reviews *
---------------------------------------
Welcome dear readers to another step into the legal
scene of the C64.
Here the latest demonstrations and productions are
presented and judged by the following judges..
Tao and Twoflower from Triad and Mitch and Dane
of Crest.
 
This issue we have under scrutination..
* Cucumber Juice by Hitmen
* Torture 6 by Padua
 
If you feel like your legal production should be in need
of the Domination stamp of approval, merely leave
email or feedback on any c64 boards worldwide to one
in the staff.
Enjoy..
 
 
Cucumber Juice by HITMEN.
-------------------
A review by Tao of Triad.
 
Description:
Wowsers! only old music throughout the demo, that
surely was my first reaction..
The demo starts with an OLD crack intro. This intro is
quickly replaced by a logo originally painted by
Scrap for Genesis, converted in to a Hitmen logo.

After this, a most wonderful "Cucumber Juice" logo
hits the screen, a logo made in multicolor that looks
splendid.. on top of this logo is some kind of sprite
text swinger..
This is followed by a picture made with the original
commodore chartset.. (for those who never call bbs's)
by Tyron which swings to and forth. Really a master
piece this one aswell..
 
After this a plottunnel appears with a logo below.
This time the logo is a remake off Bonzai's copy of the
old game company ELITE's logo type (JC: also seen in
Dutch Breeze by Bml)
The next part consists of a nude girl, not really the
nicest one i've see actually, but it's ok at least.
This picture is delimited by 2 rasterbars (WHOA!) and
some really funny raster effects appear now and
then on top of the picture.
On the left side of the picture is a Hitmen logo which
actually doesn't stand out that much either if you're
looking for quality graphics..
 
After you've either waited for a while or pressed
space, a logoboozer-part appears. An old concept, but
because of the fact the logo already from the start is
'tinted', it becomes very cool anyway.
This is followed by a wonderful FLI alien drawn by
Thunder.
Now, a strange one follows, a sprite-bender and a
sprite stretcher. Ok, it's really easy to do, but it sure
looks nice.
The next part contains the sisters of mercy logo
and Hitmen logo, all in sprites, which i kinda liked.
A fire routine burns behind all this, a really nice one.
 
Next, a bouncing AFLI logo by Death with a color plasma
behind.. nothing new really.
But then my favourite appears, it is a
graphic rotator/circlescroller in charmode! Powerful
(not really, but BLOODY cool!)
Finally, the end part arrives with 2 scrols; 1 upscroll
and 1 downscroll both showing the same text. But the
downscroll has a different color and swings sideways.
 
Summary:
Well the demo has it's bright moments and is worth
watching once or twice, but i don't think that i'd keep
it in my "most often watched" box..
The coding was performed by Jihad,Groepaz,Curlin,
Peacemaker and graphics by Tyron,Death,Thunder.
 
 
Torture VI by Padua
 --------------
A review by Twoflower, Dane and Micth.
 
Description:
Again the Padua crew strikes the scene with the sixth
demo in their series of Torture demos.
As usual, it's contents are of high quality you could
expect from a group like Padua, but unfortunately
they seemed to have hooked onto the ever-popular
style which Reflex have brought into the scene, a style
the reviewers wish to be a quickly passed phase in the
history of C64 demos.
But with or without Reflex style, this demo is the best
one of the Torture demos which have been released so
far by the guys in Padua.
 
I overlook the fact that the reviewers sighed when
the demo was loaded, since they were watching a
huge Reflex logo made in single colored board graphics
and the intro is well made.
When you run the demo, sprites remove the text on
the screen in a smooth way and the border fades into
a dark brown.
As a well fitting background to this, a nice tune by
JADAWIN floats out from the speakers.
Then, the still dark-blue screen transforms into
a precalculated vector object, swirling into the
center of the screen.
All of this is looking very neat and is one of the better
effects i have seen in it's general.
Suddenly, a Padua logo appears on the screen. The
logo is first looking as it is made in no more than three
colors, but after a closer look, the reviewers
realized that it contained atleast five.
Concerning the fact that the logo most probably have
been made in standard koala format, the reviewers
came to the conclusion that it could have been easily
improved by adding some more color.
 
Behind the logo, a square suddenly flickers in,
completing the logo. Not that impressive, but an
interesting idea for sure.
After this, the logo fades away, the screen turns
black and a new Torture logo suddenly fades in,
letter by letter.
The effect itself is very nicely performed by ANONYM
but the shapes of the logo seem to be straight off
converted from the Amiga, since they are very like
the ones in a commonly used charset.

A pulsating, multicolored '6' appears behind the logo,
giving it a neat look.
For some seconds nothing happens, but then the logo
and music fade away, and the demo leaves the intro
phase, coded by Anonym, just to let us enjoy the main
part of the demo. After the promising intro sequence
the reviewers had high expectations for main part of
the demonstration, hoping to see some new, interesting
and uncommon effects.
Our disappointment was total when we glanced at the
first effect which is a plasma in the controversial
4x4 pixel chunky, too often in demos nowadays.
The size of the plasma, coded by Leonardo is 50x47
4x4 pixels, and it is neither especially fast or
impressive.
We've all seen it before - the standard Reflex styled
stuff.
Reviewer #3, Mitch, started to laugh loudly as he
noticed the disappointment in the eyes of the other
two.
The only positive thing the reviewers could find in this
part is the grey colored sideborder, which is later
used consequently during the entire demo.
The using of the sideborders is all in all a nice little
move which cheered up the entire team a little.
The music by Zyron did on the contrary disappoint us.
As all were looking at themselves as quite experienced
musicians, we did all have much to add. A comment from
one of the reviewers, Dane, was; "Music should be
used to keep up the interest in the demo, but in this
case the boring bass almost made me fall asleep,
luckily the screechy arpeggios and the flat awake,
ofcourse also 'Vibrato' and 'release' Honestly we have
heard much better from Zyron, but as we think we
have heard the tune before, we can't be sure if the
Padua crew have lended it from Zyron, in if this is the
case, you cannot be blamed for having used it in this
production.
 
But if we for a moment forget about the music and
continue to look at the demonstration itself, we'll find
the chunky plasma soon disappears and the
sideborder changes color from gray to dark blue.
After a little while, a big circle interference is visible
at the middle of the screen.
The effect itself may not be the best of it's kind, but
it still serves the prupose well. The removal and
placing of the second circle could have been done a lot
smoother, though.
After this effect has been visible for a time, the
screen turns black and the borders turn into a light
grey.
Broad, interlacing light grey lins fill up the screen and
once again the terrified 4x4 mode.
This time it is a fullscreen interlaced plasman which
might have looked cool if the reviewers would have
worn sun glasses, watching the demo from a distance
of about 10 meters away.
At last the effect disappears, turning the screen
black and the borders grey. Slowly an IFLI picture by
Ablaze is appearing on the screen. The picture
displays a motive consisting of a roman soldier holding
two daggers with a couple of mountains in the
background scenery.
On top of the picture, a small Padua logo is added.
After the picture, the funniest part of the demo
starts.
Squares of differented sizes and colors appear in a
random way on the screen, leaving only the center of
the screen free from them.
A thin frame then materializes at that spot and inside
of it two vector objects start to move around.
We then soon realized that the vector objects are
transperant and glenzing.
 
By the time the vector splines disappear to be
replaced by a standard cubic glenz vector of the
kind you first saw in 'The Last Traktor III', all in all
this part is smooth, designed and nicely performed,
but it's still a fact that this kind of code would have
suited better a demo from 1993 than in a demo like this.

When the vector effect have faded out some raster
bars start on the screen.
Plotted line by line, the effect itself is sort of
pointless and must be used to save memory and
eliminate some boring loading time.
Suddenly, some of the rasterbars change their
color into a broad, dark-blue raster which is located
at the bottom of the screen.
The rest of the rasters fade down to black. Then some
cyan vector splines start to move, reflecting itself on
the dark blue background, making it appear as water
in the same way people used to do in scrollers in the
old days.
 
Finally the effect fades diwn into black and the last
effect of the demo appears.
Unlukily for the reviewers, it is found to be a zooming
plot tunnel effect using the boring 4x4 chunky mode.
The lack of other visual entertainment makes it look
just as another demo from the hands of Reflex or
Byterapers.
Ok, the effect included many colors, but none of use
could see the art at all. Impressive code perhaps,
but with a total lack of design and idea, the code is
completely wasted.
Make it fast, designed and interesting or don't make
it atl all, concerning this part.
At last, the music fades out and the outro appears on
the screen. On the top and on the bottom of the screen
is a funny effect including two sinuses crossing
each other, making the space between the blue line
turn blue. A nice little effect similar to something we
have seen in one of the new Camelot demos.
In the background, a nice sound from Jadawin is heard
again proving that he is a promising musician.
Between the two identic effects is a three colored
logo, splitted into more colors. It flashes now and
then and is on the whole looking very nice,
reminding us of some old logos performed by Hein Holt.
Credits for this demo:
Graphics by ANONYM and ABLAZE.
Coding by LEONARDO and ANONYM.
Music by JADAWIN and ZYRON.
 
Overall:
This is one of the better demos released so far this
year, a demo containing very much variation and a
few shining ideas.
The similarity to other demos and the entire PC alike
trackloader style is far too common, though.
The indemo musicand lack of design in the demo pull
down the reviewers opinion a little, making it stop a bit
over the average; 67/100.