From belly@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu Thu Oct 12 17:34:56 1995 Received: from mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu (root@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu [128.83.217.12]) by emf.emf.net (EMF-K/K) with ESMTP id RAA07399 for ; Thu, 12 Oct 1995 17:34:55 -0700 Received: from (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu (8.6.11/8.6.11/mcfeeley.mc-1.8) with SMTP id TAA17433; Thu, 12 Oct 1995 19:01:39 -0500 Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 19:01:39 -0500 Message-Id: <199510122352.QAA02826@emf.emf.net> Errors-To: slowdog@mail.utexas.edu Reply-To: belly@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu Originator: belly@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu Sender: belly@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu Precedence: bulk From: "E. Stephen Mack" To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Review of "Launch"'s Belly Content X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Belly/Tanya Donelly Mailing List! Status: R A while back, we talked on this list about "Launch" magazine and its Belly content. I finally bought it (from CompUSA for $8) and here's a brief review. LAUNCH: Reviewed October 11, 1995 for the Belly mailing list ======= SUMMARY: -------- A good beginning; looks sharp -- but paper thin content. Not enough Belly by half. BACKGROUND: ----------- Launch is a new magazine on CD-ROM. It's billed as a "Bi-Monthly Entertainment CD-ROM." The same CD runs on both Mac and Windows. This first issue officially came out around June '95, but it's still available and I don't think the second one is out yet. A six-issue subscription costs $35.99. On the cover, Launch offers: MUSIC Exclusive live performance and interview with Matthew Sweet plus interviews with Terence Trent D'Arby, Belly & Bettie Serveert and 20 album reviews with music MOVIES Behind the scenes of Fair Game Previews of Batman Forever & Cruz GAMES Play Marathon (Mac only), Relentless (demo, PC only), & Glider (demo, both PC & Mac) Video Fingerpainting: Gin Blossoms Music Video ANIMATION Debut of Squirrely & Six Pak, and Joey Noir REVIEW: ------- Well, it lives up to those promises -- but only barely. Graphically, it all hangs together well, looks sharp, and it seems to work (mostly). Obviously a lot of work went into it (a great many graphic artist hours); but I don't think there's enough here to justify the price. The content is too thin. In the Belly section, there are just three things: A very short interview, a brief discography, and a few pictures that show up randomly while you listen to about 20 seconds each of Red, Superconnected, and Now They'll Sleep. Chris Morris' interview does not cover any new ground, although there are some worthy Tanya quotes. The content for Bettie Serveert and Terence Trent D'Arby is exactly the same as with Belly: a few pictures, a brief discography, a short interview and excerpts from three songs off the latest album. Matthew Sweet rates a larger section: there's a live video performance in Quicktime (the song is also available as audio track two on the CD: it's "I Almost Forgot," acoustic, from _100% Fun_) and you can click on a interview topic to see Matthew answer five or six questions (or click on the faces of two other members of Sweet's band to have them answer the same questions). When you click on "Computers" you find that Matthew apparently owns a PowerBook; you can watch him talk more about it and other topics. Honestly, though, I'm no fan of his, so I didn't take the time to listen all the way through. He's just sitting there talking and I couldn't care. In addition to the above music content, there are also reviews of twenty current albums. These reviews are each accompanied by some pictures of the band and three different cuts off the album being reviewed (but only about 20 to 30 seconds each cut). The reviews are all short (about five paragraphs) -- and all positive (no surprise since the record labels had to give permission to include the music excerpts). The artists "reviewed" are: Simple Minds Juliana Hatfield Radiohead Ivy Spiritualized Too Short Massive Attack Des'ree Dionne Ferris Stone Roses Ass Ponys Mudhoney Chris Whitley Elastica John Lee Hooker Jacky Terrasson Christian McBridge Billy Childs Matthew Sweet (what, didn't we see him already?) Del Amitri Dave Matthews Band and Grant McLennan. The song snippets are just long enough to leave you wanting more. The reviews often feature interesting biographical information but are far from hard-hitting. Elsewhere: The game demoes are fine, the animations are both good (one is actually pretty funny, the other one is reminiscent of MTV's Liquid TV) but too short, and the movie section is a real disappointment: just some Quicktimes of two previews (the Batman Forever one particularly dated) and an outtake from "Extra Extra" for Fair Game, and two snippets of other movies courtesy of Premiere magazine. There are also some Quicktime ads and a somewhat lame interactive Dewar's ad. Oh, and a Gin Blossoms video that you can play around with (by doing stretches and wipes and so on while the video plays) but that didn't seem to work very well and it wasn't enough to hold my interest. As a Belly completist, you may feel the need to own this. It is fun to see Tanya on the screen, even as a still picture. If they had given Belly the full Matthew Sweet treatment, I would have been a lot more enthusiastic. But honestly -- this is an "interview"? If a major music magazine (you know, the ones on paper) had a cover story on Belly, you would expect more than 20 short paragraphs and six or seven stills. The brief musical excerpts simply don't add anything because they're so short, and they're just the album cuts anyway. Since Launch only takes an hour to see, I'd recommend against purchasing it (unless you're a big Matthew Sweet fan); you may just want to borrow it instead. TECHNICAL NOTES: ---------------- Many of the pictures are available from a hidden subdirectory on the disk, but I couldn't find the audio files, so those must be done as CD audio. Not all of the pictures are snarfable either; only the large Belly shot (an extreme closeup of Tanya's face) was sitting out there in .PIC format. You can't listen to the 61-minute audio track where the data is (Track 1), so there's no way to copy the audio to use a WAV file or sound effect on your desktop. Too bad. With Windows 95, you have to use a 16-bit version buried in a subdirectory, and they admit in the readme file that it was too rushed to have all of the features ported, so it doesn't quite work 100%. __________________________________________________________________________ -- Zeigen (E. Stephen Mack) estephen@emf.net Zeigen's Dilemma: http://www.emf.net/~estephen/ They can afford 30 full-time graphic artists but not a writer?