Sanity/Reviews

Review by Glenn Lunder
There's only disadvantages to running this on fast machines (scrolls that scroll too fast...). This is only interesting as an early Chaos production, not much else...

Tested A1200/020-14/2mb chip/3.0 -- Note: Caches off, orig chipset. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. -- Note: Caches off, orig chipset.

Review by Glenn Lunder
This one was, I guess quite advanced for its time. There's filled vectors, stencil-vectors, vector-bobs...and combinations of the above. There's attempts at design, but nothing great. And that tune irritates the hell outta me! Ok, it's not all bad - it's an OK little demo for it's age, but nothing special.

Tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.

Review by Glenn Lunder
Well, these guys have certainly seen Scoopex' groundbreaking trackmo "Mental Hangover" [04/90]! A few of the effects here bear more than a passing resemblance to that old classic... The rest of the effects are much in the vein of their own "Dee Groove" (though that had a different coder), with various vectors, stencil-vectors and vector-bobs. Nothing special.

Tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Note: Some vector routines had graphical errors.

Review by Glenn Lunder
This is completely written from memory, and from ripping the tunes :), so please excuse any inaccuracies. As far as I remember, I think there's a great music-analyzing color-'thing' :D that I liked a lot. That's the part that sort of stuck in my mind. And the music? Well, Bit Arts was always one of my favorite musicians, ever since I first heard his tunes in the Red Sector Megademo. These are a little more jazzy, but very moody and absolutely great. Recommended for the music alone. Don't remember much of the graphics, but it's by Cougar, so how bad can it possibly be. If you've a machine that's specced low enough ;) this is about as good as you can do. Now, I'm off to hear 'Emotional Thing' one more time.

Tested A1200/020-14/2mb chip/3.0. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. Note: On both configurations you get the 'loading' logo, it boots for a while, and then it crashes. Nothing seems to help, not even kicking down to 1.3.

Review by Zito
Everyone who hasn't seen this is a jerk. Really! This is propably the most known musicdisk ever made on Amiga. It was already a legendary production when it has been released... With beats and melodies composed by Jester - who is still one of the best musicians (counting on Eurochart #38!) several years after he left scene - Sanity`s musicdisk is, with a big gap to other productions of this kind, the most known and praised one in the entire scene history. It's maybe because of the five fantastic tunes as for example "Wizardry" and "Breath of Life" - my favorites - but maybe also because of the great opening with really fantastic graphics by Cougar, a qualitative good title picture by Havok and great code by our master ;-) Chaos as for example the zooming dog, the cool tunnel (which was also used in Sanity`s "World Of Commodore" aka "Amiga rules") and the blue vectorlines which  transform into lines for notes. When the menu shows up you  can  read  a  vertical scroller with information about the tunes settled in a smooth design that is a bit too grey in my opinion. I always feel sad when I run this production. But this is only a matter of taste and at the end is "Jesterday" a paramount scene release in different ways. Decide by yourself why you like it...

Tested A1200/020-14/2mb chip/3.0. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, 1mb fast. A1200/030-42/2mb chip, 8mb fast.

Review by Glenn Lunder
This is essentially a 1-effect demo, demonstrating the use of the Optimum Fuckup effect (hence the name :D). An invention of Chaos, it was first seen in the selector for the Jesterday music disk. It has later also been used for the credits part of the World of Commodore 92 trackmo. However, the strength of the effect is also what brings this demo down; Chaos seems so pleased with it that he shows us TOO MUCH of it. The result is that, once the innovation wears off, it soon gets boring. Great tune by Jester, though.

Tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.

Review by Glenn Lunder
This one's another classic, and one of the first demos to utilise timing of the routines to the music to great effect. Another innovation this brought was TOTALLY NEW effect; the socalled 'Amiga Rules' effect. An even better-looking one was released a few months later, in Lemon.'s "Announce" (1993), but this was the first.

I won't beat around the bush any longer: This is one of my all-time favorite demos. Two GREAT modules from two of my fave composers, Chaos and Mr.Pet coding...how could it NOT be great? Nothing more to say: Get it! It was actually put together in five weeks when the Sanity coders found out about the prizes at the WOC ;)

Tested A1200/020-14/2mb chip/3.0. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb chip/3.0.

Review by Glenn Lunder
WARNING! This review caters only for the relatively small part of "Intereference" that worked on my machine ;) It opens with the well-known picture "Sanasmatron" by Cougar (great), a Sanity logo (ok) and an Interference logo (mediocre). The tune is NOT good; it sounds like Virgill trying to do Jester. Bad move! Then, the credits part appears, which is nothing special. And then...it just freezes. The music goes into a peeeeeeeping sound, and the screen is just black. The acompanying text file says Interference has been tested on A500, A500+, A600, A1000, A1200, A2000, A3000. Perhaps they should have tested it on my configuration too? ;)

Tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0 -- Note: See review!

Review by Glenn Lunder
Yeah! The demo with ATTITUDE! This is sort-of a punkrock techno approach to demo making, with an increasingly in-your-face techno tune by Jester, that sort of reminds me of his later work in a.o. Roots. And that sudden ending - PISS OFF - just completes the circle. Nothing revolutionary here, but boy is it fun. Outstanding.

Tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. -- Note: KillAGA.

Review by Glenn Lunder
Oooh, this is cute... I really like this little intro-demo! The effects are nothing special, just variations on cubes and such like, but the overall effect of the graphic and the music make it a FUN little production. Especially the music warrants mention, it's quite an unusual tune from Jester. There are no real advantages to be gained from running it on a faster machine; the routines are already smooth on A500's. Approved! Pressing the RMB during the scrolltext at the bottom reveals another, alternative scrolltext. This scrolltext mentions trying to find some of the other hidden stuff...

Tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04. A1200/020-14/2mb chip/3.0. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.

Review by Glenn Lunder
"Arte" is a classic, what more is there to say? There's an unusal amount of effects, and most were quite good for their time. There's not much to be gained from running it on a faster machine (except for the endpart vectorworld), as it was designed with 68000 machines in mind, and the routines are already quite fast enough for that. The demo is, to a degree, timed to the music. There are no timing problems on faster machines. The endpart scroller mentions it should work on A500 to A4000, and I have no reason to doubt that; I've yet to come across a configuration it doesn't work on. And look out for the Einstein picture by Ra, it's AWESOME!

Moby's module "Elektrik Funk" (or "Elekfunk!" for short) also competed in the 4ch music competition, where it won first prize! =)

Tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04. A2000/000-7 /1mb chip, 2mb fast/2.04. A1200/020-14/2mb chip/3.0. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.

Review by Glenn Lunder
This intro opens with another Motorhead cover drawn by Cougar, who 'broke through' with his rendition of the Orgasmatron cover, "Sanasmatron". Then, after a brief credits sequence we go to a relatively fast Doom routine, and that's it. The tune is frantic, yet with a certain groove and suits the demo rather well. Not a bad intro at all, but a little too short and small for a 60kb intro, let alone for a demo!

If I remember the story right; Sanity couldn't finish this in time for the intro competition, so they stuck a few extra bits in and released it in the demo competition instead!

Tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04. A1200/020-14/2mb chip/3.0. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.

Review by Glenn Lunder
I remember my original reaction to seeing this at The Party 4 was 'lots of pretty colors, but so what?'. I had expected MUCH more from a quality crew like Sanity! This production IS half-baked, with time and missing Pet's having to take much of the blame... Get "Roots 2.0" instead, it's a MUCH improved version! All effects run a lot smoother on my 030 than they ever did on the standard A1200...

Tested A1200/020-14/2mb chip/3.0. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.

Review by Glenn Lunder
This successor to the original "Roots" now has all the bits and pieces in place, and is an altogether much more polished package... Much has been added, and some effects have been improved since we last saw them. The demo is split in two parts; on AGA machines both will be shown, but on ECS machines only the second part appears. However, the demo REQUIRES an 68020 for both parts. Of course, like with the original, it benefits from a fast machine.

One of Cthulhu's pictures, "Face", competed in the graphics competition at the same party, and came 5th.

Tested A1200/020-14/2mb chip/3.0. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.