
The PC Warez Magazine Review

Any warez magazine has permission to use this in their magazines as long
as they notify me before it's use.

(c) 1996 IPggi
10th September 1996

Email at ipggi@newton.dialix.com.au
HTTP://WWW.GEOCITIES.COM/ATHENS/5526

Welcome to Issue #3

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, INQ, RCN 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 allot
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. But 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!

RCN Web Page 3.0 is now open. And now is closed again, after RATM
left RCN and took the pages with him.

Cybermail merged into Affinity. So I will not be reviewing Cybermail 1 here.

INQ is not sure weather to call it quits. But don't expect a new issue for a
while now.


Word For Thought.

These game reviewers all seem to be Americans. The problem here is that these 
magazines are read by an international audience. If you are going to write for 
an international audience you don't use words that only a local audience would
understand. In both RCN and TGR they say in the "Australian Rugby League" game
review that it is similar to football. Football is a word that means many
different things around the world. Football in Europe usually means Soccer,
football in Australia usually means Australian Rules but is widely used for
both Soccer and Rugby as-well. Football in Ireland means Irish Football. I
new they where referring to Gridiron. But that is only because of my heavy
influence from the American culture via TV and film. Some people are lucky
enough not to have this influence and may not have even heard of US Gridiron.
But instead think the writer is talking about soccer which would then totally
confuse them. America is not the whole world. At least not to the other 95.6%
of the world.


**************************************************************************
                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 The Anti-RCN Magazine
Title: Affinity 4 (Bi-Weekly)
Released: 9th Aug
OS: DOS

* After a long time waiting for this issue I must say first impressions do
impress. The title screen has to be one of the best I have seen in a long time,
plus there is a pretty funky song to match. But like I say these are only first
impressions. Unfortunately when I look deeper, I find some major flaws.

* 6 interviews in this issue. Unfortunately there is nothing here to really make
me look up and say wow! But here are some of the interviews that are worth a
read.

Riptide interviews Entropy about why he and a few friends are taking over #RCN.
Entropy also writes an article about why he hates RCN with a passion and why he
believes RCN is the downfall of the scene.

UPDATE: I was in #RCN today (9th September) and saw one individual, Lestat
re-takeover the channel once again. He was by himself and did it around early
in the morning (US-PST). I asked him a few questions on why he takes over #RCN
as I think it is a pointless task and proves nothing. He replies that he did
it for fun. Now Lestat is 16 and is senior/council of Amnesia/PWA/CD etc. I
thought someone of this stature would surely have better things to do with 
his time. I made this remark to him and he promptly banned and kicked me
from #CD and told me to shutup and leave him alone.

Entropy then goes on to interview RATM the one time Web Page Manager for RCN.
Was Entropy the really best choice for this interview? Well I will leave that
for you to decide.

Finally for you fans of old-warez bStar get interviewed about his group DPS.
This group re-distribute warez. What does that mean ? Well read it for yourself.

* 17 Articles in this issue. 17 is a damn lot to go through :) But I made it,
and my final conclusion is... There is alot of quantity and a major lack in
quality. Put plainly there is a lot of trash here. To be honest I found nothing
here that really interested me. A few of the more readable ones.

Lakzam: In you article about Feds on IRC. You say don't worry if someone comes
up to you claiming they are a Fed. Even if they have an address something@fbi.com.
 Why would a Fed have a commercial FBI provider ?! I thought they would use
.gov (government).

You can find out about the short history of Cybermail and their merge into
Affinity.

Read about entropy's hate/hate relationship with RebelChicken and RCN.

More RCN when Shadow Master complains about RCN means of collecting information,
and claims they don't know what they are talking about.

* The Review Crew once again do some good, in-depth reviews. The only problem
is there are not enough reviews. If Ionizer can do it weekly surely you can
do it bi-weekly.

* This issues spotlight is on a all female run group. GLOW AKA Gorgeous Ladies
of Warez is a new group dedicated to giving women a place in the scene where
they can have their true talents unearthed. I personal wouldn't mind being
and an all female leadership group. Women have less testosterone and there for
don't usually have problems associated with pride and ego.

* A new feature in Affinity is FTP Reviews. This lists a few anonymous ftp
sites and tells you what you can find in them. These programs tend to be old
but it is a great feature for those who don't have regular access to sites or
for those looking for an older release. The only problem that I found with this
is FTP anonymous sites have a tendency to vanish as quickly as they appear.
This may leave some of the listing outdated.

* Better coding this time, but I enjoyed reading Affinity 3 more then this issue.
There was also way to much focus on one topic, mainly Reality Check Network.

2 1/2 out of 5


MORE NEW STUFF
Title: RCN 26 (Bi-Weekly)
Released: 1st September
OS: DOS
MadRCN P/W: FOX

* RCN is back for another week. Who ever said RCN is dyeing doesn't know what
they are talking about. This still is the leading and dominate magazine in the
scene at the moment. And most likey will continue to be for at least the next
few months (that's a long time in the warez scene).

* This issues headline is "Group Trickery". Included is Everlast boycotting
Razor, Prestige stealing a crack (Prestige's response can be found in Affinity
4) and Razor releasing Beta's. I wonder if we will read about the latest
boycott of Prestige in RCN-27?

* The usual 8 interviews can be found here. Check out Hoson's interview who
talks about Hybrid's comeback. Also don't forget to read Roundman's interview
with Pentax, I see big things for this group. There is an interview in here
with Endeavor about COPS closing. This is very old news and I'm sure RCN has
already interviewed Endeavor about this before. In my opinion this is a very
cheap way of fill space.

* 16 articles and fortunately unlike Affinity the are not all mainly crap.
Unfortunately a lot of articles in the Miscellaneous are just reprinted
extracts from newspapers and magazines.

First off we have a Reflux meeting log. I'm not sure if this was used with
permission from TKLP or Reflux but didn't RCN promise they would stop this
kind of behavior?

Another infamous RCN log. This time it's a conversation between Wintrhawk
and ByronZed. Is the log real? I'm sure it is. Has the log been edited by
RCN? Well I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

In Prozac's article "RISC plays Dirty" read the white text at the bottom of
the article. I'm sure the Anti-RCN committee would love to totally disagree with
this :)

* I mentioned in the last TMR about a new section in RCN. FTP courier reviews
and I gave high praises for this original idea. Now RCN has gone one step
further we now have BBS Courier Review which is written by Silent Mobious
and Demond.

* The feature GOR or Games On Review is still going strong. This is the only
place where you will find two reviewers reviewing the same game. But tell
me guys, is it standard practice to review freeware beta's that can be found
on Electronic Arts Web Page?

* This weeks RCN bonus feature is totally dedicated to TKLP. I criticised Affinity
for talking too much about RCN. Now I will criticised RCN for over the past few
months they have overkilled Reflux and TKLP. In this section you can find some
of articles and interviews about the famous TKLP which RCN have published
during their existence.

* Mad-RCN has gone really troppo lately. Warning homophobic and fatophobic
people should stay clear. Rebel Chicken assures me that the idea of the photos
was totally Hitex's idea.

3.5 out of 5.

           
WAVE ISSUE 9
Title: Wave 9
Released: Now out
OS: DOS
Due to the fact that Wave 9 had just under 50% of it's content based on NON-WAREZ
related topics I will not be reviewing any issues until this situation improves.
I have spoken to ChugLee (Editor of Wave) and he assures me Wave 10 will be a
great improvement. Why do I have my doubts?


WAVE ISSUE 10
Title: Wave 10
Released: 7th September
OS: DOS
Wave 10 was no different. I will not be reviewing wave in any future issues
until this situation improves.


GAME OFF THE WEEK: Full Court Press (MicroProse) from Reflux (80%)
Title: Ionizer's Game Review Number 37
Released: 1st September
OS: TEXT
Ionizer's DOS and Windows 3.1 reviews.

Caribbean Stub Poker from Prestige
Clif Danger (New Gen. Soft.) from Hybrid
Olympic Soccer (US GOLD) from Hybrid
Olympic Soccer MinRIP (US GOLD) from IRQ
Water Wonder
Time Slaughter
Strike Base (Max Design) from Hybrid
Azrael's Tear (Mindscape) from Hybrid
Ultimate Software's Product Library from Nemesis
Age of Rifles (SSI) from Prestige
Solitaire Antics from Motiv8
Hong Kong Mahjong for Windows from Prestige
Australian Rugby League (EA) from Legion
Barbie And Her Magical House
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Core Rules from Prestige

Path0s Windows 95 reviews.

Marathon 2 (Bungie) from RazorCD
Full Court Press (Microsoft) from Reflux


GAME OFF THE WEEK: NFL Quarterback Club '97 (Acclaim) from Prestige (83%)
Title: Ionizer's Game Review Number 37
Released: 8th September
OS: TEXT
Ionizer's DOS and Windows 3.1 reviews.

Zapitalism (LavaMinds) from Hybrid
Power 2 Play for Win 3.1
Way Cool Strategy Games from Demented Dimensions
Way Cool Word Games from Demented Dimensions
Jagged Alliance 2 (SSI) from Prestige
Jagged Alliance Stuff
NFL Quarterback Club '97 (Acclaim) from Prestige
Great Naval Battles 5 from Prestige
Pinball Prelude (Effigy) from Hybrid
Bubble Bobble Combo (Acclaim) from Prestige
Xenophage (Apogee) from Prestige

Path0s Windows 95 reviews.

Monster Truck Madness from RazorCD
Free Enterprise from Tsunami


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

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:// No WWW Page
TGR:         http://ns2.clever.net/~ionizer

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.

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

WHEN ARE THE NEXT ISSUES DUE?
Affinity Issue 5 due in an estimated two weeks.    
INQ Issue 13 does not have a set date.
RCN Issue 27 is due 8pm Pacific Standard Time US. on Sunday 15th.
WAVE is released every 2nd Saturday of the month on a fortnightly basis.
TGR Number 38 is due out on Sunday 15th of September.

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. Version 4 coming soon ?!?
WAVE:     Wave doesn't have a WWW page at the moment. A page maybe coming.
TGR:      This page contains all The Reviews online and is kept very up to date.

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.

Don't forget to check out the new TMR WWW Page.

Thanks to Hurt for agreeing to do the new graphics to the WWW which will be coming 
soon.
Thanks to MrMister for the advert in Affinity.
Thanks to Lurch for coding the TEXT to HTML converter for me.
Thanks to Rebel Chicken for the advert in RCN classifieds.
