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UCM 23
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                      "PARACON 4 INVITATION" by PARANOIA
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system .... ST, STe, Falcon, STeem!, 512 KB RAM, RGB, VGA

size ...... 8o KB

credits ... code - Paranoid
            gfx  - Paranoid, TNT
            msx  - Luebke

release ... 1o/2oo2

url ....... http://paracon.atari.org

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At last, quite unexpected, a new lifesign from  PARANOIA! Apart from their works
on a C16/PLUS 4 emulation for the Atari 16/32 bit range of computers it was damn
quiet  around them  in the last months, just  think that  their last release was
done for the PARACON 3 last year in autumn, too...

But as it seems  the rule: a PARACON party organized by PARANOIA brings PARANOID
back to release a PARANOIA productions... thats damn paranoid, eeeh!

Since this intro works on  all ST and  Falcon machines  PARANOID seems to try to
move still on both systems, besides his tries to create something on C64 as well
and I hope he will go on this way... Enuff crap here!

The intro  starts with  a black screen  showing a shaking PARANOIA logo, that is
dithered... right  here a nice  little chip  music starts  to play, reminding me
hard  to older blip-blopper  tunes, in fact  a good idea  and move away from the
nowadays sid voice flood, even if sid voices rocking as well. The whole thing
looks like this...

Why are you trembling? Are you in fear?! The show goes on showing a photo from the last PARACON party, showing the usual suspects, namely the members of PARANOIA. The picture fades to grey scales and with a grey font the single members are introduced now. The picture is of quite good quality btw... and not using full 16 colours... The reason for this is also quite simple... later on other smaller pictures taken on the last years PARACON are overlaying it, using more colours in parts... It's nice to see some of the freaks that attended there in here, just as RAY, FLASH or STS... The show goes on with a nice effect, enlighted bobs are flying around on the screen, in the background the picture of a Pringles chips package is displayed together with the words "hot and spicey" (or something)...
Gimme chips man! Then the show goes on with showing a grey screen and displaying informations about the party, always broken up with another pringles screen, showing the enlighted bobs in other colours and waveforms. Still a nice effect... And so it goes on, page by page and waveform by waveform, bringing informations, greetings and credits... Btw... the whole informations can be found here... >---> PARACON 4 INVITATION FILE <---< Ok... pressing space smashes you back onto the desk, just to write those lines here... final words... PARANOIA striked back, quite unexpected. This little intro gives not too much away but shows that they're still alive and still working on something. The two shown effects are good looking and giving the proove that PARANOIA are still working on their skills and the development goes well. The chip music is nice and overall original done (only a bit short), the most lack lays in the small grafix parts. Neither the used font nor the background pictures are breaking any limits... Anyway, welldone... ___ratings______________________________________________________________________ visuals....... 5o % - pictures and font of mediocre quality audio......... 75 % - nice chiptune, only a bit short, therefore original effects....... 65 % - two quite cool effects, I like the ditherstuff design........ 5o % - arg, not much to say, on this point could be more done originality... 6o % - no real originality blast, but quite nice ideas ___Overall______ð6o_%____________________________________________________________ Ok, let's see what will bring us the party then, more please! _.tSCc.__________________________________________________________moondog_1o/2k2_
UCM 23