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                     "MJJ SLIDESHOW" by MJJ PRODUCTIONS
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system... ST, STe, RGB

credits.. code - Zorro 2
          gfx  - Niko
                 Wilfried
                 C-Rem
          msx  - mad maaaaaarx

release.. 2oo2

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Arf... Slideshows seem to be a new trend in the nowadays Atari scene since we're
bombed with  them since about a half year now. Starting with the "Thematic Slide
Shows" by The Coolest Paradise and followed by those ugly Satantronic production
about the Forever 2e3 Party, now the reanimated band MJJ PRODUCTIONS, some heros
of the nineties, striked back as well with a slideshow...

MJJ PROD, wah, this name reminds  me to the marvellous "Anomaly Megademo" on ST,
the  strange "Triso Games", a  few rocking  Falcon demos, esp. "Mostly Harmless"
and not  to forget  their graphician  NIKO, who was  one of  the most impressive
pixel painters on Atari at all.

So I was quite  amazed to see a new  production, this time for ST again, and not
for Falcon only as in the past 8 years. But, there  are new coders here, they've
someone who calles himself  to be the  Boss, aka FelX, and unfortunately, no one
of the guys that brought the label MJJ PROD to its glory name in the Falcon era,
is still left on board. So I was a bit uncertain about the things that will come
up on my screen now...

After loading the demo at first a logo for the birthday of the MJJ WEBSITE comes
up... not really ugly but nothing special as well... Have a look at it here...



Lovely colours, eh? Just joking...

At next a  few information pages coming  up, mainly  written in  french language
(arg... I thought those times are over!), showing a little  logo made of sprites
flying around on the screen, as only  effect in the whole  demo! So far the demo
didn't revealed its quality and it is time to dive deeper into it... Besides the
sparse view also  the ears aren't pleased to be tormented with an old chip musix
by Mad Max...

As the show begins I bet I hadn't started it... At first, NIKO and his mates are
surely magnificent graficians, BUT, it is some kind of ripping of corpses to put
pictures that were seen so often before again into a slideshow just because they
were made by some group members who overall left the band many years ago...

So we see mainly NIKO's pixel  adventures, pictures  from "Humeur Vitree" (HMD),
"Flip-O" (OXG & Diamond  Design), "Anomaly" (MJJ), "Agony" (DNT  Crew), "Are You
Experienced" (EKO), "Gobitoons Dunetro" (Dune) and  a lot more. Sure, his pixels
are always nice to look at  but the  fun ends as  the makers  are ripping of his
outstanding graphix  of the Falcon demos  that were  drawn with more colours and
just converting them in a quite ugly way to 16 colours. I have to admit that the
pictures  still reveal its maker  but after  all they're  loosing a lot of their
impressive style... a real shame!

There seem  to be one new  picture included as  well, drawn by C-REM for the MJJ
Party 2 that will be held somewhen in summer this year. After pressing space the
show ends  up with a rather  mediocre MJJ PROD logo showing the address of their
webpage, followed  by the "The End" picture  from the "Flip-O" demo and  then by
two information  pages, giving  the credits and  greetings. Apart  from the fact
that there  is nothing  included  as effect, they're  looking rather ok from the
style.

Time to leave the final notes...

Final words... MJJ PRODUCTIONS are reanimated, a good point, the production they
               are using for their comeback is just a waste of diskspace, sorry.
               All you thought and remember  of MJJ PROD, all the  hype that was
               created  around that  band, esp. since  their  magnificent Falcon
               demos, is destroyed by that production. We have to face the truth
               that the nowadays MJJ PROD are in  some way  a new group  and not
               the heros from the nineties anymore. The guys that have built the
               hype, NIKO, STEPH and JOKER  aren't in  the band anymore and this
               big loss can't be  compensated with  a guy who  names himself the
               "big boss" since this doesn't helps to hold up old standards...
               After all the putting together of this slideshow is rather bad as
               well, converting NIKOs' outstanding art in  highres and more than
               16 colours to ST low destroy's  a lot of them. Furthermore  there
               isn't much entertaining and nothing that bounds you on the screen
               since the grafix aren't new... The rest isn't reasonable as well.

___ratings______________________________________________________________________

visuals.......  5o % - Niko's art is still impressive, but converting sucks
audio.........  15 % - an old an too often chip musix...
effects.......  o5 % - can we call a sprite logo an effect?
design........  5o % - not much to say about, the intro end screens are ok
originality...  1o % - what is original at a slideshow using old and known pix?

___overall______26_%____________________________________________________________

This production  leaves the impression to try to catch the old hype by using pix
of a former famous member (that were  all used before) but  after all it is more
or less disgracing of a corpse...

_.tSCc.__________________________________________________________moondog_o8/2k2_