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| Line 1: |
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| − | <pre>
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| | | | |
| − |
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| − |
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| − | +__________________________________ __+
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| − | | XX IN REVIEW: x-dome #09 |
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| − | | XX IN REVIEW: x-dome #09 |
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| − | | __________ |
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| − | | |
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| − | | _ released by: ROLE |
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| − | | _ releasedate: 99-07-01 |
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| − | | _ runs under : YES |
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| − | | emulator? |
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| − | +________________________________ __+
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| − |
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| − |
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| − |
| |
| − | </pre>
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| − | <pre>
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| − | Arman/Role recently released the second
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| − | issue of his mag X-DOME in English
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| − | language and as the old X-DOME fanatic
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| − | I still am I couldn't hold myself back
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| − | from taking a closer look at this issue
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| − | of course. So let's start!
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| − | ........................................
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| − |
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| − | _ TECHNICAL REMARKS
| |
| − | ___________________
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| − | Hm, does X-DOME work together with
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| − | cartridges or not? Good question!
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| − | Sometimes it indeed does and sometimes
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| − | it does not! But in order to read
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| − | through the whole magazine in one flash
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| − | without reseting your c64 all the time
| |
| − | </pre>
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| − | <pre>
| |
| − | you really should follow Arman's hint
| |
| − | mentioned in the directory and turn off
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| − | all your cartridges, REU expansions,
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| − | SCPU's and so on.
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| − | The magsystem features a quite fast
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| − | build in software speeder however.
| |
| − |
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| − | In contrast to former (german) issues,
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| − | both the keyboard- and joystick controls
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| − | are now working 100%.
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| − |
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| − | _ THE INTRO
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| − | ___________
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| − | There is no intro this time, so nothing
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| − | more to tell here.
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| − |
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| − | </pre>
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| − | <pre>
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| − | _ THE INTERFACE
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| − | _______________
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| − | The main menu picture pixeled by VIP/
| |
| − | ROLE looks a bit strange in my eyes,
| |
| − | it seems to me, gold old VIP mixed up
| |
| − | a bit too many different styles this
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| − | time. However the big "X D" Logo
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| − | underlayed by a stone-like background
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| − | pattern looks quite great, the contrast
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| − | in colours was well chosen.
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| − | The really "strange" part of VIP's
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| − | picture are the icons representing the
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| − | four main groups of chapters the mag
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| − | is divided in, because you really can't
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| − | recognize which icon is representing
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| − | what! Of course you can find it out
| |
| − | </pre>
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| − | <pre>
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| − | quite easily with one single click,
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| − | but I guess creating some maybe a bit
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| − | more suitable icons wouldn't have been
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| − | such a great afford, would it?
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| − | Would you e.g. imagine a girl with a
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| − | vibrator standing for the "Editorial"?
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| − | I guess not!
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| − |
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| − | The text viewer comes with a huge and
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| − | colourful "X-Dome" logo in great shapes
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| − | pixeled by TMR/ONSLAUGHT/COSINE, its
| |
| − | background is kept in dark gray, the
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| − | chars in light grey, so a rather good
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| − | reading comfort is guaranted.
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| − | The status bar placed directly under
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| − | the logo is rather useless I'd say,
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| − | </pre>
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| − | <pre>
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| − | but of course my opinion must not always
| |
| − | be right! Just see for yourself.
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| − |
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| − | All in all the outfit deserves a rating
| |
| − | of 06/15 points, I'd say.
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| − |
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| − | _ THE CHAPTERS
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| − | ______________
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| − | These are naturally the most important
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| − | part of every discmag, so let's take
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| − | a closer look at them:
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| − |
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| − | As already mentioned some lines above
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| − | the chapters are divided in four main
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| − | cathegories.
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| − | Let us call them "Editorial", "Demoscene
| |
| − | </pre>
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| − | <pre>
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| − | Forum", "Miscellaneous" and last but not
| |
| − | least "Party Tales".
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| − |
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| − | The EDITORIAL Section comes up with a
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| − | long Leading Article written by Arman,
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| − | in which he mainly tries giving people
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| − | some more or less important tips in how
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| − | enjoying reading almighty X-DOME and so
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| − | on. Yeah, very intereresting...
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| − | The second part of this text deals with
| |
| − | gerneral information about the X-DOME
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| − | Staff, Credits and so on.
| |
| − | Altogether this is not what I would call
| |
| − | a good preface for a c64 magazine,
| |
| − | unless you're a ROLE-Member of course!
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| − |
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| − | </pre>
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| − | <pre>
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| − | Reactions contains two individual
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| − | reactions on issue #8 by RORSCHACH/
| |
| − | PADUA/NO-NAME and a guy called TUISKO
| |
| − | STEINHOFF (never heard of him) and
| |
| − | several answers on general questions
| |
| − | to the editors. Nothing special here,
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| − | just a chapter nearly every mag nowadays
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| − | has, I believe.
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| − |
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| − | The Adress List has become quite a small
| |
| − | one this time, this surely depends on
| |
| − | the low annount of snail sheets that got
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| − | spread with issue #8.
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| − |
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| − | OK, so much for the EDITORIAL.
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| − |
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| − | </pre>
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| − | <pre>
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| − | The DEMOSCENE FORUM covers a large
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| − | annount of different kinds of
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| − | information about the latest happenings
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| − | in our scene.
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| − |
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| − | The News Part has become quite a big
| |
| − | one this time, most of the really
| |
| − | actual and varied news on the latest
| |
| − | incidents in nearly all active nowadays
| |
| − | scene groups got supplied by MacGyver/
| |
| − | DMAGIC, a name that stands for nothing
| |
| − | than quality for sure.
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| − |
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| − | Next is Charts, with just 17 votesheet
| |
| − | fillers this time, due to some mistake
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| − | the staff made by spreading the sheets.
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
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| − | Yeah, things can only get better...
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| − | No further comment here.
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| − |
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| − | This issues Scene Poll deals with the
| |
| − | situation of todays mag scene.
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| − | It got spread by Arman via E-Mail to
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| − | some chosen guys (what about making
| |
| − | public scene polls, dude?) and the
| |
| − | majority of its fillers still regard
| |
| − | the mag scene as mega-active and are
| |
| − | more than satisfied with the annount
| |
| − | of mags getting released these days.
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| − | Well, I guess you don't have to be
| |
| − | Albert Einstein to realize that this
| |
| − | cannot be the case, but if you look at
| |
| − | the fillers names you might understand.
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | What the heck do people like MR. SEX,
| |
| − | FUNGUS, FANGORN, etc., whose only
| |
| − | activity seems to be hanging around
| |
| − | in #C-64 IRC know about the situation
| |
| − | of todays mag scene? Nothing, because
| |
| − | they're simply not involved in this
| |
| − | field! Sorry Arman, but you asked the
| |
| − | wrong guys about the wrong topic!
| |
| − | You can't just surf through #C-64
| |
| − | picking some guys you think are known
| |
| − | enough for you and your mag profiling
| |
| − | yourself and leaving the entirely
| |
| − | topic behind! It really seems to me
| |
| − | that Arman just wanted to have some
| |
| − | popular names in his magazine, his
| |
| − | attitude should be clear...
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | The Profile of Nastiness, Inc. I guess,
| |
| − | there nobody who does not know the name
| |
| − | of the former main editor of the
| |
| − | legendary Tribune Magazine. Although I
| |
| − | really cannot see much sense in
| |
| − | interviewing persons who left scene long
| |
| − | time ago and have no connection to
| |
| − | todays scene any more, this interview
| |
| − | really contains some very interesting
| |
| − | thoughts not only about scene business.
| |
| − | So it's really worth reading after all.
| |
| − |
| |
| − | Magreview Number 1 starts with a list of
| |
| − | all(?) magazines that got released from
| |
| − | November of '98 till July of '99. Quite
| |
| − | an unusual way to start such a chapter,
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | why not simply putting this list into
| |
| − | the Newsflash? At least one mag, namely
| |
| − | Dimension Issue#2 with the releasdate
| |
| − | of June 29th 1999 is missing in this
| |
| − | list, so be careful with the phrase of
| |
| − | "all". After Arman is finally finished
| |
| − | with his blabla about active mailscene
| |
| − | (yeah, maybe back in 1998, but...) once
| |
| − | again, he decides that it's now time for
| |
| − | starting with the first review of non
| |
| − | other mag than Dimension Issue#1 by
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| − | Tempest.
| |
| − | The review itself could have been a bit
| |
| − | more detailed in some ways, also style
| |
| − | and use of language cannot be classified
| |
| − | as originla or brilliant.
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | Just look at phrases like "(...)under
| |
| − | the lead of the maineditor Floyd(...)"
| |
| − | or "(...)during the whole magazine a
| |
| − | nice Dimension Logo by JB is filling the
| |
| − | right side of the screen (...)" which
| |
| − | are neither grammatically correct nor do
| |
| − | they represent a good piece of
| |
| − | journalistic style.
| |
| − | Objectivity is surely given in this
| |
| − | review, but it's quality and style that
| |
| − | are missing!
| |
| − |
| |
| − | Magreview Number 2 deals with Xenoglossy
| |
| − | Issue #2 by Banshee. No further comment
| |
| − | here, just look at my remarks above,
| |
| − | because here it's just the same...
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
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| − | Mags Today happenes to be some sort of
| |
| − | "Arman's Guide to Magazine Galaxy".
| |
| − | It comes up with a list of all magazines
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| − | "alive" today. Well, I don't think you
| |
| − | can call mags like "Driven", "Nitro",
| |
| − | "Propaganda", "Relax" (hahahaha!),
| |
| − | "Vandalism News", etc. "alive" any more
| |
| − | better phrases would be "delayed like
| |
| − | hell" or even "dead" (in case of
| |
| − | "Driven" and "Relax" (which got NOT
| |
| − | released under the label of Oxyron, dear
| |
| − | Arman, but PHUTURE) this one surely is
| |
| − | the right choise.
| |
| − | However the guide also features a second
| |
| − | list with so-called "important" mags
| |
| − | that died in the course of the last
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | couple of years. Hm, the question is,
| |
| − | do magazines like "Adwarp English" or
| |
| − | "Necropsy" really fit in here?
| |
| − | I and also many other people do not
| |
| − | think they ever played such an important
| |
| − | role in the mag scene after all!
| |
| − |
| |
| − | The last article in this forum is called
| |
| − | The Party 8-Music Review (hm, was there
| |
| − | just one tune released in Aars?) and
| |
| − | it's supplied by ABBADON/DAMAGE.
| |
| − | All in all his reviews are nothing
| |
| − | special. The only critical remarks that
| |
| − | could be mentioned here are that he in
| |
| − | some (not all!) of his reviews could
| |
| − | have gotten a bit more into detail,
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | also it would have been a rather nice
| |
| − | idea playing the tunes both on old and
| |
| − | new SID in order to point out the
| |
| − | differences in quality, e.g. concerning
| |
| − | RAYDEN's tune! These things meanwhile
| |
| − | should be standard in every party music
| |
| − | reviews, shouldn't they?
| |
| − |
| |
| − | MISCELLANEOUS features articles dealing
| |
| − | with topics from in- and outside the
| |
| − | scene.
| |
| − |
| |
| − | The C64 XXX Report is supposed to be
| |
| − | some kind of "review" of several C64
| |
| − | Erotics GFX Collections. This article
| |
| − | is simply pure trash with no sense in it
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | at all and a pure catastrophe both in
| |
| − | language and style! It reminds the
| |
| − | reader of the good old XDOME german
| |
| − | times immediately, when such articles
| |
| − | were published in every single issue!
| |
| − |
| |
| − | #C64 Everyday Life just contains a
| |
| − | (platin old) logfile from #C-64.
| |
| − | Well, better check out the IRC yourself!
| |
| − | But anyway you get here some really
| |
| − | good tips on what you should definately
| |
| − | NOT do in #C-64, unless you'd like to
| |
| − | be kicked and banned of course!
| |
| − | Arman however seems to have confounded
| |
| − | #C-64 with #Erotic somehow, hasn't he?
| |
| − |
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | Role Diaries is surely one of the
| |
| − | biggest articles in the entire mag,
| |
| − | telling the complete group history of
| |
| − | the known belgium crew from its very
| |
| − | beginning till today, written in the
| |
| − | form of a diary. It's really interesting
| |
| − | to read such a detailed profile of one
| |
| − | of the oldest and still active groups
| |
| − | in our scene. The article would have
| |
| − | been even more perfect without the
| |
| − | catastrophal English in some passages
| |
| − | and the strange change of point of views
| |
| − | (although it is supposed to be a diary,
| |
| − | there are several passages written in
| |
| − | the third person point of view and then
| |
| − | suddenly COMMANDER, the author, suddenly
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | becomes a first person narrator again.
| |
| − | There are also several remarks by
| |
| − | OCHRANA placed in brackets in the course
| |
| − | of whole article which are are little
| |
| − | bit disturbing, I'd say.
| |
| − |
| |
| − | Next is an Advertisement on the new
| |
| − | SID COLLECTION CD by XENOX/AFL'70, taken
| |
| − | from the internet, followed by
| |
| − | an article by OCHRANA dealing with
| |
| − | different aspects of the Millennium
| |
| − | problem. Although the article itself is
| |
| − | quite detailed, it does not bring any
| |
| − | new aspects the majority of the readers
| |
| − | did not know so before already anyway!
| |
| − | The article (or at least parts of it)
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | are seemingly copied from some computer
| |
| − | magazine, at least there are a few
| |
| − | indicators for this supposition.
| |
| − |
| |
| − | In the second edition of his column
| |
| − | Taxes or what? COMMANDER compares car
| |
| − | taxes in different european countries,
| |
| − | coming to the conclusion that car
| |
| − | drivers from the Benelux States should
| |
| − | better move to Luxemburg.
| |
| − | Does this article really feature
| |
| − | anything new? Well, that's also the
| |
| − | question here!
| |
| − |
| |
| − | OK, so much about this section.
| |
| − |
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | PARTY TALES! Yeah, this one is really
| |
| − | great! It features loads of party
| |
| − | results, reports and of course
| |
| − | invitations. Party on!
| |
| − | Hopefully the staff will keep on their
| |
| − | good work with this section in further
| |
| − | issues.
| |
| − | The only funny thing here is (of course)
| |
| − | COMMANDER's Mekka+Symposium 2k-1 party
| |
| − | report in really "perfect and brilliant"
| |
| − | English. Well Serge, I really cannot
| |
| − | remember myself having taken an airplane
| |
| − | to get home (as you mentioned in your
| |
| − | report). Always remember: It's not
| |
| − | "to flee, flight, flight" but "to flee,
| |
| − | fled, fled", dude!
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | If you haven't found out already, a
| |
| − | click on the grey and sick looking
| |
| − | lady in the middle of the right border
| |
| − | leads you into the music menu,
| |
| − | featuring four exclusive tunes by
| |
| − | AGEMIXER, GLENN RUNE GALLEFOS and DA
| |
| − | BLONDIE and some three additonal ones
| |
| − | by TRIDENT and TAKI.
| |
| − |
| |
| − | Well, it's surely not easy judging the
| |
| − | chapter's quality of the entire mag.
| |
| − | On the one hand we have the brilliant
| |
| − | News Part and Party Coverage, but on
| |
| − | the other hand there is the rest of the
| |
| − | articles, whose quality differs from
| |
| − | rather good (Role Diaries), average
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | (Music Reviews) down to lowest pieces
| |
| − | of crap (Commodore XXX Report, #C-64
| |
| − | Everyday life e.g.).
| |
| − |
| |
| − | One aspect which was disturbing me most
| |
| − | while reading through the different
| |
| − | chapters was the lack of affort the
| |
| − | maineditors ARMAN and COMMANDER put on
| |
| − | style and language. OK, you judge X-DOME
| |
| − | as a second XENOGLOSSY (the mag by
| |
| − | Banshee) with spelling mistakes in
| |
| − | every second line, BUT if there is one
| |
| − | thing that needs to be improved in
| |
| − | furher issues than it is definately the
| |
| − | use of the English language!
| |
| − |
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | The annount of crap texts also could be
| |
| − | reduced a bit, replacing these by
| |
| − | quality articles dealing with topics
| |
| − | the sceners are really interested in!
| |
| − |
| |
| − | Sorry dudes, but any rating of more than
| |
| − | 07/15 would have been a rather bad joke!
| |
| − |
| |
| − |
| |
| − | _ TEXT LAYOUT
| |
| − | _____________
| |
| − | The mag features a 1x1 characterset done
| |
| − | by my old buddy SHRI SADHU/EX-WILLOW.
| |
| − | Everyone who knows Michael's charsets
| |
| − | knows that they stand for quality and
| |
| − | readable chars and lots of special
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | characters and so does this one.
| |
| − | Although it's surely not the best one
| |
| − | Michael ever did and the fact that
| |
| − | (especially in the bold mode) some
| |
| − | letters are sometimes a bit hard to
| |
| − | read due to the fact that the chars
| |
| − | are maybe a bit too small, it is still
| |
| − | absolutely readable and fits into the
| |
| − | whole magazine (which is quite an
| |
| − | important aspect in my mind).
| |
| − |
| |
| − | The quality of the layout itself differs
| |
| − | from chapter to chapter. On the one
| |
| − | hand we've got well structured and
| |
| − | sorted News and Party Coverages, but on
| |
| − | the other hand also very unstructured
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | articles with loads of layout errors in
| |
| − | it such as some of the reviews or the
| |
| − | Mekka+Symposium 2k-1 partyreport by
| |
| − | Commander/Role for example.
| |
| − |
| |
| − | All in all I think that the editors made
| |
| − | much too less use of all the special
| |
| − | characters their character set offers
| |
| − | them in order to pop up the whole layout
| |
| − | a bit.
| |
| − | Sumed up you can say that the text
| |
| − | layout surely is not bad but also
| |
| − | nothing special indeed.
| |
| − | So just an average rating of 07/15.
| |
| − |
| |
| − |
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | _ SO WHAT...?
| |
| − | _____________
| |
| − | X-DOME #9 features some highlights but
| |
| − | also lots of crap that better should
| |
| − | have been left out.
| |
| − | Also the mag is a bit too much Internet-
| |
| − | orientated in my eyes. Leaving the
| |
| − | snailmail scene out nearly completely,
| |
| − | time will show how long this is gonna
| |
| − | work properly (I guess you all remember
| |
| − | the spreading mistake in connection with
| |
| − | with the last issue, don't you??)
| |
| − |
| |
| − | Talking about Internet, that's also
| |
| − | the source most of the quality chapters
| |
| − | in this issue came from! The editors
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | afford of writing quality articles by
| |
| − | themselves at least can't be rated as
| |
| − | extremely high after all.
| |
| − |
| |
| − | To put it in simple words, X-DOME on
| |
| − | this level is an average mag, mainly
| |
| − | ment to be a forum for #C-64 Visitors
| |
| − | and other Netsurfers who like strange
| |
| − | textstyles and giving not more than a
| |
| − | cent on quality language and style, as
| |
| − | these two things definately cannot be
| |
| − | found in this mag, at least not in the
| |
| − | two english issues that got released so
| |
| − | far. The future however is open for
| |
| − | everything of course!
| |
| − |
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | _ FINAL RATING
| |
| − | ______________
| |
| − | Intro..............................+++++
| |
| − | Interface..........................06/15
| |
| − | Chapters...........................07/15
| |
| − | Text Layout........................07/15
| |
| − | OVERALL............................07/15
| |
| − | ========================================
| |
| − |
| |
| − |
| |
| − |
| |
| − |
| |
| − |
| |
| − |
| |
| − |
| |
| − | _______________________________SCORPE___
| |
| − | </pre>
| |
