ECHOS
A Collaboration between DHS Evolution and New Beat
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here comes the only Falcon 96Kb intro presented AND mostly coded live at
Error In Line 3. We were all waiting for the first CT060 demos to kick our old
asses but how can you hope to present a demo on a piece of hardware that isn't
available yet ? Indeed as I write this (having no internet access for some days
I have to add), CT060 is being under heavy and -close- examinations ! Beta
testing will hopefully bring us a fully working CT060 in the next weeks (more
probably months tho).
Since I only have a bare Falcon (laaamer!) I had to test this intro with
this limited hardware while it was meant for accelerated Falcons... But I may
say more about that later in this review.
The demo starts with plain white logo giving the names of the three crews
involved in the demo while a first cool tune starts ringing to our ears. Then
we are offered a sort of galaxy made of blurred partycles. It looks cool but
definitely sloooooooooow on a non accelerated Falcon (hey you were warned from
the start). Next is a nice ghotic pic showing a strange face with a snakelike
tongue flanks the right part of the screen. It was painted like all other gfx
by mighty hyper active C-rem of MJJ Prod. An environment mapped thornball goes
spinning in the left part, but very slowly again for the same reasons.
It is replaced by a yellow something, some kind of twisted shape that comes
with partycles (or blobs?). Looks cool again tho turtle slow on a basic Falcon.
We suddenly move to a happier gfx showing a manga like cat wearing some sort of
superhero suit :) Looks nice but a bit out of the intro mood imho. No time to
complain as a wide range of blue and yellow cubes cover it, forming a 3D Swedish
flag that goes waving up and down. Nice again but I wish the cubes offered more
than plain colors :(
Woh ! What the hell is that ? Some sort of twisted star with sparks (as
described in the credits) understand glowing blobs attached to every edge.
Very nice indeed but... You already know what I mean...
We meet again with our blurred galaxy this time only using a different
palette hence not requiring any more comments. Let's move to 3D world instead.
This part was really disappointing though it ran quite smoothly on my Falcon.
Indeed much older demos like stuff from EKO or EXA have shown much better 3D
routines I think. This scenery only shows a rotating cube surrounded by 2 cut
rings on a blue rastered background, like a soccer ball trapped between two
goals, could be an adaptation of Speedball on the wrong machine ? :)
Another picture fades in, showing the earth seemingly exploding with lava
here and there. A cool picture for sure but one that would have fitted an ST
demo more than a Falcon prod since it's clearly 16 colors only. Worse, the next
effect shows ugly 1 plan logos made of blue letters zooming in, as if they were
coming out of the earth. Urgh, bad bad color and not a stunning effect at all !
Anyway this is already the endpart with another nice gfx showing some sort
of Victorian Lady (or a Vampire queen ?) displayed on the left while interlaced
credits come scrolling up on the right side. After some time reading the info
offered, the screen finally fades to black and you get back to GEM.
Last words :
Sure the whole intro is really slow on a standard Falcon but you cannot
blame the guys for it since it was designed for accelerated machines as stated
from the start. Since surely it's much MORE enjoyable ! Fx are fine tho some
parts would need more polishing (3D flag, 3D scene) or design (zooming logos).
Above all, tho all gfx are cool, it's very sad to see that most Falcon demos
only use 16color gfx :( Hey where are TC painters ?? I dunno myself and would
rather enjoy these nice gfx than *NO* gfx at all but it doesn't answer the
question...
I liked the fact that the intro was mostly done at EIL3 and then debugged
and released two weeks later while we're still waiting for other EIL entries.
There's still a problem with the ACE player though as it adds a cracking or
buzzing background sound that tends to spoil the whole thing a bit :(
What impressed me more was the use of ACE Tracker msx for the very first
time in a demo ! No need to keep it a secret, both tunes offered are not only
cool but also so small once packed ! As the credits unveil later on, each tune
(without samples) are only 3Kb big ! I also have to add that Thomas/New Beat
had to code a decent player on EIL3 + 2 weeks (extended dealine). The authors
apologize for the slow fx but they also say that this first replayer eats about
half the Falcon CPU time :( But I hope this is going to be fixed soon.
To put it in a nuthsell this intro is no sky rocket, especially if you
don't have an accelerated Falcon but it shows what ACE can offer us in a near
future (love these tunes btw !) once it swallows less CPU time of course. The
challenge faced by the ppl involved in this intro deserves clapping as the end
result is quite nice tho far from perfect. But I'm sure this is only the first
steps of ACE tunes and I also know that CT060 should bring us astounding demos,
that is if you're one the of 100 owners of this collectible.
Keep going guys !
-----------------------------------------------------------------------STS----
Since Paranoid also wrote a review, you can find it here !
|
