Virtual Dreams/Reviews

Review by Glenn Lunder
This opens with a picture by Jaco of a yellow-tinted female face. It's slowly faded onto the screen, and then there's some text overlayed onto it. The proportions are way off on the face; perhaps this is intended, since the large eyes and the weird nose give her a sort of elfquest feel... The main part of the intro is a text selector, with a rotation zoomer in the background. The graphics tiles of the rotzoomer changes frequently, and consists of fruit and weird female pop stars :) The music is Groo. Can't be put much more precise than that, I'm afraid... tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.

Review by Glenn Lunder
A very nicely designed intro with only two real routines, though they're both very good. The first is a ripple/bitmap distortion routine they let loose on a B&W pic of a cute kitten, and the second is "James Gouraud". James is a man-like animated object that swims through a sea, among other things. A good intro this, no doubt about that. tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.

Review by Zito and Glenn Lunder
This more than short demo by a more than famous subgroup starts with some small logos and a nice introduction of the music but can not satisfy what the name promised... In this release - that is more a dentro than a demo - you are introduced by some bubbles in front of the title logo. A nice little effect as all the others too. Then appear some shaking texts that seem to show a message but don't at the end. Provide your eyes some scanned pictures of girls and boys who come right out of a fashion catalogue containing fields where you are shown cool water-like plasma effects. After a tunnel, parted in four different ones afterwards, a space probe with lights as you could only see in the best Scoopex demos(!) and a flying monitor with a cybernetic arm and an eye on the screen is to be seen. All to the rhythm (covered with flashes) of a cool tune. The end comes too fast - not awaited or wanted - and the whole thing seems a bit too unfinished therefor that is has been released after the party.

Okay, this one is not boring but without any very good idea for a typical Amiga demo. The music could nearly kick the listener's ass but at least it fits very well, underlines the general idea of design. No credits appear in the demo. At Assembly '96, Alien released a sequel, called "Sumea - Faktory 2" [08/96]. The demo works on a vanilla a1200 with 2mb chip. tested A1200/030-42/2mb chip, 8mb fast.

Review by Glenn Lunder
This is not a demo. It is a piece of art! In this amazing production, Alien has perhaps created what is the first real piece of demo art. An amazing achievement is what this is. There are several good routines on offer, of course, but what sets this apart from the crowd has got to be the way there all FOR something, they're not just another component in the demo. From the moment that tunnel explodes onto the screen, you know you're in for a ride. The music has a certain groove to it, something I sorely miss in most productions these days. A worthy winner. Alien calls it 'what Faktory was supposed to be'. Recommended? You bet your grandmother! It does not mention at all whether it requires any fastmem, but I suspect it does ;) tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.