fpf1s3c07 WILDCOMPETITION NO MORE? c08 by RokDaZone c09What once started as a refreshing idea in order to enable artists from alternative platforms to present their resources and to be awarded for their efforts, turned out to be a moloch in the end. Although being extremely eyecatching, the Wild Competition at c08The Party VI c09was a mighty step back. Not less than 29 entries the organisers were able to collect from which the last seven were deselected randomly. Left 22 entries which is still much more than for any of the other democompetitions. Still there was not much left of the idea to have alternative systems running. The only exots were a c08ViC20c09, a c08Playstation c09and maybe several graphicengines like c08Onyxc09. Else? Simply PC's or Amiga's expanded by 4 GByte harddrives. Moreover, except for one release noone of them could be described as demo in our sense. Those were not even peripherically dealing with any Scene. The one exception yet again c08Infectc09. Their fast c08'Dataworld2' c09- sequel to the second spotter at The Party V - once again gave many effects, partymood, greetings and nonsense. This demo, however, ended on the 13th rank for not catching up with the overstylish videoproductions. Maybe also c08Impact DK c09kept a little spirit upright by massive egoboasting in c08'Bad Luck'c09, but else this competition was Sceneless - not to say senseless. c08'Maximal Wildness' c09by c08Magic Arts c09(a very tame videodemo that paid its detailed modelling by lacking speed) even was sponsored officially. Hard to understand also why the organisers accepted in letting simple videotapes into the competition. Since when is a videotape an exotic standalone system? Why even allowing socalled demos into the competition that for 80% consisted of nothing else than digitised sequences from commercial Hollywood movies (e.g. The Mask, T2) like in the case of c08Mentasm's 'Mental Phantasm'c09. Thank goodness they got rewarded for this affront by a lousy 15th rank. The Wild Competition which by far has arosen more interest than any other competition has become a show for videotrailers which demand nothing more than some knowledge on modelling and some fast processors. Surely this is an art for itself. Surely also are they great to look at when not the 3267th upwash of c08Star Trek c09is given. This, however, has plainly nothing to do with the idea of a Wild Competition and even less with a Scene competition. The only way to solve this seems to be to have a new kind of competition for videodemos, although there remains the question how long this one will be run by private people and not by companies? c07 REVIEWING SOME SPECIAL RELEASES f2c08'Rofly - Fly hard' by Frank S. f1c09A concept demo in which (very short) a strange but cuddly robohunter (mixture between helicopter and transformer) flies through a big city (NY?) until detecting a small green alien in a backyard and blowing it up. A short but geniously made videodemo which also contained a human actor rampaging through the virtual backyard. All this underlaid by splendid soundeffects and a bombastic theme. The maker behind this is noone less than c08Gandalf c09one of the mainorganisers of the c08Symposiumc09. There have been rumours that he had nothing to do with the production. According to those voices the demo was entirely made by a company called c08VCC c09with him taking away the tape without the makers even knowing about it. We asked Gandalf about these accusals: f4c10"I never would have dared to!" f1c09He is shocked. f4c10"I am system administrator for VCC and that's why had the opportunity to cooperate with the modellers. I made the last bluebox sequence myself, the other modelling was done by the VCC guys. The idea, the screenplay and all this again come from me." f1c09This videodemo collected 3272 points in the end and therefore is the clearest winner of any vompetition ever with around 2400 ahead from the second placed. f2c08'Ozonium' by Parasite f1c09A trip through a night-quite house from the view of a burglar followed by some streetlife from the the mid 21st century, containing a hunt over the Golden Gate bridge as climax. There might be a concept but it is not easy to follow. Very brilliantly PC-based videodemo, showing a big heart for details and realism, but which on the other hand lacks athmosphere due no use of soundefects and a very boring repetitive soundtrack. This one reached the welldeserved second place. f2c08'Showreel2' by MPH Animations f1c09The third place again was a sequel to the last years winner. An old Ford and a pseudo Damon Hill crash a PC to pieces. The crowd goes wild and the torture on. Much like 'Showreel1' this one gives highly stylish and heavily reflecting animations, e.g. the Akropolis, interrupted by moviesequences of obligatory PC-destructions. This and the fact that it was made on Amiga helped this one that high. Factually, there have been better productions in quality. f2c08'Veni, Vidi, Vic' by Jens Schönfeld and Marko Mäkäla f1c09This was real wild! f2c08VIC20 f1c09- A computer with less than 1 kHz and 16,5 kByte RAM (including an 8 kByte expansion). They made this computer do things it surely was not supposed to do: A zooming chessfield, upward scroll and rasterbars on a huge sprite, five fast unfilled vectorobjects and a scroller, bobs shading to the 'Popcorn theme', four-coloured zoomrotator and finally rasterbars rotating around eight scrollers. All in all five parts and four different themes from the original soundchip. Simply stunning and with the sixth place surely still underrated. More of it, please! f2c08'PSX Dream' by Twin/PSX-Dream f1c09A c08Playstation c09demo for the first time presented at a party. It consisted of a vectorface, Super Mario build of vectors with RB-lightsourcing, a tunnel, 1300 balls (bobs) bouncing on one screen and... end. Very short and therefore it is not easy to value the possibility the PSX offers for demosprogramming. Despite being one of the few real Wilddemos it reached the 14th place only. f2c08'The Killing of an Egg' - Nic Mathieu and Slim Ayadie f1c09Despite being a videodemo this one surely made an exception for having a concept (some kind of c08Robocopc09) in which human actors play the main role in a dark scenery full of animations and graphical effects, instead of having a fully animated world with a human character appearing every now and then. A very professional looking and also very ambitious project which also covered blasting soundeffects. The result reminded strongly of professional movietrailors and was of a very high quality. Its fifth place was well deserved.