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Pure Bollocks Issue 22_038
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D E M O * R E V I E W S
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DENTRO REVIEWS
EGB'S SMELLY SOX
Well, here I am again, with little to do so I thought it would be useful if I
start filling up some sectors with a couple of dentro reviews. Dentros are
starting to become more and more widespread now, since they can be used as
previews of megademos, group news and so on.... Also, it's one hell of a lot
easier to get a dentro out in time than an intro!
It's a bit of a strange thing though.... Dentros are basically doing the
same thing that about 4 years ago would be called a demo! Seeing as a few demo
screens stuck together are generally called a "megademo", dentros are really
just... well, single demos! But the word "dentro" sounds a bit less "lame",
doesn't it? So "dentro" it is...
Anyway, here are a couple of the dentros that have been released over the
past few months, and I notice a slight trend creeping in, see if you notice....
AMBIENCE/Chaos:
Well, they might never come out with the Ripped Off party demo, but they've
managed to come out with this dentro. This is an "ambient house" demo, and
features loads of colour cycling patterns set to an original module by Tufty.
The patterns are very nice, and the module is great! Though I notice there's a
big pause in which everything turns black between screens- about enough time to
depack an Atomix packed picture onto the screen I guess!! And one of my
contacts alleges that some of the pictures were ripped off the "Vangelis" demo
on the Amiga!! But the point is- this demo both looks and sounds very nice all
the same.
NUTHOUSE/Sentry:
This is billed as "the biggest house music demo on the ST" and I haven't seen
anything that suggests otherwise. This is a 1 meg only demo which plays a
module which is 561K in size and plays at over 18 minutes long! It plays at
15KHz in normal mode, though if you've got an STE or sound catridge, you can
change the output. A big "NUT HOUSE" 1 plane logo spins around behind a text
displayer which contains all the info about the demo. The music is of the
slightly more hardcore variety, but not the ridiculous squeaky noise type,
thank fuck! I've managed to listen to the whole module, though at about 12
minutes into it, I found myself going towards the kitchen to make some tea! The
first thing I noticed about the moudle though, was that it was clear and very
cleanly sampled. A lession to all you housemasters out there I think!
SLAM (ANOTHER HARDCORE JAM)/The Wild Boys:
TWB have been doing loads of digi-synth dentros inbetween megademos for a
couple of years, and this is one of their more recent ones, the sequel to
"Hardcore Dancefloor".
I must say I was immediately put off by the extremely shit title for this
one, but it was thought up by young Flashback Jack, who also had to do some
scrolltext as well! Given that he had to do such strenuous work as well as his
other exploits such as drugs smuggling, he must have had a lot of pressure on
him so I'll forgive TWB this oversight.
The other bit that put me off was the fact that it wasn't as slick as the
other recent TWB digisynth "Waveforms", which had an intro, and a nice looking
parallax display bit while the modules played. Instead all that happened was a
picture, full of Lemmings, with the logo dropped onto the screen, a module
loaded and started playing while a small 1 plane scroller crawled along the
bottom of the screen, and small vu meters jumped about on the right of the
screen. Even the original "Hardcore Dancefloor" was more inpressive- bigger vu
meters integrated into the centre of the screen, and a large metallic 3 plane
scroller. And the scroller actually disappears whilst a module is loading! I
thought that you would have MORE processor time when the module is not playing!
And the "smooth" rasters in the scroller could quite easily be cheated by
putting a 1 plane scroller on top of a background with horizontal ines of
colours 1-8, blank out colours 1-8, and make colours 9-16 the raster colours.
But this demo does have some good points- particularly the modules.
Although I was initially put off by the hardcore mods by the Demon X, I have to
say they actually are well done. Although after listening to "Nerdhouse", I'm a
bit disappointed with the quality of the sound!
NERDHOUSE (NUTHOUSE REVENGE)/Sentry
What already? It's the sequel to Nuthouse! The module's not as long, but Sentry
have though up of some nice visuals to go with it. This is a "rave" video style
dentro, and unfortunately, it's the sort of hardcore rave module which demands
fuckin' fast flashin' lights! Even worse, they flash in primary colours! Even
worse than that, they don't flash in colour opposites, so you're likely to get
a fuckin' headache about 1 minute into the start of the screen!!! Also, given
the pretty good standard of graphics in the intro, I was a bit disappointed
with the graphics in the actual demo, which were mainly big one plane letters!
The whole thing was pretty well sequenced though, and the music, which is the
main point of the demo anyway, is far better than the "Nerdhouse" demo, and is
only about 8 minutes long this time. The demo ends with a wibbly credits page,
and a more "ambient" sounding module.
PERPETUAL DAWN DEMO/Rich Tea & EGB's Smelly Sox
So far (27/3/93), this is the ONLY demo to have come out of the Ripped Off
party last September! If you don't know the story behind it, it came about on
the last day of the party when Rich Tea told me that he had a disk full of
digitised mug shots of the partygoers taken by Sub Humans in Turkey, and really
wanted to make a demo out of it. So, with the help of a sampler, we did the
soundtrack of The Orb's "Perpetual Dawn", and I coded a routine to play the
samples, and flick between the pictures as well as colour cycle through a
really garish selection of colours, so we stuck all that together, added an
intro with a scrolltext that revealed what REALLY went on at the party, and
released it 2 days later! The main idea behind the demo was to take the piss
out of the forthcoming Untouchables "Rainbow" demo, since a couple of preview
screens were show at the party. (This demo still hasn't appeared!)
OK, then I won't review it- you know that something from the makers of this
magazine is bound to be bloody brilliant, so I don't think I'll need to do a
totally biased review!
MY SOCKS ARE WEAPONS/Legacy
This is probably the best of the recent dentros. The first thing to hit you-
apart from the short burst of 70Hz on the screen, is the initial "Gamesmaster"
style picture, backed by a great module from Audio Monster. This fades into a
spiral bubblefield with the credits, and then to a frame style setup in which
3D tricks such as vectorball and 3D line routs are displayed. (Though the
perspective is a bit wonky!)
The reason this is one of the best dentros is because it integrates all
these bits, which might not seem much by themselves, intro a complete dentro
experience (Shit that sounds a bit Sixties, doesn't it?!!?!), ie it all fits
together, rather than one bit, then a big long wait, then another bit, and so
on...
THINGS NOT TO DO/Inner Circle
This is a pre-dentro dentro! If you haven't seen this one, then you must have
been on the moon! It's a series of 8 animations of sprites that are based upon
the IK+ characters, so we have them doing things like karate kicking and
shooting each other, cracking the screen, shooting people and pissing on them,
etc.,... Some of it is pretty funny, especially the timing of the animation,
and some of the proverbs like "So don't let anyone shoot you then piss on you"
are good as well, in the others I started wondering if I missed any important
jokes, cause I didn't find it funny!
Inbetween the animations are group news, contact address and so on. Those
bits are not too long and are evenly spread out. I must say I thought the music
was great! I hadn't heard any of Count Zero's digi stuff before, all I heard
was his chip music, which always seems to be heavy on the bass and drums, but
the module he did for this dentro was completely different to that. Also, the
music at the end credits was even better, but that was by 4Mat, and ripped off
the Amiga.
DENTROS COMPIL/(Animal Mine + Hemmeroids + Legacy)
This is a fairly new compil of dentros that's been going around since about
just before the Ripped Off party last September (92). It contains the
Dusseldorf Mess Dentro by Animal Mine, a version of Legacy's Socks dentro
cracked by MUG UK, and 3 dentros (Dentro, Beachtro, and Fullparts) by the
Hemmeroids who are unofficially recognised as the inventors of the dentro. (Or
as they say "It's not an intro... it's not a demo.... It's an dentro!")
The problem I have with their dentros is that while they're technically
bloody good, they usually just take one or two tricks and keep repeating them,
and put loads of credits and stuff inbetween. The tricks are very good though,
and the music is great.
Much the same can be said about the Animal Mine dentro, although this was
mainly intended for the display at the 1992 Dusseldorf Messe at which the
Falcon was launched, and was updated to include a review of the mythical
machine. There are a few good effects in this dentro as well, but you have to
wait ages for them!!
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