By DHS/Atari org
2x disks, total running time 179 minutes
This is a DVD compilation of the Atariscene productions in 2003, made by
Evil of the Dead Hackers Society.
When you first think about it, why bother with a DVD compilation of Atari
demo recordings, as you can get the originals for far less trouble?
Or can you? Yes you can download these fine productions, but in many cases,
people don't necessarily have all the different forms of Atari hardware to
run them. I'm sure that this problem will get worse from the 2004 edition
onwards, when things like CT60 start to register a presence in these
archives!
Also, many of us can't be bothered to rescue that rare elusive spare blank
floppy disk from the heap of discarded crap at the back of the cupboard,
when these are needed for some of the ST based productions.
Then you might want to show the sceptical non Atari-owning public some of
what we get up to. And how much more convenient is it to have it all in a
fistful of DVD's, playable on common DVD players, then to plug in your
Atari, fumbling with a rats nest of cables, into the family television. Then
of course, if you do decide to vastly upgrade your home entertainment set-
up, and treat yourself to a massive plasma/LCD widescreen and state of the
art DVD player, then it would be nice to have something cool to show on it!
Anyway, Evil of DHS thought it was time that the Atariscene had a permanent
record of its activities in recent years. Recently, the first fruits of this
archival keenness has started to show itself, in the Atariscene 2003 double
disk set!
We're at 2003 right now, the intention being to release the previous year's
scene activity for the succeeding year, only things may have got a little
bit behind? However, with Error in Line part 3 dominating proceedings that
year, 2003 was a vintage year of particular piquance in a long and
distinguished Atari history.
The packaging is a standard DVD case, with a neat cover. Evil does a fairly
good job on downplaying expectations in a bit of soul-searching on the
website, but this turns out to be quite a good looking box, which certainly
will "look cool on the shelf." Booting up reveals a functional but smart
menu system, with all the titles on each disk listed, and divided up into
suitable cateries, like 'ST demos', Falcon intro's', 'diskmags', and so on.
At 179 minutes worth of viewing, this divides up into two disks thus;
The content of Atariscene 2003 disc one
Acid by MJJ Prod
Alive 7 by Alive team
Fantasia by Dune and Sector One
Grimey by Reservoir Gods
Hallucinations by Reservoir Gods
Illusion by Dune
Moving into darkness by DHS
Popstars by YM Rockerz
Posh by Checkpoint
Undercover Magascene 24 by .tSCc.
Warryorz by YM Rockerz
BONUS:
Sprell by Creators
Lynx Reloaded by Sage
The first disk shows the cream of the ST stuff released that year. So you
get a welcome reprise of Checkpoint's 'Posh' demo, and all the other ST
demos from EIL 3, and the French oldschool attack from Illusion and Fantasia
demos. We also get some space for our favourite diskmags, and I wondered for
one moment, whether we were going to get a lengthy session of 'reading' the
entire contents of these from the screen. But no, it was just a taster! I am
happy to report that the demo's are all full length of course.
There are a couple of welcome bonus items on this first disk, such as the
never released 'Sprell' demo, which seemed to be slightly longer than when I
remember it, and the rather ace 'Lynx Reloaded' demo by Sage, which came on
strongly with lots of mid-nineties Obnoxious style swirly effects on the
handheld.
The content of Atariscene 2003 disc two
15 kilobyte music intros by various
4ster by Checkpoint
Alive 7 intro by ST Knights
Bud teh chud by Dildo Fatwa
Chariots of fire by Reservoir Gods
D-Bug intros by various
Falcon contribution by Cruor
Fantasia fake by MJJ Prod
Chosneck third intro by Mystic Bytes
Chotro by Escape
Delta by Lineout
Echos by Evolution, New Beat and DHS
Emulated Oric by NeXT
Fullscreen 3D by Oxygene
Love machine by MJJ Prod
Mind rewind by Reservoir Gods
Paracon 5 invite by Paranoia
Grazeys Zak Hacks intros by P.H.F.
Pipeline by Reservoir Gods
Plasmoid by MJJ Prod
Rotat by Reservoir Gods
Slideshow 2 by MJJ prod
Underscore by Escape
Disk two is more of a mixture, bringing the Falcon goodies from EIL forward,
and also rounding up all the miscellaneous smaller releases. So it was nice
to revisit all the smaller intro's like 'Chariots of Fire' from the
Reservoir Gods. We also get a quick look at the sort of stuff I don't
personally tend to download, such as the D-Bug intro's, which are still
nice. One small quibble on an otherwise excellent collection is that Dildo
Fatwa's 'Bud teh Chud' does not look good when it is recorded off a 4mhz
Falcon! A subsequent conversation with Evil realises, that yes, it was
recorded from an ST by mistake. Still, never mind. It was also interesting
to remind ourselves how much material MJJ Productions managed to make that
year. They seemed to have had the faketro market pretty well sewn up for
that year.
Perhaps trying to avoid sales hype and subsequent lawsuits, Evil chose to
warn us that the recording quality was good, but in certain situations,
perhaps not perfect. I personally didn't have any problems viewing this
collection on my average spec Samsung DVD player, with a very bog-standard
non-scart connector (All my scart sockets are already in use!) I would say
that for the vast majority of people, the quality is perfectly adequate.
Where I tend to notice differences more, is in the soundtrack, where some of
the Falcon soundtracks sounded a little 'distant'? But that is probably just
me ;-)
This project is being run as a minimal or no-profit venture, so the cost is
an amazingly cheap 10 euro's. This has been worked out to be more cost
effective, the further the disks have to travel, but I think even local
Swedish buyers would be hard pushed to call this poor value.
I've just got one more question to ask, when's the 2004 collection coming?!
Pro's..
Smart presentation and packaging
Incredibly good value for money!
All your Atari demo favourites from 2003 in a neat easy to use package
The two bonus productions were nice to have as well
Con's..
Some slight compromise on recording quality in places
Dildo Fatwa recording went somewhat "wrong"!!
CiH, for Alive Mag,March '05
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