Syndrome (old)/Reviews

From ExoticA

Tekken (1995, 28.12, 40k Intro)

Review by Glenn Lunder

I'm sorry, Syndrome, but this sucks. Obviously based on the great arcade/Playstation martial arts game Tekken, it limits its 'emulation' to 1 plane afterburned undetailed vector representations of two people fighting. Still, what irritates me the most about this is the 'music'; It's my nominee for most annoying chiptune ever. I find no evidence that this requires AGA, and can find no error codes in the file. Still, you never know...

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

No Love (1996, 07.04, 40k Intro)

Review by Glenn Lunder

Syndrome presents us with a few envmapped objects and not much else. The objects are a little unusual, but in this case unusual does not equal good. The chippy is loud and irritating, and it's not hard to see how Artwork's "Dawn.remix" beat this.

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

Logik (1996, 02.11, AGA 64k Intro)

Review by Glenn Lunder

I am stunned. I am absolutely, totally stunned. This intro is FUCKING AMAZING! How this could end up at 10th I'll never know. Jeez! It opens with an object 'surfing on water' over a good Syndrome logo, and continues with a FAST scene with camera angles and everything! It looks so good, I could actually cry.

The intro itself contains no specific credits apart from the names Nastyboy, Tenshu, Maf. However, when you depack the intro and hex-read it you can see text saying it was coded by Codac. Can anyone solve this mystery?

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

Hardcore (1996, 02.11, AGA Multifile)

Review by Glenn Lunder

The mood is what makes Hardcore. I'm telling you: this is the most frightening demo you're ever likely to see. It's not a horror demo per se, it's more the kind of horror you'd find in a movie like Seven. The demo opens with a digitized animation that's gonna go down in demo history as one of the most WHAMmy openings ever! During the course of the demo we're shown some fair effects and quite a few Tenshu pictures, but as I mentioned above, this demo is made by the atmosphere, not the single effects. What can I say? Outstanding. Everything's Blue in this world... Download and prepare to be FRIGHTENED!

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

Subzero (1996, 28.12, AGA 4/8MB HD Multifile)

Review by Glenn Lunder

A great demo! This almost reeks of quality. The fact that this only finished in 6th is perhaps testament to the quality of the demos released at The Party 6. The demo opens with some powerful chords, the word 'SYNDROME' at the bottom of the screen and a perfectly drawn eye in the background. After this it loads the credits sequence, which is even better with a great background picture and equally great coding and design... I can't adequately describe everything I love about this demo, but rest assured that it's quite a lot! There are impressive routines galore, a thumping great dance soundtrack and cool artwork. There are only 5 or 6 demos of this kind of quality released in any one year. From the twin faces phong object, to the huge flying ant object, to all the swirly tunnels and graphics manipulation, this is a fabulous piece of traditional demo art.

There are both 4mb and 8mb versions delivered. I tried both, the 8mb one first, and I don't think there's anything really missing from the 4mb one. It's just lesser reslution and less smooth transmissions between parts that differ, as far as I can see. This demo is also WHOPPINGLY huge - it occupies 9MB of diskspace, would you believe? I wouldn't be much surprised if JCS' picture is the same as "Lava Girl", with which he came 5th in the graphics competition :) The picture in the final part, of the man holding his hands to his head, is by Tenshu even though he's not given any credit in the demo or the text files that come with it...

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