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                      FOREVER 5 PARTY ATARI 8 BIT RELEASES
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Strange, strange, strange... I didn't thought to have the possibility to write a
few lines about the stuff that was released for the "little" Atari's on that big
8bit party, held  just a few  days ago. Thanx  to Lotek Style  for supplying the
stuff as I really wasn't searching for it  in the end as I was too much involved
in fixing and finishing other stuff... So lets go...

Right at  first, there was much more stuff released on that party as on the past
edition, but  the majority of  the releases were  only small  intros again, only
RASTER of C.P.U. released a fulltime demo, called "BASIX".

So let's check the intros in chronological order (they way they finished in the
competition)

1st place: PLO by ERU and X-RAY of SLIGHT

After a counter running down we  sees some hi-res vector splines and dots stuff,
together  with a real nice  music. Reminds  me hard to some older ST screens and
looks quite impressive in some parts.

2nd place: EXE by ERU and X-RAY of SLIGHT

This screen starts with a very simple "EXE" logo and then  we get a known ST fx,
you know  that cool texture whirling thing we saw in almost every later ST demo?
Here we see  it on 8bit and  it looks quite good, changing the dist and colours,
finally it comes  along with some small music that unfortunately isn't that good
as  the one  in the  winning intro... Anyway, here  we have  another screen that
shows that 8bit coders still know how to code real demo effects...




3rd place: HELLIX 1K by RASTER of C.P.U.

This small intro shows us some counter, again, that comes out to be some strange
kind of  scroller later  on, accompanied with some  vector bar turning around on
screen and starting to dist later on, looks really cool. Unfortunately the small
chip tune is not that state of the art and torments the ears quite fast...
But anyway, a really nice screen if you ask me...

4th place: VECTOR CITY by BOB!K of C.P.U.

This screen  is quite interesting, as it shows a line vector city turning aroung
on the screen together with two sprites, a small helicopter and the sun. We even
get some quite ugly noises for the heli then. Not a bad screen if it wouldn't be
that awfully  slow. Unfortunately I'm  staying on the point to say, better don't
create some  stuff that will  be slow like  a slideshow... and  so this one is a
better  slideshow and you know... I hate slideshows ;) Nice try but far too slow
to be impressive.

4th place: GLENCHES by PROBE

This small screen took  the same  ammount of  votes like the previous one, so it
placed  fourth as  well. This  is a completely silent screen again, showing some
chessboard  scrolling  over the  screen in  hires, overlayed with a small glence
vector object. Not that bad but not a burner as well...

6th place: MATRIX 1K by PATARIK of SATANTRONIC

Oha, a Matrix screen again, and quite  nice one... In style  of the MATRIX movie
intro sequence you can see ascii signs falling down the screen in delayed manner
and building  up the MATRIX 1K logo  and the  credits for the screen. That looks
quite cool  even though the simple chipnoise are quite nerve tormenting with the
time... Eat dis...




7th place: PLASMA 4 by MATOSIMI

Hu, what a strange nick? And  what a  strange screen, starting with  some simple
logo or  something, as well as vertical sine scroller that introduces the things
to come, we  finally get some realtime  calculated plasma  effect, but I have to
admit  that it comes away quite slow. No music, nothing  else to add except that
the plasmas always using very nice colour sets.

8th place: 1K PARTY by T.M.R. of COSINE

I have to admit, that team (?) wasn't  known to me  before, even  though I'm not
that much involved into the 8bits scene, I know at least about the usual and big
names  there... anyway... This small intro just shows some disting plasma effect
with colour cycline, accompanied  with some buzzing  noise in  the background...
Nothing more to add, one of the intros  you've seen so  often before and you may
see in the future too...

9th place: FOREVER by LAOO of NEW GENERATION

Unfortunately I didn't got that one to run...

And so it  goes for the  last ones, the GRZYBSON INTRO 2 and some C64 stuff that
took the last place.

Other  stuff shown  there were  some entries  for the  realtime compo, just some
small joke intros, a bunch of in parts really nice musix and a very few pictures
and last but not least... one single demo...

BASIX BY RASTER of C.P.U. (Computer Platform Unlimited)

RASTER of C.P.U. is a wellknown  name in the  Atari 8bits screen and  also known
for some quite nice demo stuff, but what he did here is hard to digestible...
After some  logos by CPU and RASTER  we get  some green  screen, obviously  also
infected by the matrix  logo, ending up saying "Basix"... Next we listen to some
phone ring and  seeing some stuff on the screen, like tracing the programm, then
some numbers move around and the screen explodes in many ascii numbers...
Wake up cursor, the basix has you, follow the white rabbit.. DOS screen, loading
White Rabbit, and  a rabbit gets  printed on  the screen  in  asci... then  some
strange stuff  gets printed on  the screen, while several musix are replayed and
some stuff about Atari basic is told on the screen... Uh?
The  rabbit then  starts to  move on the  screen, very  simple animated, and the
story goes  on... broken  up with other Rabbit stuff... I have to admit, I don't
know what  this is all  about and it really starts to bore you to death... As it
is again some kind of fake/joke demo I'm so tired of. Happily the story is over,
the screen tells me right at the moment, bringing the credits...

Arf... It seems  as demos like "Numen" are lost for the 8bits as the majority of
the people  just  creates  small intros or... fake demos... I really  doubt that
this will  feed the  hype about the  stunning 8bit  demos from the nineties very
longer...

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Hui... what to say... the intros show in parts that the 8bit demo scene is still
around and overall still able to code more than just fake and joke demos...
Unfortunately  they don't  managed it, again, to  create some real big demo. All
those small intros  aren't bad but  as stand alone, they will be forgotten quite
fast... Anyway, it was another nice adventure in the 8bit demo land...

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