
The PC Warez Magazine Review

(c) 1996 IPggi
29th September 1996

Email at ipggi@newton.dialix.com.au
HTTP://WWW.GEOCITIES.COM/ATHENS/5526
You can find TMR 4 in colour in RCN.

Welcome to Issue #4

What is this magazine, The PC Warez Magazine Review?

This is a new magazine for the warez scene. This will not be about warez,
groups, couriers or releasing but about the magazines that cover the
scene in general. Currently there are four magazines in the scene including
Affinity, RCN, SSM and WAVE. My goal will be to give you the readers a review
on each magazine that comes out. I will be covering the good and bad points
of each magazine issue as well as giving details of what you can find inside
these magazines. My reviews will cover the magazine's quality, quantity of
reading material, presentation and weather I actually enjoy reading it. As
part of the review there will a section telling you the magazine's contact
Email Address, Web Page Address etc., as well as where you will be obtain
the latest issues.

Who is this person reviewing these magazines?

My nick is IPggi. I once was the editor of a magazine called Defacto. Defacto
lasted nine issues before we decided to call it quits. Defacto gave me a lot
of experience and incite to the electronic magazine scene (yes I call it a
scene of it's own). These reviews are my opinion and are no-way bias towards
any particular magazine. If you don't agree with me well good for you, go
and do your own review if you care that much.


News and updates!

Affinity 5 was delayed for a week due to internal problems, it is now out 
out and can be found at their WWW page.

RCN 28 was also delayed for a week due to RebelChicken having some sort
of break, and then realising there was no way they could release it in time.
Though i've been told by an insider RebelChicken has found something that
could destroy RCN. A girlfriend!

**UPDATE** RCN has been delayed for another week. Now this is getting very
disappointing. Is this the begining of the end for the premier magazine?
Well the only thing I know is that at least some of the content in RCN
will be upto a month old.

A little rumor going around is that some members of Core Dump wish to
start their own magazine. If anything does comes from this is I would be
surprised as a few of these Core Dump members already work for Affinity. 

#SSM and #mIRC was apparently taken over by RCN this last week. RCN totally
denies any involvement. Maybe those anti-RCN'ers got bored with taking #RCN
and now take-over other channels to give RCN a bad reputation?

RSN denies that they are an anti-RCN magazine, though if you looked through
issue 2 I would beg to differ. What does RSN stand for anyway Reality Sucks
Network?

Remember Defacto? Remember their new SVGA interface that never showed? Well
apparently one of the old members is about to use it for a new magazine.
Keep reading for more infomation.


**************************************************************************
                CHECK OUT THE NEW TMR WORLD WIDE WEB PAGE

    To find out the latest in the warez emag scene and the warez scene
         Links too warez group pages and links to warez magazines
     Not to forget this is the only place you can find all the issues
                   of The PC Electronic Magazine Review

                   HTTP://WWW.GEOCITIES.COM/ATHENS/5526

**************************************************************************
                                                              
Affinity Going Down Hill?
Title: Affinity 5 (Bi-Weekly)
Released: 
OS: DOS

* Like every issue before it, AFT's coding has been improved. Generally AFT
is a lot easier to look at then previous issues, not to mention an
improvement in the scroller. It seems this now works one hundred percent.
One suggestion though, add a music switcher which you can disable/enable.
Sure this maybe the same thing they use in RCN but it wasn't their idea
in the first place, someone wrote in and suggested it. So don't worry
about being called copycats.

* Five interviews in this issue. Included can be found...

Shadow Dragon interviews both Y0shi and The_brain. If you are into emulators
or the consol scene check these both out.

MrMister interviews glow for an update of their group.

* Seven articles in this issue. Included can be found...

Dante goes political talking about the up and coming US electon, fortunatly
only US readers need to read.

Fro tests out the main four compression technics avalible to your PC.
Speed and compression are both tested in this detail report using various
different types of files for testing. Whats the best compression tool?
Find out for yourself.

* Fro also reviews 14 releases, although quite a few of these reviews are
quite dated. But generally the reviews are sound if not good.

BTW Fro that built in Sega Master System game where you forgot it's name is
called "Hang On". There was also a secret maze game in there some where too :)

* This issues Spot Light focuses on a unknowen but an established cracking
group called "Mack Crack Corporation". Cracking seems to be the flavor of the
month.

* Affinity now has a release list. I find this list is a lot easier to view
then RCN's version.


* Generally an average effort. There is a need for improvement in both quality
and quantity.

2 out of 5


RCN Hits Hard At Prestige
Title: RCN 27 (Bi-Weekly)
Released: 15th September
OS: DOS
MadRCN P/W: CAT

* Another whooping issue from the boys at RCN. Is this their biggest yet? The 
first thing you notice is that RCN has decided to come into the 90's (Is that
a clich line or what ? :) RCN now has 640*480 256 graphics support and can
now support MOD format music modules. Unfortunately RCN continues to use that
ugly and out-of-date ANSI main menu and have not upgraded the music in this
issue (unless you count that crude 1984 Beverly Hills Cop theme). Maybe one 
day RCN will put those graphic and music artists to work?

* Lets start out with this excellent in-depth article "Prestige VS Hybrid".
RCN gives you a nice little introduction then goes step by step through what
happened. Also for once RCN tries to get both views of the problem. Unfortunately
TRC doesn't do much to help Prestige's reputation. This does lead to the reader
getting the feeling that Hybrid is the more favorite group with RCN. There is
one problem with covering a story with this much detail and that is the magazine
may end up over-hyping what actually took place.

* 8 interviews in this weeks interview section. The most noticeable ones 
include ..

Rebel Chickens interview with Johan Helsingius the once owner of the now
dead anon.penet.fi. For those of you who don't read newspapers read
this interview to find out why there is no more of those famous anon.penet.fi
addresses.

JimmyJamez re-takes his group DOD, hopefully to return it former glory. And good
timing as well, seeing PWA has lost a few important members lately.

My friend Dizzident talks about his new group, Devotion. Devotion has been causing
quite a stir on the courier scene lately.

For those into Anonymous FTP leeching NVC talks about their expansion. More warez
for the masses.

* 8 articles in the article section. Make sure you read Rebel Chicken's exclusive
with an Electronic Arts insider. The EA person mainly talks about EA, software
companies and pirating in general. A few days ago I found an EA worker doing
a quick jump into #RCN then leaving again. I manage to ask him a few questions,
before he had to go and do something more productive. Maybe if I get around to
it I will make an article out of it which will be published.

* This weeks special is devoted to FATE. Lots of big changes has happened to
this group including the group leader, one of the more respected people in the
scene retiring as president of the group. And another once trusted member trying
to split the group.

* The RCN rejects section now has an official name called RCN Extra. Here you will
be able to find all the interviews and articles that didn't make it in the first
time. Anything interesting here? Well if you are a fan of old warez read the
article about DPS (Dead Pirates Society). My only problem with these types of
groups is that I have never seen one last. Will this group break the tradition?

* Group reviews are now complemented with a short summary for the groups individual 
performance over the past two weeks. A great idea indeed.

* One thing I noticed in Jaq-o's and Ventor's twin reviews the other day. What
happens if the reviews contradict each other? Here's an example with Prestige's
release of Jagged Alliance. Jaq-o's says "This thing sucks lame graphics, lame
sound, like an old style strategy game." While Ventor claims "The graphics are
good, but the sound is awesome." Now who do you listen to? Should you just download
it and found out yourself? Well at 40 disks that's not a viable option for everyone.

Well if you need a more detail review maybe Link and Taz could help you out. They
have a new game review section in RCN.

Well this was a very interesting read this week. Keep this up RCN. But there is
always room for improvement.

4 out of 5


SSM The First Windows Warez Magazine ?
Title: Scooby Snack Magazine 1 (Bi-Weekly)
Released: 
OS: Windows 3.1+

* I unzipped this using DOS pkunzip with the -d command into a temp dir and then
ran the INSTALL.BAT file. It claimed that everything was installed okay but on
loading SMM-01.EXE I received a 16bit violation error. I rebooted my system and
tried again only to end up with the same problem. I have a pretty beefy system
with a ton of RAM running a dual-boot system Windows 95/DOS 6.22.

I'm sure this worked with other people's systems and I'm just having some bad luck.

N/A out of 5.


I Can Get This One To Work! 
Title: Scooby Snack Magazine 2 (Bi-Weekly)
Released: 23-09-96
OS: Windows 3.1+

* Well this is very unusual indeed. A fully Windows scene magazine, this must be
a first? And I must say there are some nice coding features here. Unfortunately
the rest of the magazine needs improvement.

* Coding wise there are some interesting features. Point and Click is the way
here with pull down windows and as well as the ability to customise a lot of
sections. There's a CD player so if you get bored of the midi's chuck in your
fastest techno and see how crazy you can make the nice Windows Beater go off.
I tried my 180BMP Winx CD and it when off :). Even with these features the coding
at times feels incomplete even unstable (it crashed more then once on me).

* This magazine is split up into your usual sections with quite a lot being
  near empty. I know this is only a second issue but I read the whole thing in
  under 10 minutes.

  Answer Guys will be a section where the readers write in and answer questions.
  (I think the name was taken from a Discovery Channel program called Inventions)

  Ask The Hacker will be just like the Answer Guys except it will be for hacking
  related stuff only.

  There where 4 articles in this issue and really nothing of value at all. Two of
  the articles did report on scene happenings, if this was improved I would be
  a hell of a lot happier :) The other two are what I call fill-ins, stuff just
  there to fill in space.

  There is a hacking section, unfortunately nothing new here.

  And finally there is a section called Mystery Snack which is kind of like Mad-RCN
  from RCN Magazine.
           
* Well coding was interesting, but the fact is that if this was just a DOS magazine
  I would have looked and laugh. This is only the second issue and hopefully things
  will improve. But until then I would stick to your main magazines.

1.0 out of 5 (1 point for originality in the coding area)


GAME OFF THE WEEK: N/A Read INQ 40 for information.
Title: Ionizer's Game Review Number 40
Released: 22nd September (And maybe the last for awhile)
OS: TEXT
Ionizer's DOS and Windows 3.1 reviews.

NCAA Championship Basketball (GTE) from RazorCD
Jigsaw Puzzle 1 SE from Prestige
Murder She Wrote from Prestige
Bad Tucker (Merit Studios) from Hybrid
Doom 2D from Prestige
Sydnicate Wars Preview/DEMO (Electronic Arts)
Absolute Pinball (21st Cent.) from Hybrid
World Empire IV (Viable Software) from Reflux
Jigsaws Galore Deluxe Edition (Outreach) from Reflux

Path0s Windows 95 reviews.

Microsoft Soccer (not the final version)



HOW DO I CONTACT THESE MAGAZINES REVIEWED?
Affinity:    dante@iinet.com
INQ:         apd@openix.com
RCN:         hitex@netcom.com
WAVE:        chuglee@ccnux.utm.my
TGR:         ionizer@ns2.clever.net
SSM:         SMURF2@Juno.com

WHAT ARE THE MAGAZINES WWW PAGES?
Affinity:    http://206.245.196.81/affinity/affinity.htm
INQ:         http://www.openix.com/~apd/inq
RCN:         http://www.rcn.org (Page Is Closed)
WAVE:        http://www.fh-wilhelmshaven.de/~dessi
TGR:         http://ns2.clever.net/~ionizer
SSM:         http://www.cris.com/~shadowkn

WHAT ARE THE MAGAZINES IRC CHANNELS (EFFNET)?
Affinity:    #AFT  (someone is normally there to help)
INQ:         Does not have a channel anymore.
RCN:         #RCN if it is not been taken over by certain individual.
WAVE:        #WAVE (one or two people usually there)
TGR:         Ionizer can be found in #RCN.
SSM:         #SSM

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO GET A MAGAZINE?
Affinity:    Join #AFT and type !AFT<Issue Number> or try their Web page.
INQ:         Try INQ's WWW page.   
RCN:         Try joining #RCN and asking.
WAVE:        Try joining #WAVE and asking.
TGR:         /ctcp Ionizer XDCC LIST or try TGR's Web Page
SSM:         Try the SSM WWW page.

WHEN ARE THE NEXT ISSUES DUE?
Affinity Issue 6 is due in and estimated one week.    
INQ Issue 13 does not have a set date.
RCN Issue 28 should be out by the time of reading.
WAVE is released every 2nd Saturday of the month on a fortnightly basis.
TGR Number 41 could be delayed for up to 3 months.
SSM: Number 3 in an estimated one week.

WHAT CAN I FIND ON THE MAGAZINES WEB PAGES?
Affinity: This web page is still under-construction. Nothing fancy here but you
          will find all the issues of Affinity as well as a group NFO and an
          online application.
INQ:      INQ's page is simple yet bold. I like this page as you can read
          the latest INQ online. INQ claims back issues are available but
          I couldn't seem to find anything.
RCN:      This site is currently closed down. RATM has rejoined RCN. Hopefully he
          will bring back his RCN WWW Version 3.0.
WAVE:     Wave's page has all issues of Wave online and ready for download.
TGR:      This page contains all The Reviews online and is kept very up to date.
SSM:      This page contains all the issues online. Unfortunately the page was
          designed by an immature web-artist. Lots of swearing, insults and
          K-RAD talk in there (as a joke I assume).


Well that's it for this issue. Next issue will come out when I have a few
more magazines to review. Hopefully that wont be too long.
