Impulse (amiga)/Reviews

Review by Glenn Lunder
Surprise of the year! I came in expecting nothing, and was blown away! The demo opens with an introduction picture by Thomas. The picture is excellent, and features a bridge ascending into the skies. Then the music starts, and we get a texturemapped Impulse logo followed by three drawn logos, VOYAGE - IN - STORM. Next up is a vector cube with a ripple effect texture-mapped to each of the sides, which soon changes to rotating pictures. Next up is a cool Impulse logo, with a phonged torus in front. Then there's credits, timed to the music, before we're taken on a ride through an amazingly fast tunnel texturemapped. About halfway through, the music changes from techno to a more mellow kind of tune, and a dot-cube is added to the middle of the screen. We're then treated to another phonged object before a raytraced picture. What comes next only last for about 3 seconds, but is one of the most amazing pieces in the demo! It's a brief travel thru space, with planets and stuff... GREAT! Then, we're on to one of the best voxel routines I have ever seen! It's 1x1, smooth, with a great, blue sky. After a while, they add some raytraced Chinese characters scrolling up on the left hand side of the screen (beating Andromeda's 'raytraced scroller' in "Nexus 7" (12/94) easily!), and FEMALE VOCALS TO THE MUSIC! The experience is really awesome, and I had to turn off my stereo and watch the demo a second time to be sure I had heard correctly. Then we're shown a GREAT dragon-and-sorcerer picture by Rendall, and another raytraced pic, with wine glasses and the cool Impulse logo from before. Then, finally, we reached the endpart... It's got a ripple effect very similar to the one on the cube in the beginning - only fullscreen - and an up-scroller for messages and creds. What is best about the endpart, though, is the music. It's a sort of folk-tune with a flute, and a great piece of melody. Throughout the demo, Mr.Pixel's music is always functional - and in places excellent. You'd be mad not to download this - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Now go away - I'm gonna turn down the lights and watch it JUST ONE MORE TIME... Please be advised that the review refers to the version with the fixed mainfile found in STORMFIX.LHA on Aminet. GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.

Review by Glenn Lunder
"Muscles". Oh yes, if there's anything this demo has lots of, then it's just "Muscles"! Brimming from end to end with smooth, powerful effects, fabulous graphics and a catchy techno soundtrack, this one's just SO close to perfect... The effects are imaginative, goodlooking and not least FAST! Design is another strong point, with design elements that never get in the way of the action, and near perfect blending between coding and bitmap graphics. The env and phong routines here also deserve a special mention, with LARGE objects that look absolutely gorgeous. Do I really need to go on? In an unusually strong year for demos, "Muscles" is certainly among the top 3 of the year. Beast's fullscreen picture is "Fish" (3rd at Assembly that that year), while Rendall's is "Useless To Run Bitch" (9th at Assembly that year). The demo was released simultaneously to the IO party and the AntIQ party in Hungary. The demo works on any 020+ machine, but 030-50 or faster is recommended. An enclosed text file of news announced that Gato (swap) had joined, that Beast (gfx) had joined from Majic 12 and that Psycho and S.L.O were kicked. GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0 and 3.1.