Scoopex/Reviews

Review by Glenn Lunder
"Big" was the first release from the Swedish Division that had just joined. It features a large grey SCOOPEX logo scrolling around the middle part of the screen, with a BIG linevector logo spinning over it. The bottom of the screen features a plain, blue-tinted scroller and four lines at the top of the screen echo the music. It's typical of its time, and there are millions of one-screen demos like this. The right mousebutton switches the lo-pass audio filter (and the powerled) on or off, and the joystick button can be used to freeze the scroller. Titan/North Star later became Uncle Tom/Scoopex.

The demo will work provided you run it with KillAGA, but it does destabilize your system after execution.

Tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- see review!

Review by Glenn Lunder
This small 20k intro is mildly amusing, with its frantic polka-style soundtrack and typical sine-scroller-over-multicolor-raster layout. Underneath the sinescroller is a sideways scrolling starfield, and at the bottom rests a really basic Scoopex logo. It's somewhat comforting to see how basic some of the really great ones started out =) It is likely also known as "English Lessons". The scroller itself contains no credits, just graphics on the logo give any indication to its true authors...

This intro was found on Horizon's "Rack-Pack #16" pack, released on the 16th of june 1989, together with "Mac Fonts I". It was reportedly released just after Scoopex returned from a trip to the Piranhas party in Switzerland, which was held 29-30th of april this year. The release date is therefore sometime between May and mid June.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
Not a terribly interesting intro unfortunately, this features a sort of 'parallax scroll', in that the same scrollfont is put one-over-the other, three of them, creating a semi-3d look... or at least that's the idea. In reality it just makes the scroller damn hard to read =)

This intro was found on Horizon's "Rack-Pack #16" pack, released on the 16th of june 1989, together with "Mini-Sine Intro". It was likely not released at any party; no text inside indicates this. It was tested from the bootmenu, after a caches off, original chipset boot.

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

Review by Anonymous
I must admit I was very impressed with this demo coded by SLAYER. The presentation is almost faultless, this is one of those progressive demos which introduces new effects as time moves on. However here we have a basis of a simple starfield a couple of copper bars bordering the action, and a truly excellent soundtrack composed by UNCLE TOM, on top of which just a single effect runs, a new one fading in as the previous one disappears. It starts out like a movie with the credits and titles; here we get to see the graphical talents of REWARD. Amongst the visuals thrown at us are a proportional sine-scroller, some vector balls another sine-scroller but with a large font which also moves in the horizontal direction, and some very smooth large solid 3D convex objects. The solid 3D is technically very impressive, each of the objects is in 3 bitplanes (8 colours) and all but very large objects run in just one frame. This is achieved by using what are called Convex objects. This eliminates the need to calculate plane priorities, and you can fill the object all in one operation. In all I would say this rates as one of the best demos I have seen in a long while, and I congratulate SLAYER for this, his first demo for SCOOPEX FINLAND.

Review by Glenn Lunder
This whole demo is really a gigantic piss-off message to the cracking group Storm =) After a a small introductory section that appears to be there mainly to imitate a non-working crack from Storm, we get just a small multi-colored starfield with overlaid text. After some pages of this, a counter appears counting down to 0 and we are taken to the mainpart of the demo. This is actually very good; with a mountain in the background and vector stars flying around. A great scoopex logo is at the top of the screen, and an equally great-looking scroller at the bottom. The chiptune in the intro is better than the soundtracker tune in the main part.

Some confusion exists over this demo's release date; the Scoopex homepage says 1989, while Zeg's encyclopedia says it was released in 1990. You can choose at the very beginning of the demo to see it in English or German.

Review by Glenn Lunder
"Smooth Chimes" is actually not a demo at all, just a presentation of a tune by Hi-Lite, and the scrolltext has only one line: "contribution for the music-competition by hi-lite of scoopex". The entire rest of the screen is occupied with a *LOT* of small colorful blenk-vector cubes, and a very cool Scoopex logo by Angel Dawn (not credited, but it bears his initials) runs down the left hand side of the screen. The text "Smooth Chimes - composed by - Hi-Lite of Scoopex" is plotted in approximately the middle of the screen, and the aforementioned scroller runs along the bottom of the screen. This gives a nice impression, but is hardly a real production... We have no information on the party where this was released, supposedly the "Possessed Party" in 1992.

Review by Glenn Lunder
Angeldawn's graphics are the first thing that grabs me about WC5. I've always been a fan, his stuff has that little extra edge... The second thing you'll notice is the fact that it's controlled not by the mouse, but with the keyboard! Cursor keys and return guide you around the different menus, and tell you what crackers and releases were the best and worst in the early days of 1992 :) WC5 is adequate, but not terribly outstanding. They promise a new outfir for the next issue, which they also delivered. I do miss some more precise credits and some more text!

Despite using KillAGA there are some graphical strangeness around...but the charts are fully usable, as well as readable.

Tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- see review!

Review by Glenn Lunder
This rather old chart features stunning graphics (for its time) and one of Uncle Tom's all-time greatest tunes. It's really a shame he left the scene; if he was making stuff like this in '92, god knows what he could have come up with today! Anyway, this features mostly crack-and modem-related charts, so interest for legal-minded people might be low. Worth getting just for the tune. On the 030 AGA machine, the music routine doesn't play correctly.

Tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/3.0. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0 -- Note: Music bugs.

Review by Glenn Lunder
The only reason why you might want this is a couple of logos (the bootlogo and Made's end logo), and not much else. I never found it very interesting, since it's so AVERAGE. Music and coding fails to excite me. Though it's multifile, it still requires the custom bootblock to boot.

It has a hidden part, which you can access if you look on the disk's directory. One the files is the one to execute. If you wonder about the name, then try to say it very slowly - it should sound like FUCK YOU.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
The demo opens with a good Scoopex logo by Acid. The next cool thing on display (after some vector letters fly from right to left) is a large SCX logo made out of vectors...which updates terribly jerky on my 030-50 :( Hmmm... Is this realtime? I think not. The cheats of yesterday to make things seem like they run faster than they do are the downfalls of today, when they run at a fraction of the speed they could! Another nice part has a sphere increasing and decreasing in size, until it sort of 'spacecuts' a great pixeled Scoopex logo by Uno! Also the good, fast shade bobs of the end part are worth a mention. Unfortunately, the demo cannot be exited, and you have to reboot every time you've watched it.

Overall, "Maxima" leaves me with a very good feeling. This is a nice little demo with some really excellent artwork and music. There's some reasonably good pixels here, and the 'comeback' Scoopex logo by Uno is rather cool. The credits part still had some graphical errors on my setup, even with KillAGA running. Uno and CPT are mentioned as 'guest artists'. The demo requires ½mb chip and ½mb fast to work.

Tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. -- Note: KillAGA. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0 -- Note: KillAGA.

Review by Glenn Lunder
As far as invitation intros go, this is hardly the most advanced one seen. After an introductory sequence with a little text and some logos, a morphing text plotter appears. It's ok, and does what it's supposed to, but there's nothing extraordinary. Depacking the file and hex-reading it reveals a text message from coder Antibyte. Cheer up, man! The party was held at easter time, so this intro was presumably released in the first part of 1993. No credit given for the Manitou logo.

Tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0 -- Note: KillAGA!

Review by Glenn Lunder
Just an intro; logo at top, textwriter over 'cageball' effect. Nothing exceptional here, and a really pointless production. Only significant for the fact that it announces the joining of new Swedes Colorbird, Some1 and Prime. There are graphical errors on my 030 configuration, even with KillAGA, but the intro itself works fine despite this.

Tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0 -- Note: See review!

Review by Glenn Lunder
Mostly dot-effects are presented here, with dots morphing to form letters, dot-cubes, a circlescroller in dots and lots and lots of dot-balls. The only break from the dots, it seems, is the starwars scroller presented towards the end of the intro. This has some graphical errors on the 030 machine, probably because of the faster processor (ran with KillAGA, so the graphics shouldn't be a problem). Nothing outstanding.

Tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0 -- Note: See review!

Review by Glenn Lunder
Short and slightly dull, this intro features nothing new. There's a logo by Made down the left side of the screen, which is not really his best work by far. The music by Hi-Lite is also a disappointing, monotonous affair. The 'code' here consists only of a text plotter and a filled vector spinning star in the background.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
Pack menu for Darren's then-new pack "Nam-Nam". All the warez are from the Assembly '94, so it was obviously released at the party, or soon after.

Tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. -- Note: KillAGA.

Review by Glenn Lunder
Rather fun, this, though it gets a bit monotonous after a while. It opens with a typical 'Melon' design, only to suddenly transform into a heavy-metal hell with screeching guitars and suitable design. There's text that appears on screen in time to the music, but - at least on my machine - it sometimes moves so fast it's impossible to read. Then we're on to some more Melon-y design for the end part with a vertical scroller that can be stopped with the right mousebutton. Fun, but forgettable.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
Graphics and sound are the best things about ALIEN - a demo that has no logical links to its name. The show opens with an excellent Scoopex logo by Made, with some text zooming in and out over it. Then the "Alien" logo appears, which is of a much lesser quality. Next we're given some effects, like a cube which has zoomrotators of an eye texturemapped onto them - moving independently of each other! This is a nice effect, as is the morphing skull. The gouraud stuff here seems a little premature and blocky - like the early gouraud in Razor 1911's "Falu Red Color" intro. The standard filled vectors here are much better. Overall, I'd say you'd want to get this for the graphics and music - not for the code.

The picture 'Braindamage' by Absurd, which appears halfway through the demo, seems distorted. I also had a crashing experience with the 4mb fast setup, though what caused it is uncertain. "Alien" will work on an unexpanded A1200, but an accelerator is recommended. "Alien 2" (12/98) was released in 1998, and won The Party 98 demo competition.

Tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0.

Review by Glenn Lunder & Zito
Ok, this blew me away. From a very acceptable introduction sequence, with an ok logo and a 'beating heart' soundtrack, you're shown the excellent title picture. Then, you get to the selector. And *WHAT* a selector! It's actually a Doom clone, and you travel around the dungeons searching for pictures! Ofcourse, there's an autoslide button to be pushed in the room you begin in... This selector method is both good and bad. Obviously, it looks great! The drawback, however, is that with all the wall textures pretty much identical, you get lost all too easily. An overlayed map function would have helped tredemendously, but then again - this is a slideshow and not a commercial game! Ok, over to the main focal point of any slideshow - graphics. Made's pictures here can only be described in one word - outstanding! When you travel around, and find a picture, you see its name in a small status box, and the resolution and numbers of colors used on the right. I was actually astonished to find that most of these pictures were in 64 or, in some cases, as little as 32 colors! I was only able to find one 256 color picture here... One major drawback with many of Made's pictures is the fact that they're copies of pictures that's even been done before...and in many cases better. He's asking for trouble when he's trying to top Fade One's awesome rendition of the girl and the antilope (?) in the water, that he did in his slideshow for Lego "Never Liked Uno" [04/94]. Anyway, this has to be my longest review ever! =) Conclusion: Totally fucking outstanding. Download. Oh, and the music's excellent!

There is a hidden part to be found through the maze at the end of gallery hall one - the hidden zone. Here you'll find an animated levert and a lot of text describring the slides, announcing greets, addresses and the like. Pressing both mouse buttons simultaneously exits the slideshow. Will work on unexpanded A1200s.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
A BIG demo from the French guys, who were unfortunately beaten by two Swedish groups at a Swedish party. That's a long way to travel for the bitter taste of defeat... Anyway, this demo is above average in every respect. When you boot the first disk, you're shown some information about your system, like processor and memory available. When the loading is complete, the demo itself starts with a raytraced animation, with the names of the creators flashing up at regular intervals. The demo itself consists of LOTS of good, advanced effects. The music by Oxbow is the usual techno, except for the endtune which is a funk tune, much in the style of what Moby did for Sanity's "Arte" (1993). The endpart is quite interesting in itself, really, with its amazingly smooth plain vectors flying around in the background. The upscroller can be paused with the right mousebutton, though the demo does not mention it.

There's also several great pictures by Made here, but then you'd pretty much expect him to make great pictures, wouldn't you? The demo recognizes a second disk drive (and a third, for all I know :), so there's no annoying diskswap pauses. Booting the second disk brings up a small graphical display informing us it's the second disk. This was Ninja's first release for Scoopex. Will work on unexpanded A1200's. With harddrives now the standard, this was perhaps the LAST great trackmo, and the end of an era? At the Assembly summer party the following year, a sequel was presented, called "Cyberia - Iso Opus II". It was a harddisk demo, and nowhere near as good as this one.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
An impressive intro this, no doubt about that. I love that 'face pressing out from object' thing. There's plenty envmapping, good graphics and fabulous music. Still, why does it stop so abruptly? Will work on unexpanded A1200's.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
Pretty much a standard 2-effect intro this, the only possible innovation being the phong-shading. It's not - by far - the best routine of its type, but not the worst either. The intro opens with a reasonably cool picture by Uno, of a mean-looking eye and a Scoopex logo. Then the phong routine is introduced, and we're given a donut with a star inside, plus a duck. Then we're given a zoomrotated, stretching version of the eye from the intro. Then there's a rather pointless effect, a tunnel of pink and light blue circles, before we're given one last look at the pic. The music is monotonous and not very exciting. Still, it's far better than the irritating piece he did for the sequel, "Zero-G 2"! I found an error message for reporting 'not enough memory', but none for AGA. Therefore, I'm refraining from categorizing this as either an ECS or AGA intro. Runs on unexpanded A1200's.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
Disappointment. That's the word I'd use to describe the follow-up to the excellent "Iso" (10/95) trackmo! It seems they've lost the touch that Iso had, and have instead come up with a an advanced, but bland and boring demo. The effects may be harder to code, but that doesn't automatically make them cooler to look at! This is a horror example of a demo with no identity of its own, just effects linked one after the other... This is not what I expect from a 2.8mb (archived) HD demo from Ninja and Made!

There are two full-screen pictures by Made in this demo, the second one being "Babylona", which won the graphics competition at this very party. The musician, Doft, delivers a bland and uninteresting tune. It's like he's trying to sound like Deck (who sounds awful in his own right) - and fails...

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
2 days and 64k, it says in the intro. I don't disbelieve that for a second. I do, however, think that I would think more highly of Ninja and Made had they NOT made this emberassing intro. The only one who gets out of this one with some credibility is Finnish musician Deck, whose involvement can surely have been no more than their just using his tune. This looks just awful and jerks like hell even on my 030. Requires a little fast mem, I guess - I had to reset to make it work.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
This intro is good in parts, and less so in others. The stars of the show are some more shaded objects, this time with the 'innovation' that there's some animated (precalced?) object in the background also. The music gets on your nerves after a while, and Made's graphics limit themselves to a mediocre font. The competition must have been abysmal.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
Despite being a party winner, there is really little to this one-effect intro. Everything is based around Krishna's envmap routine, from the opening SCOOPEX logo to the names of the three authors to the title of the intro. Then follows two mediocre objects, and finally a bird object with quite a lot of polygons...and then nothing. Probably extremely well coded, but oh so dull... The music quickly gets very tedious and monotonous. The info file mentions the intro will NOT work on 040 or 060 cards! Why?

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
Some more amazing morphing, large envmapped objects and scenes from the coding facory Antibyte (with some help from Boogeyman) here. The most impressive thing about his intros seem to be that it's so damn FAST - everything just runs sooo smoothly! The 3d scene with the castle is nothing less than amazing on an 030. And it ends with bumpmapped credits and a really cool effect where a scoopex logo is backlit...you've seen it many times in the movies etc... Even Deck's music is tolerable here! :)

You can use the commandline parameter '0' for 1x2 resolution, which further boosts the speed of the intro.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
"Gosh" features 30 chiptunes from three musicians, and a full-blown techno tune from a fourth. Couple this with LOTS of pictures by Absurd, and you've got yourself a slideshow/demo/musicdisk/chippack hybrid! There's nothing much wrong with any of the audiovisuals here, with lots of good quality Absurd pictures, as mentioned, lots of tunes to choose from and a fast envmapping routine to spin the name of the current composer on top of each picture...

News dated 11/96 stated that Oxbow and Deck had moved over to the PC section of Scoopex, but it seems they got homesick :) The final picture by Absurd was used in the packmenu 'Nam Nam' as early as 1994... The release date is based on the upload date to Aminet :)

You can use the commandline parameter '0' to make all the env-mapped objects run in 1x1 mode, which it tells you AFTER you've run it once. A sneaky way to make you run it twice ;) Though the demo will run on a standard 020 with 4mb fast, it recommends a 030 or better.

Tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast /3.0. A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0.

Review by Glenn Lunder
3D worlds, with texture, phong and envmapping abound in Scoopex' TP97 winner this year. Technically, I guess this is one of the best 40k'ers ever, but visually it's less than great in my eyes. All the 3d trickery is well and nice, but it's not very exciting anymore, is it? There's virtually no interesting design, the music sux, and there's no real graphics here either. If you love objects and camera angles, then go get this - otherwise, you'd probably be better off looking elsewhere.

The intro is a little slow on the 030, unless you use the commandline switch '0' to switch on 1x2 resolution, which helps a lot. The version reviewed here was released to Aminet a few days after the competition, and had three bugs fixed. However, there's still some bugs left in the opening 'phong in a globe' part...

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
Lazur's first release for Scoopex is his third (!) slideshow - a remarkable release in many respects. All of the pictures here (except what's tailormade for this production) seem to be from 1996, which means two things. One; he's a damned workaholic, and two; there's a whole year of pictures still unreleased! The mind boggles at the possibilities...

The pictures here vary somewhat in quality, from the awesome "Elmore" to some more bland, uninspired works ("Tears"...). Most, if not all, of these pictures have been used in other productions, but that's almost always the case with all slideshow these days, so it's no real deterrent. One thing that seem to constantly annoy me about Lazur's work is that he's still having problems with proportions of bodies, though. The other very remarkable thing about this slide show is THE RETURN OF JOGEIR! It's been a few years since this living legend did any music for the Amiga scene, and his return is warmly welcomed! His tune here is pretty good, but not excellent - perhaps he's a bit rusty on 4ch work, hehe...

The slideshow opens and closes with an animation of a man walking, before finding a book, and opening it. You choose what picture to view by pointing the index finger of his hand at the picture, and at the end he drops the book to the ground. The slideshow will actually work on an unexpanded A1200, but without 4MB of fastmem, there won't be any intro and end animations.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
Now Antibyte's getting his shit together! "Torque" is everything "Superautodrome" [12/97] isn't, with good design and music I can live with :) Shade's opening logo is very cool, and the textures throughout the intro are also among the better ones produced! This is excellent, what more can I say? My nominee for "Intro of the Year" so far! There are two command line options, specifying the optional use of a lesser resolution (1x2) and a fast mapper for 020/030 machines.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
And just when we thought the limit had been reached for 40k'ers, Antibyte had to be the one to crush our illusions. This is not good. This is not even great. This is just plain fucking AWESOME! Bringing some extra people on board was apparently just what the doctor ordered, and after a disappointing introduction with some more of those pentagrams that Antibyte has been so fond of lately, this just takes off. From the beautifully rendered scenes to the excellent bumpmapping to the original fractal distortion, this is a beauty. Rubberduck contributes a "chaosrotating" routine. Just like with "Torque" [02/98], this also has two commandline parameters, doing exactly what they did in that one.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
The mag opens with a nice, surreal title picture, before going directly to the reading matter. Eracore is a good graphician, but he has certainly done a lot better work than the panel for this mag. The four tunes offer more than enough distracting sound. The main problem with SP, as I see it, lies more in the content of the articles than anything else. It just doesn't have the quality articlewriters that ROM had, not that little something special that made those mags so interesting and readable. And besides, Fishwave seems to have a general negative attitude, that makes the reading experience more of an irritant than an inspiration. Bay Tremore's title picture is "Sweet Vibraphone" (with a Seenpoint logo added), which he competed with at the Assembly 97, but which was unplaced. the mag announces Krishna as Ninja's replacement in France, something that happened LOOONG ago.

Seenpoint should work on unexpanded A1200's, but some fastmem is recommended. Naturally the mag multitasks.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
We haven't heard anything from Psy in a while, but here he's back with a snappy, little invitation intro for the Abduction Party. This intro rests most heavily on the graphics, though, and Made doesn't disappoint. The pictures here are actually rather unusual for him, because they're a lot more artistic than what he usually does, but by all means we're not disappointed here ;) Deck's music will quickly exhaust your ears; it's a weird mixture of funk and standard Deck'y squals and squeeks! The release date is no way certain; it is based upon the datestamps on the files themselves.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
Perhaps a more deserving winner than Haujobb's "Edit 0.5" [08/98] at Assembly, but the public voted, and theirs is the final word. As you might understand, then, "System Crime" is another great 3d epic from the coding factories of Austria... After intial execution, it does take some time to calculate its textures, but from there on in... wow! =) There is absolutely no doubt that at this particular point in time, Antibyte OWNED the 3d intro market on the amiga, and this intro is just another testament to that fact. Amazing.

The intro requires 4mb of fastmemory, as well as an AGA amiga. It will theoretically run fine on a vanilla A1200 with 4mb fast...but not well! =)

Review by Glenn Lunder
Another intro that opens with the by-now wellknown Scoopex pentagram... Oh well. As usual with Krishna's intros, the entire thing is based around his envmap routine, which we have to admit is more than fast enough for the job! In fact, it's probably among the fastest ones on the scene right now. The music sucks, though, which is the main drawback of this intro. Good, but far from great.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
A demo that tries in its story-line to evoke the feeling that the original Alien movies created. It does this in a 3d environment, looking much like a standard "storytelling" demo. It features characters from the movies, battling aliens aboard a spaceship... There is occasional effects between the story parts every now and then, and these all have a high degree of quality, especially the flashing tunnel towards the end of the second file, which reminded me a lot of the one in The Black Lotus' classic "Captured Dreams" [03/97] (though that was clearly superior). The 3d routine used seems good, though not with a lot of bells and whistles, but it moves a little slow on my machine. The demo will work on any 020 AGA amiga (with at least 16mb fast), but the producers strongly recommend an 060 processor. I agree.

The only returning production member from the original "Alien" [06/95] is Antibyte, but the demo does seem to benefit from the new crew, as it is much better than the original. The entire demo is presented in an area smaller than the actual screen, a little wider than it is high. The demo is comprised of 7 files; the script that starts the other files, four main parts, fadein and fadout. The decrunch and waiting time between the parts is too long. This is certainly one of the largest (in size) amiga demos ever, the LHA file is 6.8 MB big... Lots of textures, we expect!

The version reviewed was downloaded from the Scoopex homepage, and is reportedly the same as the compo version plus the endpart - which wasn't shown at The Party due to the limitation of 6MB harddisk usage. They say to look for the final version, coming soon, but since this demo is from 1998 and it was downloaded by me in mid 2000, I expect there won't ever be one... Virgill is not credited in the demo, presumably because his tune appears in the endpart (sounds a lot more like him than the others), and that wasn't shown in the competition.

Tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- see review!

Review by Glenn Lunder
Antibyte (this time with the help of Optima) crowns the title for the best 40k intro of the year, "1000%" is amazing! I can't begin to explain the excellence on display here - the technical prowess of this intro is just amazing. There is both 3d scenes and 2d effects, all looking excellent, and thanks to Deetsay's music system (which precalculates its samples) - and his composing abilities - there is three fabulous tunes within this intro! There has never been a more excellent 40k intro, or one featuring as much effects and music as this! The praise just doesn't end... :) Oh and for an excellent bonus, the final tune is a cover version of Tip and Mantronix' classic "Musiklinjen" from Phenomena's "Enigma" [03/91] demo!

The version reviewed is the REAL (compo) version, and not the early one uploaded to ftp.amigascne.org by accident - which had a bug in its memory allocation routine. The intro works on any 020 AGA amiga with 4MB fast, but the producers recommend at least 030-50 for speed, and preferably 060-50. It supports the usual command line parameter '0' for 1x2 resolution, recommended for speed on 030 machines.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
Graphically the same as the last issue, SP9 opens with an ok title picture by Zaac. It's been 11 months since the last issue, but you can't really say the break was "worth it", unfortunately... I've never been to keen on SP's editorial style, and this issue is unfortunately no different.

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

Review by Glenn Lunder
After nearly a year, the final issue of SeenPoint was finally released. But it's not really an issue, even, just using the mag code to say goodbye. The title picture by scene veteran Titan is stunning, and the music is also passable. The rest of the visuals are the same old ones, that you've all seen before. There is no real editorial content here, just an article explaining why they are stopping releasing the mag. They do hold the possibility for a comeback on the PC open, but time will tell. Check to see what's happening at http://www.seenpoint.de...

Review by Glenn Lunder
While presented in pure style as far as its graphics and design goes, this demo leaves us wondering why it has such abysmal coding? Filled vectors? Dots, for heavens sake? GLENZ??? Perhaps the name of the demo is a clue, that it's summing up demo effects from the last few years... But the raytracer at the end is _WICKED_ though, and is reason enough alone to aquire this demo. It does have its charms, but could have been a lot better.

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