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                           "ROCK SOLID +" by PARANOIA
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system ... Falcon, 4 MB RAM, RGB, VGA

size ..... 1,2 MB on harddisk

credits .. code: Paranoid, Marcstar
           grfx: TNT, Paranoid
           musx: Mr Future

released . Error In Line 2oo1

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At last PARANOIA did it again with their second fulltime Falcon demo. What? They
just showed  up that "HERESY" wasn't  their first  and only  try to  support the
Falcon scene.

You surely remember their  first demo called "HERESY" (reviewed in the last UCM)
that wasn't a burner at all, that was released 8 months before this demo. And so
there will  be the  first question: "Have they matched it  to top the  weak last
demo or are they still on that low level?!" And to find out a bit more the usual
review starts here...

Like "HERESY" also "ROCK SOLID" starts with a sky in the intro, this time a blue
one, not as cloudy as in the first demo. This sky comes along as  ceiling mapper
and is a lot faster than in "HERESY" but it isn't completely the same effect...
With the intro a  module music  starts to play, some  lite technoing  sound, not
very overwhelming or spectacular but it does the job to accompany the demo.

After the intro sequence the screen turns black and a  text in white letters and
distorted  comes  up, saying "For  what you see is what you lack...", that is  a
quote by the rap band  Public Enemy. And after  the screen  turned black again a
PARANOIA logo appears on the screen, melting ATARI and Playstation logo together
to the PARANOIA logo, a really nice and well done idea.

The usual black break brings us the  title screen, a  rendered picture with very
strange and a bit hard to describing scene. It features the "ROCK SOLID" letters
and a strange mix out of  black and red  and what  else. Since I never was a big
fan of rendering  grafix I have  to say that I don't like this render style very
much, esp. since it doesn't features a good style at all in my eyes, even if the
quality was slightly improved since the horrible "HERESY" pictures.

Finally the demo  show starts with... a texture  mapped tunnel, bringing all the
credits with small bitmap pictures to the screen. The tunnel is coloured red and
yellow, looks quite ok, but after all this effect isn't state of the art anymore
and so PARANOIA did good in don't letting him stay as effect alone but mixing it
up with the credits part as well.

As next  a floormapper  comes up, showing  the  PARANOIA  typical razorblade  as
render picture  again. This scrolls around and  a bit and gives  way for another
raytraced picture, featuring the red  ROCK SOLID saying, a golden razorblade and
some green thing I don't know what to say about.



The next  effect is combining  mapping on  floor and  ceiling, in red  dominated
colours  and brings  the greetings in white letters  zooming away  between them,
leaving an enlighted area  on top and bottom  while zooming away... hell, what a
strange description! And since  this effect stays  only untill the greetings are
finished, we can see another one, a tunnel again, a very colourful one this time
and finally he is  stretching and disting like mad. Not so bad at all, but after
all it seems to be the 1oooth tunnel on Falcon at all. But what me  impressed in
some way  was the  melt-o-vision-a-like  effect to  remove this  tunnel from the
screen... One of the few better transitions in this demo.

The following effect is much better, bringing us a square  tunnel in green, blue
and yellow colours, and ROCK SOLID printed  on the walls. This  tunnel starts to
swing later on and looks  quite nice. And after  all it's the last effect before
we reach  the end of the demo  with a razorblade  in the background  and a white
scroller (that jerks a bit) that  gives us  the complete  credits and  some info
about the future of PARANOIA. ...and suddenly we are on the desk again.



...final words...

"ROCK SOLID" doesn't  hit's me like  a rock, it isn't rocking as well, but it is
a very solid demo. It features in parts original works like the musix and grafix
even if both doesn't hits my taste at all. Furthermore it shows a few steps into
the right direction as you can check a big development since their first demo...
But after  all they're hang on  too old stuffs, and  while all  moved some steps
beyond they're still stuck  in the tunnel mania... Too bad, but I think this was
not their last breath...

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originality...  5o % - always seen effects, but original grafix and musix
effex.........  4o % - mainly tunnels and mappers on floor and ceiling
visuals.......  45 % - rendering grafix of a strange style...
musix.........  65 % - original soundtrack, but a bit boring with the time
design........  55 % - not much to say about, a few nice transitions, not more
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all in one....  51 % - some step forwards... but I still miss the special kick!
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I'm very anxious to see their  next tries since  they're showing a steady rising
of their skills.

.tSCc.                                                                   moondog
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