It  was  1992 and not announced Desire
brought their coolest production ever!
Some  people  may say that "Evolution"
of   Desire   is  a  better  demo  but
"Menace" certainly was the coolest and
most  enjoyable  piece  of  the group!
Desire  claims  "Menace"  was an intro
and they announce the production as an
intro  in  the  ascii-text!  This is a
very  clever  move!  People will think
more highly of your production when it
is  a huge intro as when it is a small
demo!   Above  all  "Menace" could get
into  the  intro-entries of the charts
of   that  time!   Anyway,  what  ever
Desire may say; "Menace" is a one-file
demo  and no one will disagree with me
...    ..   

A   lot  of  people  were
surprised  by the release of "Menace".
Guy  Frost, the coder of "Menace", was
inactive in 1992 and nobody expected a
demo from him.  Also Desire as a whole
spend  more  time  on packs and little
intro's  as  on  cool one-file demo's.
But  suddenly  "Menace"  was there and
the  Dutch  scene witnessed one of the
few  highlights of it's history (Can't
be,   Unkown  Territory,  Menace,  Our
Nation, Big Time, Evolution).  In 1992
the house scene was peaking and almost
everybody  liked  the still cool house
musics,  therefore  it was no surprise
that "Menace" was a house-style demo!

After  you  load the one-file-demo the
first  thing  you  hear  is one of the
best  songs  made by a Dutch musician.
Fabian/Desire   made  the  cool  house
tune.   We  hear  the  cut  version in
"Menace"  but after being cut it still
is a great song to listen to.

The  demo  starts  off  with  a  white
bright   screen.    Then  a  fantastic
Desire  logo  appears  on  the screen.
Bip,  the  Belgian  artist,  made this
logo.   Guy frost coded a cool routine
to  show the gfx.  The same routine is
used  for  the credits.  He uses lines
which  flow  over  your  screen,  when
those   lines  reach  their  place  it
becomes   a  square  and  the  gfx  or
credits  appear  in  that  square.  It
isn't  hard to code this effect but it
sure looks pretty!  You have to see it
yourself  when you want to know how it
really  looks like, it is difficult to
tell.   Next  is a Menace logo created
by  Zorlac,  the brother of the famous
Desire-pack  maker Daze.  This logo is
also  very  neath.   Desire used their
three   best   artists  (Fabian,  Bip,
Zorlac)  on  Menace,  that's for sure!

Then  we  get some nice plasma-effects
which  appear  on  the  rhytm  of  the
music.   You  see  some  sinelines and
then another sort of plasma.  It's all
very  colourfull.   The screen flashes
from  white to black and from black to
white all the time.  Some vectors come
and move on the sound of little beeps.
It  goes  all  very  fast  and  it  is
difficult   to  tell  you  everything.
Things  appear and disappear again and
come back on the screen after a while.
For  example  vecorflags  of  all  the
country-divisions :  Holland, Belgium,
Germany  and  Norway.  More vecors are
on  the  screen  and  then  a serie of
pattern-pictures   are   shown.    The
pictures move on the rhytm of the tune
and  when  the music stops the pattern
picture  of  a feet against a basedrum
stops  too!   very cool.  More pattern
pictures  of  dancing  people come and
go.   Guy Frost shows variation and he
shows a lot.  You don't have to look a
long  time  at  the  same  effect  and
that's what makes it a cool demo.  The
effects are not new but they look cool
especially  because  of  the variation
and the rhytm.  Of course the Mail and
Modem  adresses  are  shown too!  When
the  musics stops for a second you see
the  word  "Stop"  on the screen, then
the demo continues again.

The  best  part,  in my opinion starts
when   the  music  becomes  absolutely
superb!    You   hear  a  great  house
piano-tune  while  the basedrumm keeps
beating!    It  really  sounds  great.
When  the  piano  is being played, you
see  the  piano-keys  displayed on the
screen.   You  see  the  key  which is
touched (as in the tune).  The colours
of  the  keys  vary  from red to blue.
During   this  effect  the  keys  turn
upside down and at a certain time they
even start to flow on the rhytm of the
music.  Very cool!  This really is the
best part.

The pattern pics of the dancing people
appear  again.   Now the are flashing.
Also   the  vectors  come  back.   The
second part looks like a re-run of the
part  before the piano appeared.  This
is  a  pitty.   Maybe  Guy Frost could
have  coded some more (other) vectors.
Anyway the demo is still nice to watch
to.   The  music  becomes  slower  and
slower  and  you  see  "Oh  No" on the
screen  and  then "It's The" ....  You
hear  a  sound  each time a word comes
up.  Finally the sentence is completed
with a gfx saying "the End".

A whole new music starts to play, this
music  is  very  slow  compared to the
first   one   but   also   very,  very
enjoyable.    Fabian  also  made  this
second  music,  so  no  wonder it is a
cool   tune!    On  the  screen  is  a
down-up-scroller    showing   us   the
credits.  We already knew them but now
we  also  know  who  made  the  second
music,  as  said  before  :  "Fabian".
The  credits also tell us that "Betasp
and Killraven" designed the demo.  (?)
Aragorn is credited because he did one
routine.   Then some rather dull texts
from  Bip roll over your monitor.  Bip
is better in French as in English, but
who  cares?  He is a great gfx-artist,
and   in his  words : "Graffiti  style
rules!".

All  in  all, Desire made a great demo
and  "Menace" is one of the highlights
of  the  Dutch  scene.  People seem to
remember it because "Menace" is highly
recomended  in the Hokus Pokus charts.
I can only end this review by thanking
Desire  for their great effort to make
the  scene  more enjoyable, especially
with  "Menace"!   Desire  :   Rest  in
Peace!


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