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Pure Bollocks Issue 22_037
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D E M O * R E V I E W S
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"If Pigs Could Fly"
(Syndicate)
Flowerman of the
Pure Bollocks Editorial Team
This demo is yet another running-type demo, which seem to becoming more
popular than the usual move-around-the-hardware-scrolling-landscape variety.
After the usual fade, a 'loading' message appears and the intro is quickly
loaded.
There's a nice module playing in the background as text appears on the
screen. It's not gobsmacking but it's OK to watch. Pressing space starts the
12-screen demo running.
1) Scary Dots - This is the first demo here, and it consists of a small
scroller at the bottom of the screen, and several 3d-rotating objects made
up from dots. There's some nice light-sourcing on the dots, and some
original chip music accompanying the screen. As the scroller says, it isn't
particularly impressive.
2) Shade-Pobs - Yes, it's shade-pobs again, this time using little triangles
as sprites. There's some colour-cycling in the background, and quite a lot
of patterns that the sprites whizz around in, but unfortunately, it's not
very original, although it has been programmed well.
3) Fast-line vectors - This is one of my favourite screens of the demo, and
it's more original than the usual 3d-filled cubes and simple shapes. It
starts with a scroller made from lines, and it moves about very smoothly,
rotating around the centre of the screen. After that, there's some more
shapes and logos which are a bit more interesting than the norm. The screen
uses the 4-plane technique to leave behind a kind of shadow of what had
been there before as it moves about, which makes it even look even better.
4) Syndicate Members screen - As you've probably guessed, this is the members
list, shown with a nice starfield made from ball sprites in the background.
5) Lightsourced Lines - This is one of the more original screens of the demo,
and Syndicate claim to have done it before anyone else, although they
weren't the first to show it. It's quite like the cube in the Legacy Screen
in the 'Punish your Machine Demo', but the lines are light-sourced and they
darken into the background as it moves and rotates around the screen. This
is probably my favourite screen of the demo.
6) Colour Plasma - Yes, it's another full-screen plasma screen, with a small 1
plane scroller. There's some nice colour combinations and patterns, and
although it's not very original, it's still a OK screen.
7) Lightsourced vector ball - Instead of the usual full-screen 3d cubes, this
time there's a 3d vector-ball. It zooms up to the screen, rotates around a
bit, and then zooms off. It's a little slow, but that's only to be expected
with light-sourcing. It's nice to look at for the time it's on.
8) Twist Scroll - This screen is another good one, with two nice 3d vector
scrolls spiralling up the screen. It's quite original, but it seems a bit
wasted, because the scrolltext is really small (like the massive scrollers
in the "Space" demo). Once again, it's nice for the brief time it's on.
9) Shaded sine-dots - This screen is another quick screen, but it's quite
original. The first part consists of some nice sine-patterns made up from
dots, which form some interesting shapes. There's also a scroller in the
bottom half of the screen and a little static plasma thing at the top. Very
good. The second part contains another over-worked technique, vertical
rasters. There's only two patterns they move about in, and it's not very
interesting.
10) Vector Cube - This one's like the line-vector cube but it uses filled 3d
instead of line-vectors. It's a cube with some more cubes and things moving
about inside the faces. It's not that fast, but once again, it's light-
sourced and although it's not on for very long, it's still a reasonable
screen.
11) Glenz-vectors - This screen consists of a 3d shape, rotating and
transforming about the centre of the screen. It's see-through (glenz) and
quite fast (there are some 50hz versions in other demos). It goes on for a
bit longer than usual, and although it's not original (again!), there's
nothing particularly bad about it.
12) End-Screen - This is the greets/credits screen, with a nice module playing
in the background. Nothing much to say about this here, just the usual bog-
standard vertical scroller.
Overall:
At the end of the demo, it says 'the next time Syndicate brings you a demo, it
won't be this crappy, that's a promise'. The demo seems to have been made up
from lots of bits of code that the members had lying about from other demo's or
screens that they didn't have room for anywhere else. There's nothing amazingly
original here, but I'm sure that the next demo Synidcate brings out will be far
better than this one. The graphics that there are are well drawn and the two
modules are OK as well, although it could have been improved by using more than
one background chip music for the whole demo.
I known I've given this demo a bit of a hard time, but it's still worth adding
to your demo collection.
Rating: 70%
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