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                                   ALIVE # 7
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system .. ST, STe, Falcon, 1 MB RAM, RGB/VGA, STeem

credits . intro by ST Knights
          grafx by C-Rem of MJJ
          musix by Damo of Reservoir Gods, 5o5 of Checkpoint
          texts by ...too many to mention...

release.. o7/2oo3

url ..... http://alive.atari.org

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Alive magazine, huh, er, seems to be alive, no? A bit  later than expected (with
a preperation  time of over  a half year) the magazine has  hit' the scene right
before we all were fallen into the summerhole.

It impresses once more with a nice little intro, this time some old chap who was
vanished over  years from the  screen, namely Jace of STK brought us some little
coding pieces with the help of members of Sector One. Very surprising one!



ST Knights?! Have you ever thought to see them again?!

The magazine itself comes along in full and lite version, just as it seems to be
new standard  at Alive and  UCM together, just  to blow  the magazines up to the
edge. Unfortunately  only Alive was  real blown up in comparison with my shortly
released UCM # 24, but if  you can merge  the work  of over 1o  writers with the
usual help in  art & music, the output just can't fail. Therefore the Alive-Lite
version readers just get a real "light" one, as it doesn't only  feature not the
module of the full version, but also misses several screenshots. I have to admit
that I wont do that...

The artwork comes from  hyperactive  C-Rem and esp. the shell  looks kinda cool.
On Falcon the music by Damo of Reservoir Gods kicks ass at the first moments, as
it features some "it's alive" sample but is a  bit monotone. The chip musix are,
just  as always nowadays, of real good quality, yummy, the Yamaha chip is alive,
too. Tao brings again some very noisy thing, playing around with his buzzing fx,
that makes his  music that  unique. DMA SC brings  us another sid sound designer
tune in  best tradition  while Nemo brings  us some very  strange chip tune that
features damn strange peeps and boings.

Short browsing  over the contents, you  can easily see that the Alive posse made
it again, something  about 7o articles are included and so they top the last UCM
without problems. Ofcourse the  main focus  goes to the  latest parties, such as
the Error In Line that  gets several (pre)reports from different and interesting
viewpoints. Furthermore some  stuff about  the 4th  edition  of the  Alternative
Party and some not-so-atari-specific events.

And so  the EIL rules  also the  reviews corner, where  they checked  nearly all
releases that were  available. As there  weren't that  much other releases apart
from the EIL demos, there wasn't  that much  more to read over here, except some
small  games that popped  up lately. Here UCM and Alive covering mostly the same
stuff if it goes to major releases, with the diversity that Alive can offer even
views of different writers to single releases, that is always a nice point.

Interesting is the scene corner with interviews of several active chaps that are
updating several  thoughts and  impressions of  some sceners, just like Earx and
with Mikro who joined the demo makers scene, besides other interviewed ones.
Quite interesting or better  funny are  the fake  articles about Dildo Fatwa and
"their" Bud The Chud demo.

I wont lose that much words about all  the reviews they did, just point out some
interesting views by CiH about older demos, seen from today and that  it is very
interesting to read that much stuff from different points of view as the reviews
were done by 6 or 7 people and  everyone features  his own  view onto the things
and own style in writing it down. Well done. And so we get, apart from the demos
also some views  about the latest games  released, a rundown on the latest D-Bug
compact disx, Undercover (eeeh... :) and ST MAGAZINE from France, that came back
to life somehow. CiH takes a look over  the borders and tells us that our little
Falcons can use LCD monitors, too. In times  as all things  getting cheaper they
are a real alternative to the usual monitors.

At last the mixer covers  several things, just  some GBA articles  by Exocet who
makes also some thoughts about the future  of the handheld market, but his views
are overrounded  by the reality, as  the handy  game market is going to explode,
and to be honest, Nokia's N-Gage TV spots are quite cool and will do the rest...

CiH is climbing up new sarcastic mountains with his Iraq mini war mag... read it
by yourself if you haven't done it so far.
...and Paranoid writes a report of a demo exhibition (!) in a museum, even tough
he cames to the result that the whole thing isn't only missing  the Atari ST but
also some deeper informations about the why and how doing demos.

And so, to put it in a nutshell, Alive 7 offers a wide range of topics and knows
to entertain  with all those various articles, there should be something to read
for everyone's taste, as  the big mixer  again matches it  to break the computer
oriented frontiers.

The only drawback on this is, that even Alive with its fairly big writers posse,
needs longer and longer to publish a  single issue. This really  isn't the fault
of the writers or because of  missing support, as Alive finally got enough hands
that wanted to help out, but also  because of the  steady slowdown of the scene,
as scene life is quite low if no parties are held nowadays.

Ok, let us go to the final words...

Alive 7 knows to  entertain with  a nice little  intro, good  designed  menu and
various  musix. There  is a lot stuff to read  from many  many topics, so  there
should be something in there for everyone. Esp. for people  that are on the hunt
for different  viewpoints  to reviews  done in  the latest UCM  Alive is  a good
source. I have to  say that  the current issue is the  one that I would call the
best Alive mag so far, as I started  the magazine  again and again  to read here
and there without getting bored. But as  written above, also Alive suffers a bit
under the steady slowdown of the scene, major  releases apart  from competitions
and parties are  quite seldom  nowadays and we  have weeks  and sometimes even a
whole month where we can count the released stuff with the fingers of one hand.
But I have to admit, in this situation Alive is doing the  best possible job and
I hope to read some more issue next time! Good job, mates!

_.tSCc.__________________________________________________________moondog_o9/2k3_