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                      D  E  M  O  *  R  E  V  I  E  W  S

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                                DENTRO REVIEWS

                               EGB'S SMELLY SOX


Well, here I am again, with little to do  so  I thought it would be useful if I
start filling up some sectors  with  a  couple  of  dentro reviews. Dentros are
starting to become more and  more  widespread  now,  since  they can be used as
previews of megademos, group news and so  on....  Also,  it's one hell of a lot
easier to get a dentro out in time than an intro!
    It's a bit of a strange  thing  though....  Dentros are basically doing the
same thing that about 4 years ago would be  called a demo! Seeing as a few demo
screens stuck together are generally  called  a  "megademo", dentros are really
just... well, single demos! But  the  word  "dentro"  sounds a bit less "lame",
doesn't it? So "dentro" it is...
    Anyway, here are a couple of the  dentros  that have been released over the
past few months, and I notice a slight trend creeping in, see if you notice....


AMBIENCE/Chaos:

Well, they might never come out  with  the  Ripped  Off party demo, but they've
managed to come out with  this  dentro.  This  is  an "ambient house" demo, and
features loads of colour cycling patterns  set  to an original module by Tufty.
The patterns are very nice, and the module  is great! Though I notice there's a
big pause in which everything turns black between screens- about enough time to
depack an Atomix  packed  picture  onto  the  screen  I  guess!!  And one of my
contacts alleges that some of the pictures  were ripped off the "Vangelis" demo
on the Amiga!! But the point is- this  demo both looks and sounds very nice all
the same.


NUTHOUSE/Sentry:

This is billed as "the biggest house music  demo  on the ST" and I haven't seen
anything that suggests otherwise. This  is  a  1  meg  only  demo which plays a
module which is 561K in size and  plays  at  over  18 minutes long! It plays at
15KHz in normal mode, though if you've  got  an  STE or sound catridge, you can
change the output. A big "NUT HOUSE"  1  plane  logo spins around behind a text
displayer which contains all the  info  about  the  demo.  The  music is of the
slightly more hardcore variety,  but  not  the  ridiculous  squeaky noise type,
thank fuck! I've managed to  listen  to  the  whole  module, though at about 12
minutes into it, I found myself going towards the kitchen to make some tea! The
first thing I noticed about the moudle  though,  was that it was clear and very
cleanly sampled. A lession to all you housemasters out there I think!


SLAM (ANOTHER HARDCORE JAM)/The Wild Boys:

TWB have been doing  loads  of  digi-synth  dentros  inbetween  megademos for a
couple of years, and this  is  one  of  their  more  recent ones, the sequel to
"Hardcore Dancefloor".
    I must say I was immediately put  off  by the extremely shit title for this
one, but it was thought up by  young  Flashback  Jack,  who also had to do some
scrolltext as well! Given that he had to  do such strenuous work as well as his
other exploits such as drugs smuggling, he must  have had a lot of  pressure on
him so I'll forgive TWB this oversight.
    The other bit that put me off was  the  fact that it wasn't as slick as the
other recent TWB digisynth "Waveforms", which had  an intro, and a nice looking
parallax display bit while the modules played.  Instead all that happened was a
picture, full of Lemmings, with  the  logo  dropped  onto  the screen, a module
loaded and started playing while  a  small  1  plane scroller crawled along the
bottom of the screen, and small  vu  meters  jumped  about  on the right of the
screen. Even the original "Hardcore Dancefloor"  was more inpressive- bigger vu
meters integrated into the centre of the  screen,  and a large metallic 3 plane
scroller. And the scroller actually  disappears  whilst  a module is loading! I
thought that you would have MORE processor time when the module is not playing!
And the "smooth" rasters  in  the  scroller  could  quite  easily be cheated by
putting a 1 plane scroller  on  top  of  a  background  with horizontal ines of
colours 1-8, blank out colours 1-8, and make colours 9-16 the raster colours.
    But this  demo  does  have  some  good  points-  particularly  the modules.
Although I was initially put off by the hardcore mods by the Demon X, I have to
say they actually are well done. Although after listening to "Nerdhouse", I'm a
bit disappointed with the quality of the sound!


NERDHOUSE (NUTHOUSE REVENGE)/Sentry

What already? It's the sequel to Nuthouse! The module's not as long, but Sentry
have though up of some nice visuals to go with it. This is a "rave" video style
dentro, and unfortunately, it's the sort  of hardcore rave module which demands
fuckin' fast flashin' lights! Even worse,  they  flash in primary colours! Even
worse than that, they don't flash in  colour opposites, so you're likely to get
a fuckin' headache about 1 minute into  the  start of the screen!!! Also, given
the pretty good standard of graphics  in  the  intro,  I was a bit disappointed
with the graphics in the actual demo,  which were mainly big one plane letters!
The whole thing was pretty well sequenced  though,  and the music, which is the
main point of the demo anyway, is far  better than the "Nerdhouse" demo, and is
only about 8 minutes long this time. The  demo ends with a wibbly credits page,
and a more "ambient" sounding module.


PERPETUAL DAWN DEMO/Rich Tea & EGB's Smelly Sox

So far (27/3/93), this is the  ONLY  demo  to  have  come out of the Ripped Off
party last September! If you don't know  the  story behind it, it came about on
the last day of the party when  Rich  Tea  told  me  that he had a disk full of
digitised mug shots of the partygoers taken by Sub Humans in Turkey, and really
wanted to make a demo out of it.  So,  with  the  help of a sampler, we did the
soundtrack of The Orb's "Perpetual Dawn",  and  I  coded  a routine to play the
samples, and flick between  the  pictures  as  well  as  colour cycle through a
really garish selection of colours,  so  we  stuck  all that together, added an
intro with a scrolltext that revealed  what  REALLY  went  on at the party, and
released it 2 days later! The main  idea  behind  the demo was to take the piss
out of the forthcoming Untouchables "Rainbow"  demo,  since a couple of preview
screens were show at the party. (This demo still hasn't appeared!)
    OK, then I won't review it- you know that something from the makers of this
magazine is bound to be bloody brilliant,  so  I  don't think I'll need to do a
totally biased review!


MY SOCKS ARE WEAPONS/Legacy

This is probably the best of the  recent  dentros.  The first thing to hit you-
apart from the short burst of 70Hz  on the screen, is the initial "Gamesmaster"
style picture, backed by a great module  from  Audio Monster. This fades into a
spiral bubblefield with the credits, and then  to  a frame style setup in which
3D tricks such as  vectorball  and  3D  line  routs  are displayed. (Though the
perspective is a bit wonky!)
    The reason this is one of  the  best  dentros  is because it integrates all
these bits, which might not seem  much  by  themselves, intro a complete dentro
experience (Shit that sounds a bit  Sixties,  doesn't it?!!?!), ie it  all fits
together, rather than one bit, then a  big  long wait, then another bit, and so
on...


THINGS NOT TO DO/Inner Circle

This is a pre-dentro dentro! If you  haven't  seen this one, then you must have
been on the moon! It's a series of  8 animations of sprites that are based upon
the IK+ characters, so  we  have  them  doing  things  like  karate kicking and
shooting each other, cracking the screen,  shooting people and pissing on them,
etc.,... Some of it is pretty  funny,  especially  the timing of the animation,
and some of the proverbs like "So don't  let anyone shoot you then piss on you"
are good as well, in the others  I  started wondering if I missed any important
jokes, cause I didn't find it funny!
    Inbetween the animations are group news,  contact  address and so on. Those
bits are not too long and are evenly spread out. I must say I thought the music
was great! I hadn't heard any of  Count  Zero's  digi stuff before, all I heard
was his chip music, which always seems to  be  heavy on the bass and drums, but
the module he did for this dentro  was  completely different to that. Also, the
music at the end credits was even better,  but that was by 4Mat, and ripped off
the Amiga.


DENTROS COMPIL/(Animal Mine + Hemmeroids + Legacy)

This is a fairly new compil  of  dentros  that's  been going around since about
just before  the  Ripped  Off  party  last  September  (92).  It  contains  the
Dusseldorf Mess Dentro by  Animal  Mine,  a  version  of  Legacy's Socks dentro
cracked by MUG UK, and  3  dentros  (Dentro,  Beachtro,  and Fullparts) by  the
Hemmeroids who are unofficially recognised as  the inventors of the dentro. (Or
as they say "It's not an intro... it's not a demo.... It's an dentro!")
    The problem I have with  their  dentros  is  that while they're technically
bloody good, they usually just take one  or two tricks and keep repeating them,
and put loads of credits and stuff  inbetween. The tricks are very good though,
and the music is great.
    Much the same can be said about  the  Animal Mine dentro, although this was
mainly intended for the  display  at  the  1992  Dusseldorf  Messe at which the
Falcon was launched, and  was  updated  to  include  a  review  of the mythical
machine. There are a few good effects in  this  dentro as well, but you have to
wait ages for them!!


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