--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"_" by Escape
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
system ... Falcon o3o, 4 MB RAM, RGB, VGA (1oo Hz)
credits .. code - charon / escape
no / escape
gfx - flash / tnb
msx - 5o5 / checkpoint
release .. may 8 2oo3, shown first at Error In Line 2oo3
demo took the 1st place in Falcon demo compo
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14 days after the party was held, finally the winning demo, again by Escape, was
released for public. The crowd was anxiously waiting for this new piece of
coding madness, to see it finally on their home systems. So we will go straight
for the review here and cut the crap...
At first, Escape matched it to create a bog standard demo, again. In fact it was
interesting to see only standard Falcon demos in the competition at all. No FPU,
FastRAM or 14 MB or acceleration cards, just bog standard Falcon stuff, that are
cool news for the community I think, even if this doesn't means that there wont
be accelerated demos in the future, but the delayed CTo6o is just braking out
the development of such specialised demos a lot... good for the standard users..
After loading the demo you can see an "_" sign blinking in the lower right
corner of the black screen. A very science fiction movie oriented music starts
to play and we're starting to fly slowly through a blurred blue tunnel with
curves. This together comes already very nice, as well as the coming smaller
effects, just as a vector ball made out of lines that build enlighted points on
the contact points. This one is again and again blurred as well, and so is the
environment mapped vector star as well.
At next the known Escape logo, an "E" comes up, where the middle bar builds an
arrow. It is also an environment mapped vector, in the blue/grey style we know
from "Hmmm..." and their "Chosneck # 3" intro too. The logo builds three of the
same logos, turning around one axis in the middle, it turns faster and faster
and then the arrows were shot away and the music starts to go completely mad.
Now there isn't something left from the slow intro music and we get a hard
stomping noisy and dark technoing tune (what a sentence, arf ;)
I really like this kind of music and it reminds me some way to "Hmmm...", too.
You have to see that moving!
The background turns dark purple and we see a vector cube, in grey/blue/orange
colours, flying around on the screen. This one is build out of many small cubes.
While there are again and again lightnings enlighting the scenery with the beats
of the music, the cube starts to part itself, the little cubes starting to be
stretched and disted very mad while the music gets really crazy. Looks cool but
falls a bit back behind the other stuff.
Then an Escape logo, build up of many small texture mapped vector cubes scrolls
in, zooms in and flies finally into the direction of the viewer, then the parts
of the logo are falling apart and the textured cubes are flying into the viewers
direction to be deleted from the screen. Nice effect, but they can do better...
At next the music changes, it's now slow, dark and noisy, the screen turns black
too and a white blurred line vector cube appears on the screen, blinks from time
to time and has little white blob jumping around in itself. Then the blob
explodes into many little white points that are jumping around in the cube and
that are enlighted if they cross another point. This effect reminds me again a
little bit to "Hmmm..."
And finally, the effect that liked the crowd very much at the party, comes up
onto my screen too. At first the music changes a little bit again, now into a
very relaxed oldschoolish trackertune, a starfield appears on the screen and...
the cute little Atari bee as big gouraud shaded vector object flies around on
the screen, in blue/orange colours. Later on it even starts to move their wings,
but not like a bee, more like a butterfly, not really realistic but again a real
"woah" effect. Very well done!
Ssssssssssssssssting.... aaaaouh...
But this peaceful scene doesn't lasts too long as suddenly one of the arrows
that were shot in the intro of the demo snips onto the screen and hits the bee,
the music returns into a very aggressive state and the next scenery offers us
a line of environment mapped tins without ground and cover and the arrow flies
through them like through a tunnel. This is shown from different perspectives
and in quite fast speed and makes this very impressive again.
In the end the arrow finds its end in the environment mapped Escape logo again
and the demo ends with 2 end pictures without movement, done in grey colours
and in a very designish style, that are giving us the credits and the usual
"the end" logo for the demo. To come back to the desk you just have to hit Space
then.
And the little trip is over...
Final words... Without any doubt a real cool demo and with right the winning
demo at Error In Line 2oo3. But right after the party there were
voices that said that "Hmmm..." was the better demo and you could
feel a bit disappointment about "_". But is this real? And so I
watched both demos again and again, and I have to say that "_"
creates not such a big atmosphere as "Hmmm...", but makes this
the demo not as good?! I wouldn't say that. The problem of "_" is
the fact that it doesn't brings revolutionary new effects onto
our screens, "just" much more optimized "Hmmm..." routines at the
first impression. But if you look twice the 3d routines are very
impressive for a standard Falcon demo and I don't remember
another demo so far that offers such big and detailed vector
stuff in such resolutions and such speed on a bog standard Fo3o.
Furthermore some people might haven't checked it out still, it
wasn't No, who coded the "Hmmm..." routines, but Charon who gave
us with "_" a slight impression of his DSP activities and this is
the breaking point, that Charon, who didn't stepped that much
into the scene spot lights so far matched it to create big parts
of a demo that nobody thought another one except No would be able
to do... Sure, "_" suffers a bit under the "Hmmm..." hype as some
people might have waited for bigger steps after two years, but we
have to think about the frontiers of our systems now, they're
surely still not reached but the Escape coders are already moving
in quite thin air now and I doubt that we will see such big steps
in development on standard machines again as in 2oo1. But I'm
already going to write crap... maybe I will express my thoughts
in another articles about this topic.
"_" lives definitly from the polished 3d routines and a few very
nice ideas, such as the animated vector bee and the thing with
the arrows. Furthermore the design and ofcourse the very cool
music are kicking the demo even further
___ratings______________________________________________________________________
visuals....... 7o % - again quite sparse used pixels, but well done pictures
audio......... 1oo % - what to say, the score should say all! I love it!
effects....... 9o % - massive vector stuff again in all sorts
design........ 85 % - very nice design and timing, but some breaks in style
originality... 85 % - nothing revolutionary, but again tuned vector routines
___Overall______86_%____________________________________________________________
86%?! In comparison "Hmmm..." matched 88% ... The little fall back belongs to the
breaks in the design that "Hmmm..." didn't had, as well as the fact that
"Hmmm..." impressed the viewer a bit more 2 years ago with its cool routines.
But anyway, still a stunning demo that may get a quite good place in the overall
Falcon demo Top 1o.
_.tSCc.__________________________________________________________moondog_o5/2k3_
|
UCM24
