
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
25th Sunday 1996

Email at an676412@anon.penet.fi
HTTP://WWW.GEOCITIES.COM/ATHENS/5526

Welcome to Issue #2

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.

Notes and updates!

I have now included The Game Review is this newsletter. I will not be 
reviewing TGR but I will include a listing of all the games he reviews as
well as pAth0's Windows 95 reviews.

After a notable decision with Hitex, an editor of RCN Magazine I have
discovered that some comments I made about RCN's title screen for issue 24
may have been misleading. In fact the reason for this ugliness is due to
some errors in the code. RCN claims they would not deliberately release an
issue with a ugly title screen.

**************************************************************************
                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

**************************************************************************


A NEW LOOK FINALLY. BUT STILL THE SAME
Title: RCN 25 (Bi-Weekly)
Released: 19th August
OS: DOS

* Yes, at last RCN has a new look! But why did it take you guys so damn long?
I have been waiting for that new look since issue 14. Well no matter I am
sure I will tire of this one soon enough.

Here is a thought for RCN, loose that damn start up speech. It's so loud and
annoying, and ammeter. Have you no shame? Thank goodness you can disable it
from the DOS prompt.

* This weeks cover story is MTY vs. DOD. Last issue we had Amnesia vs. RISC about
one stilling the others sites, this issue it's MTY vs. DOD. And take a guess
what about .. groups stealing suppliers. What's next issue, RCN stealing AFT
members ?? :) j/k

* Rebel Chicken had his work cut out for him with 5 of the 8 interviews being
done by himself. This issue includes ...

Ordnance rambling (literally) about the return of RTS. Apparently this took
hours to conduct.

Prozac talks about his future, his past, and how he has worked out that being
number one means you can have no life. Rebel Chicken almost seems like he is
sucking upto Prozac in this one, maybe that's why he now works for them?

Alchemist of Reflux defends his group and also gives RCN a good bashing.

Demond modestly boasts about his group Syndicate and it's growing presence on
the scene, especially IRC. Contrary to popular RCN editorial beliefs I don't
feel this is the future of courier.

* Article wise you can find your usual RCN standard of 8. (Not including the
rejected bin. Included in this issue are ...

Tuxedo Mask writes about supplying games to game groups. I must say this
information is very out of date and in a few places dead wrong. Does T.Mask
actually research his topic or just makes things up? It seems he has done
the later here.

Prozac has his Beginners Guide To Couriering based on his own history.

The mysterious Xenon speaks! Unfortunately it's only one paragraph.

Pulseless makes some very good points about CD Ripping. You game groups should
take note of what he says. You could learn from this guy.

* This being the 25th Anniversary of RCN the editorial have included a
special section to dedicate this event. First is an interview with Rebel
Chicken about the history of the magazine and how it started. The thing that
shocked me the most is Rebel Chicken wishes to be a lawyer, great just what
the world needs. One thing about this interview is Rebel Chicken makes
out that RCN is the scene watch dog, and that the reason why they publish
articles/logs/etc. is in hope that the offending groups/people involved will
take notice correct the errors of their ways. I think the only reason RCN
publishes an article or a log is because it will make a good story.

* To clash with the 25th Anniversary RCN has started up a scene award
which will be awarded every ten weeks to a person who has contributed to the
scene. Lester won it this time, ironically he is an editor of INQ.

* Other new sections included in RCN is a rumor section, RCN newsletters
and Internet Courering Reviews. The IC Reviews are a very good and original
idea. Frost and Prozac both talk about each major courier group and their
performance on the main FTP sites. They are given a paragraph comment and
either a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

* Seven features in Mad-RCN this issue. The only one I will comment on
is Tuxedo Mask's Top 10 on Buzzy. Common RCN this kind of trash is not needed
in a publication like yours.

* Well that's it for RCN this issue, my final question is .. When will you loose
that damn Mario Bros. game, it's really a bore. And now you have added Beavis
and Butt-head laughs, ARGH!!!

4 for the content, 0 for the new look.


LOOK OUT RCN, AFT IS NOT TO FAR BEHIND
Title: Affinity 3 (Bi-Weekly)
Released: 22nd Aug
OS: DOS AND TEXT

* Well after trying to get this issue from the #aft channel and then
unsuccessfully trying their web page I almost gave up until MrMister decided
to show up and put his bot back online. 

* Affinity has a new look, it now supports SB8, SB16, GUS and ExtendedVGA GFX.
The new coding is a great improvement over issue two and feels a lot more
stable though some of the SVGA fading sequences seem to go a bit to slow even
on my Pent166. One suggestion though, Affinity really needs some VGA main
screens. Those ANSI ones really don't do the magazine justice.

* Wow 9 interviews, more then RCN this week. The difference between RCN and
Affinity though is RCN interviews people about the events that have happened
in the last week or two. While Affinity just interviews people about their
groups/affils etc., with no real focus on reporting what has happened in the
past week or two. If Affinity wishes to live up to their motto of "YOUR
ALTERNATIVE WAREZ MAGAZINE" then they must really cover the events of the past
two weeks like RCN does. Then we would have two versions of the story not just
the one. Otherwise Affinity can never be true competition to the scenes current
dominate publication.

* This week Affinity interviews ...

An interview with TKLP, seems like he has given up on RCN and now is trying
with Affinity. Here he talks about the usual Reflux stuff as well as some
slagging off towards RCN.

Tok gets questioned about Defacto, and then there is an interview with yours
truly. You want to know what really happened to Defacto and why we quit? Well
you can find out here. (Why didn't RCN interview us about this? Well they
wouldn't pay us enough :)

Ever wanted to know what and IRCop does? Well MrMister interviews one.
Unfortunately nothing thrilling or new here.

* A fair few articles this week, not all necessarily related to warez. My
above comments about Affinity's interviews apply here as well. This week you
will find ..

Ishemael tries to predict the future of the scene. Not that I happen to agree
with him.

There is an article here about the BBS scene being killed by the Internet
scene. We all know about this and it has been done many times before. This
person feels we should trade via Telnet BBS's rather then FTP.

Dante talks about Life On Mars, yes you read it correctly. He talks about
that new NASA discovery of single cell molecules being found on a Martian
rock. What does this have to do with warez? Nothing! But hey, I don't mind.
It's an interesting read.

A summary of Razor 1911's history can be found here, unfortunately it is a
very cutdown and brief version. The full version can be found at their webpage.
(HTTP://WWW.RAZOR.COM)

Speedball has the right idea here, his article "User Friendly" is very true
especially in 1996. Will the SPA take notice of this? I unfortunately doubt it.

* A new feature in Affinity is "Spot Light". This idea seems to be taken
from Defacto but this covers groups instead of people. This feature is a good
idea  and can hopefully grow into something special. This week they focus on
a pirate music release group. An interesting read will be found here.

* Finally we come to the review section. A few utils and alot of games
reviewed. The reviews are quite detail (most of them anyway) and their scoring
system has some unique features. My word of advice though, keep to reviewing
games and only major util releases.

RCN you better change your introduction, you now have some competition.
3 out of 5

NO INQUISITION THIS ISSUE
Title: Inquisition 13 (Weekly ?)
Released: 
OS: DOS and TEXT


GAME OFF THE WEEK: Crusader No Regret (%81) CoreDump
Title: Ionizer's Game Review Number 36
Released: 17th August
OS: TEXT
Ionizer's DOS and Windows 3.1 reviews.

Star Turtle HCJ             Sony       
The Gene Machine            Virgin        Razor/Hybrid
Crusader No Regret          Origin        Core Dump
General Chaos II            Sega PC       Aus. Elite Force
Gene Wars                   Bullfrog/EA   Razor
Three Skulls of Toltecs                   Razor
Crosswords Plus 2 (Win31)
WordQuest 2 (Win31)
Duke Nukem 3D Addon Vol. 2                FullThrottle

Path0s Windows 95 reviews.

HellBender 		    Microsoft     Reflux
Path0s Casino 		    Ultisoft      
GEX			    Microsoft	  Hybrid


HOW DO I CONTACT THESE MAGAZINES REVIEWED?
Affinity:    an475399@anon.penet.fi
INQ:         apd@openix.com
RCN:         an385476@anon.penet.fi
WAVE:        chuglee@ccnux.utm.my
TGR:         ionizer@ns2.clever.net

WHAT ARE THE MAGAZINES WWW PAGES?
Affinity:    http://206.245.196.81/affinity/affinity.html
INQ:         http://www.openix.com/~apd/inq
RCN:         http://www.rcn.org
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:         #INQ  (the channel is currently dead)
RCN:         #RCN  (there can be a conversation going)
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:         Join #RCN and type !RCN <Issue Number>
WAVE:        Try joining #WAVE and asking. Otherwise you are stuck.
TGR:         /ctcp Ionizer XDCC LIST or try TGR's Web Page

WHEN ARE THE NEXT ISSUES DUE?
Affinity Issue 4 due in an estimated two weeks.    
INQ Issue 13 does not have a set date.
RCN Issue 26 is due 8pm Pacific Standard Time US. on Sunday 1st.
WAVE Issue 9 is a fortnight.
TGR Number 36 is due out on Sunday 25th  

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. Refurbishment, thanks to some
          suggestions from yours truly. :)
WAVE:     Wave doesn't have a WWW page at the moment. A FTP site maybe coming.
TGR:      This page contains all The Reviews online and is kept very upto 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.
