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UCM 25
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                      FOREVER 4 PARTY ATARI 8BIT RELEASES
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After fooling  around with ST and Falcon  stuff I thought, "Eh, let's check what
the 8bit Atarians  have done in the past months as "Numen" and the latest  demos
by the Quasimodos are  already covered  by dust again... so time to discover new
stuff...

The first  thing that came  up to my mind  was the all  years  happening Forever
party, that took place in spring this year. It's already the  4th edition and if
I remember right, it brought always some little 8bit releases.
Checking up  the file containing all the releases  I got  a bit disappointed, as
the old hyper  active 8bit scene seems to vanish slowly. All demo  stuff on this
disk  are 4 different  1k intros, a  few pictures  as well as  musix. But let me
check them up anyway...

Drab by Fox

This little  intro has won the competition quite clearly and offers  a nice chip
tune, no  burner but better  as the ears tormenting noises of the other ones, as
well as some vector stuff. So you can see some glence vector cube turning around
on the  screen as well  as  some vector squares in different  colours. I have to
say I like this one and it has won the compo with right.

Wow1K by Raster of C.P.U. This small intro took the second place and brings us a multicoloured scrolling background thats layers are moving in different speed. You can listen to a quite nerving tune all the time you watch the intro. As main effect after a while an animated one plane sprinter comes up, running along the scrolling background. That's it, looks not that bad for 1k even though the music is brain melting...
Fucking Weather by Bob!k of C.P.U. This screen starts with a light blue background showing some yellow circle that obviously should be seen as the sun. Some strange noises came up and slowly you can see a texture, thought to be clouds, scrolling over the screen. The whole thing gets darker, darkening the sun and finally some kind of bolts are blinking in the scrolling cloudy texture, together with some crushing chip noises. Very strange idea, gets some bonus points for this :) Linea 256 by Lewis of AIDS This one seems to be just a 256 byte intro, showing some of those 3d line effect you learn in Basic at the first lessons in different colours. Nothing more to add here, looks a bit outdated and boring. Other things from the party? Raster of C.P.U. did an sixteen (?!) players game for the Multijoy interface called "Shot'em all". Ofcourse I wasn't able to check it out here... eh, eh... The pictures are in parts of good quality, Raster brings a pic in 32o * 16o resolution showing a fortress in the water or something. The others show comical stuff or just simple logos, but mostly in interlace mode. What we have left, the musix. I didn't matched it to get all of them to my ears, I have to admit... But the ones I listened are of good quality, for example the tune "Accident" by Xray of Slight & Taquart or "Still Alive" by Greg of Bit Busters, that uses 8 channels in its tune. I just hope at the moment, that there will be a next edition with more Atari 8bit related releases next year. _________________________________________________________________moondog_o9/2k3_
UCM 25