Red Sector Inc./Reviews
Something (ECS Intro)
Review by Glenn Lunder
A rather simple into, but nice nevertheless. It's just a flipping logo at the top, and a sinescroller below. The real aim of this intro is to announce the new Danish members Pendec, Caucasian and Metal Force. It doesn't mention a release date anywhere. The intro will start on my machine, with the help of KillAGA, but has to this day never exited without taking my machine down.
Tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0. -- Note: See review.
News On Tour (1989, .08, ECS Filemag)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Now THIS is what an early, primitive diskmag looked like :) Despite the English title it's all in German, so I didn't have too much reading pleasure here, unfortunately.
Megademo (1989, 09.09, ECS Megademo, 2 disks)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Words cannot describe what the RSI Megademo meant for the scene at its time of release. It was a breath of fresh air, a show of force so powerful that noone dared deny the fact that it was a modern classic from the moment it was released. The design and - not least - the music gave it a very special atmosphere that I can safely say is still there when viewing it today. I have never been more spellbound by a demo, or watched a demo more times than this. An amazing achievement.
SHD/Mystic made a one file version fixed for HD/AGA. It still had its flaws (graphics/music bugs, endpart crash), but at least it made the demo available to the new generation Amigas! This review refers to that fix, and not the original trackloaded demo. Therefore there is no compatibility reference.
Criminal No.1 (1990, .02, ECS Filemag)
Review by Glenn Lunder
The intro preceding Criminal is a classic, and one they've used many times before. There's a flipping scroller across the middle of the screen, and some different copper-color stuff rolling across the background. It's actually nicely done, but probably turned a few more heads when it was first shown in 1988, than it did today. Remarkably, it ran perfectly on my system, without even the need for KillAGA. And then there's that truly classic piece of music, "Telephone"... The intro announces Onyx as a new member, and the intro was coded by him back in 1988 - used here as a kind of nostalgic nod to the past.
Then we enter the mag itself, which has a quite unique design. It's built with a small display at the top of the screen, and the rest of the screen displaying the text. It's controlled with the mouse, and clicks of the mouse takes you around the pages. Like a lot of the first mags, there are just numbered pages, and no chapters or anything like that. The display is white text on a grey background, and has an overall nice design. Contentwise this issue doesn't really contain a lot, and the joke pages in German was totally unnecessary, but... The best thing about Criminal though, is the FEELING - the kind of friendship that only existed in the oldschool scene, a feeling that these guys actually KNEW each other, and were good friends. It's something that unfortunately will most likely never reappear.
The mag was published simultaneously on disk and paper (sortof like Jeff Smart's legendary "Illegal" for the c64 scene), and was supposed to come out with a new issue every second month from the start. Unfortunately, that never happened - this issue was the only one to ever be released. When you press the EXIT button, the mag resets, but unfortunately does something strange to the memory too... I softkick 3.1 in my startup, using an application called BlizKick, and after running Criminal I was suddenly told that the jumpers on my card were not set correctly for me to softkick. I tried a couple of times, but ultimately had to turn off and on the machine to make it work...
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- Note: See review!
Cebit '90: Revenge of Babbnaasen (1990, .03, ECS File)
Review by Glenn Lunder
This old Red Sector classic is a formula demo if ever I saw one. You've got your logo on top, your scroller on the bottom, and in the middle you've got yer basic vector effects. Ok, as far as these go, CeBit isn't the worst you can get. Though hardly worthy the 'classic' title it has claimed, it's still worth a honourable mention for reasonable vector rutines (for the time) and OK design. The music, though, is fabulous.
On my machine there were a few minor errors on the vectors, probably due to the speed of my machine. Ripping the tune is easy, just depack the executable with xfd or Unpack, and rip it. It's a standard MOD.
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.
