Tristar Red Sector Inc/Reviews

Review by Glenn Lunder
Another small, simple but nice intro from TRSI. Nothing outstanding, just a good logo by Peachy down the left hand side of the screen, and a text plotter taking up most of the rest. Nicely done.

The TRSI logo on the left was also used by TRSI's PC section in one of their cracktros. Used for their crack of "Theatre of Death" (Psygnosis). No date appears anywhere.

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0.

Review by Glenn Lunder
Rather a standard oldskool intro this from TRSI. A good oldfashioned 3d starfield (with growing stars) is the background effect for the usual textplotter, and in addition the text is periodically interrupted (with a 'tv snow' effect) to display Terminator's classic Tristar and Red Sector logo - also used in several other classic productions! The design suggests this is a younger brother of Double Trouble's later cracktro for TRSI. Used for Brainball Playable Preview.

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- Note: Needs KillAGA.

Review by Glenn Lunder
A pretty standard intro, with a good tune by Leffty, makes this an ok package. The intro itself has a TRSI logo on top, and the rest of the screen is divided in a 3d glenzvector on the left and a textplotter on the right side.

The intro needs KillAGA to even work properly, but still corrupts the screen after exiting. Used for Magic Land Dizzy (Codemasters 18.05/'92) and Mad TV (Rainbow Arts 19.05-'92).

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- Note: See review!

Review by Glenn Lunder
Another classic TRSI cracktro, this minimalistic effort is a great nostalgic trip for some of us :) It features a TRSI logo across the background, filled with some pseudo-plasma in red and blue. Overlaid on this is a white 8x8 pixel textplotter, and a that's pretty much it. Short, sweet and to the point.

The first date this intro is verified on is 10.12.1992, in a version that was 100k packed, and with a big module by Emax ("Oberheim Power"). There was at least one with no music, and one with music by Romeo Knight. The most common version is the one with the "Analyzer" module, where the intro is about 10k in size. Used for: History Line german (12/'92), Alianator (music Romeo Knight), Arnie 2 (Zeppelin Games, '93), Global Domination ('93, no music), KGB Final Sales English (08.03 1993), Elysium (25.08 1993) -- all cracked by Saito or uncredited.

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- Note: Needs KillAGA!

Review by Glenn Lunder
The top right is graced by a nice wooden-texture TRSI logo, below that lies the textplotter, and the left half of the screen is occupied by some unexciting effect. The entire design is in red and orange. None of the two reviewed intros intros contain release dates, but the module is dated 01.05 1993. The intro is typically around 16-18k. Used for Der Trainer german, Dogfight.

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- Note: Needs KillAGA.

Review by Glenn Lunder
Another passable intro, this time from the Polish section of TRSI features a nice vertical logo down the left hand side of the screen and a text plotter on the right - pretty standard crackintro fare, then. Nothing exceptional. No release date in the intro, but XTD's module is dated 19.07.1994.

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1.

Review by Glenn Lunder
This is a really nice intro, with a pretty ok logo by Sketch at the top of the screen, and the same logo zoomrotated under an 8x8 pixel textplotter occupying the rest of the screen. Overall, this intro carries a nice atmosphere. There is no release date inside the intro, but the logo is dated '93, and the module is date '94. Used for Black Viper (Neo Software), Its Cricket 95 Edition (Grandslam), Mongol Commander (RAW Entertainment, music "Digital Bass-Line" by Emax).

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1.

Review by Glenn Lunder
A pretty standard intro, I guess, with some really substandard graphical work from the later-to-be superstar Uno. His work here is either of two rather dreadful logos, one in the middle of the screen and another at the very bottom. The rest of the intro is made up of small spinning vector cubes going constantly in the same circle, and a textplotter. Double Trouble's tune is a rendition of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger"!

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1.

Review by Glenn Lunder
Unfortunately this demo fails to work on my machine, no matter how I try to degrade it. If anyone has a machine that this runs on, then any information regarding it would be most welcome!

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- Note: Does _NOT_ work!

Review by Glenn Lunder
Here's a nice little cracktro, with a rotzoomer background. At the top of the screen there's an ok TRSI logo that I'm sure I have seen in one of their demos before. Amusingly, it's signed with Rewired's old handle ('Sketch 93'), which strengthens my theory that he wasn't around the coder to change the signature, and that the graphics therefore probably is an old one. Over the rotzoomer is a pretty standard, ok textplotter. There is no release date quoted in the intro (from their crack of "Abduction"), but the module carries a 1994 copyright, so that's my best guess.

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1.

Review by Glenn Lunder
Realtime raytracing here, which I suppose was remotedly revolutionary back when it was originally released. Each new animation takes approximately 25seconds to render. The design is classic, with logo on top, action in the middle and a scroller at the bottom. Interesting more for its historical content. Coder Tom introduces himself as 'Tom of TPD' (Tom Python Dreamer). This small subgroup would later add one more member - Lazur - to form their own group TPDL. That group existed only for a short while and released only one production - an intro coded by Tom featuring realtime raytracing! :) The intro credits Sketch for the logo, which is signed under his old handle Rewired.

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1.

Review by Glenn Lunder
WWSY is actually a pretty cool little dentro, though helped along greatly by XTD's energetic tune that gives the demo a sense of pace - though the lizardking-y lead he employs after a while is perhaps a little much. Coding also shows some sense of style, thought Tees' graphics is of highly variable quality. His clipart and design graphics seem a lot better than his larger monster pics, perhaps due to limitations in his dithering techniques.

Though the demo works perfectly fine on the configuration listed below, there are some graphical errors on the opening sequence. It requires at least 1mb chipmem.

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1.

Review by Glenn Lunder
Lazur's first slideshow shows a lot of promise, and a handful of great pictures. The opening intro is minimalist, but full of polish language and comes across as very professional. The tune is perhaps not Dreamer's best, a sort-of cover version of an Enya song, with some breakbeats overlaid after a while. The slideshow itself runs all the way through, just fade-out fade-in fade-out, and after the last picture you're presented with a a selector shaped as a TV screen with b&w representations of the pictures. Moving the mouse to the top left of this display and click will let you exit.

Ofcourse, the most important aspect of any slideshow is the quality of the graphics, and "Sun" does not fail here. There are several excellent quality pictures here, though several show off Lazur's biggest weaknesses: Anatomy and proportion. His nature and landscape pictures are always excellent, but when he draws people he's often in over his head. For more information, read Facet's review of this slideshow in R.A.W #8, it's quite interesting. Lazur's next slideshow, "Wild" [05/96], was released for Anadune. The distribution is prepared for floppy (with great icons by Lazur!), but includes an installer script for easy harddisk installation. Released by members of the once-subgroup Nah-Kolor.

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0.

Review by Glenn Lunder
Well, this is a hard one to classify, but I guess it had to go in here somehow... =) As the name implies, this is a pirate production, you know the kind they used to make lots of - mostly to celebrate themselves. It comes in the form of an amigaguide file, on an autobooting disk which also changes the system font and plays annoying techno music in the background - using a player that is highly incompatible with my system. The result of this is quite simply sucky sound, but thankfully the guide file can also be viewed the traditional way. The guide itself is, naturally, extremely well designed with all manner of gorgeous ascii art. The list was compiled by Flashback/TRSI from canada. No release date seems to appear anywhere, but the file dates seem to indicate it was released around the 16th of april in 1995. After checking the information inside with some of scenery, this seems to be a correct date. Interestingly, the supplied music is by a pc scene musician =)

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- Note: See review!

Review by Glenn Lunder
"Twin Peaks" is The Twins' Magnum Opus - a true thing of beauty. There's innovation and eyecandy enough for an entire 40k intro compo here, with some of the best and fastest routines I've seen in ages. Words cannot adequately describe how good it feels to see routines that look this good, moving at this framerate on my 030-50. Trust me on this one, despite the low amount of actual design, this demo looks GREAT! Noogman delivers two pictures, one of which is the title picture and another fullscreen of a male and female body builder. Let's just conclude that he needs to work some more on anatomy.

Even though all of this greatness is to be found here, I can't help thinking that Virgill's lazy, slow blues tune keeps it all downpace. I think this demo could have looked a lot more exciting, and scored a lot more votes, with a more jumpy track. Overall, though, "Twin Peaks" is a demo I'll remember for a while.

The demo wasn't actually going to get released at all, since the version shown at the party and spread later is a BETA version. The coders lost all their recent work in a harddisk crash, and was stuck with this beta as their only backup. Instead of recoding the entire demo, which they naturally were not prepared to do, they opted to release the demo as it were. Thank you for that wise decision, Twins.

tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0.