Propaganda 18 ch10

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|DRAZTIC|                         +----+
|DRAZTIC|                         |Draz|
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________________________________________
Hi! I'm DRAZ and this is my debute chap-
ter in PROPAGANDA. That makes me the new
addition to the PROPAGANDA staff...
Maybe you haven't heard of me before,but
I'm a member of F4CG demosection. A new
section built up by some old members of
a demogroup called: Noice.
Well, enough about that. This chapter is
not going to contain the story of me jo-
ining F4CG a while back. Nope, the topic
of this issue is:

                      GAMES
                      GAMES..
                      _______


I will try my best to give you an inter-
esting point of view concerninhg the
gamesmarket. So here we go...

 GAMES IN THE PAST
 GAMES IN THE PAST
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I believe that many of you often hear or
even say that the old days were better
times... When visiting grandparents they
always tell you how good life was back
in '38 and so on. I myself are very tir-
ed of hearing that all the time. But not
when it comes down to games, because it
is true.
How often do you play a newly released
game? I'm pretty sure that many of you
don't even check the new games out befor



spreading them or putting them in your
diskboxes. Atleast I'm like that. If I
play a game, (which by the way doesn't
happen that often) it's always an old
good one, made by an old company.
Back in the old days, companies like:
ELECTRONIC ARTS, MICROPROSE, SYSTEM 3 &
many more made awesome games which are
fun to play. My personal favourites are:

PIRATES/MICROPROSE: One of the very best
games ever to be produced. A brilliant
idea and game which has kept me infront
of my computer for many hours.
SKATE OR DIE/ELECTRONIC ARTS: Another
golden game, very cool graphics!
LODERUNNER/KINGSOFT: A very old and sim-
ple game, addicting game.
MYTH/SYSTEM 3: Stunning graphics and so-

und which kept me going to the end.
THE TRAIN/ACCOLADE: Another hit, making
you try to beat those fucking nazis. A
very good game with an original idea.

    I could go on like this forever!
    _______________________________Z

 QUALITY                            d=b
 QUALITY                            'o'
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Now we've come to something seldom found
in games today, namely: QUALITY!
Once again I'll have to mantion older
companies like ELECTRONIC ARTS, ACCOLADE
MICROPROSE and many more who had more
style and quality in their games than
companies today.



I find it utterly strange that this fact
is true, even if it is! It should be mu-
ch easier today to make better games wi-
th higher quality. I mean, today we know
more about the C64, we've got better
tools and we should be able to come up
with good ideas for new games. But appa-
rantly that's NOT the case gameproducers
of today.

           .. BUDGETLABELS ..
           -- BUDGETLABELS --
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Even certain old budgetlabels have done
budgetgames which are better than most
new fullprice games nowadays.
Take CODEMASTERS for instance... They
always made short and cheap games, that
was their motto. But some of their games



are actually better than certain fullpr-
ice games are today. Some of them are
even fun to play! Ofcourse I didn't thi-
nk of them like that back then, but take
BMX SIMULATOR. Nice graphics, rather si-
mple idea but it beats many games relea-
sed during 199O-1994.
Now we've come to a time in history I
think many of us want to forget, atleast
when it comes to games.

         .. C   FADING AWAY ..
         >< C64 FADING AWAY ><
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We all saw the C64 market slowly fading
away. 199O - The beginning of what many
of us thought to be the end... The C64
wasn't going to be produced anymore, the
gamesmarket was dying...


The major gamecompanies, one by one dro-
pped the C64 to move on to the other new
formats introduced on the market.
This however made many sceners to see
their chance to make an easy buck here
and there by making dull puzzlegames or
fullpricers which hadn't been thought
through enough. 199O-1994 were a golden
age for those guys, who wanted to make
a couple of thousands out of all those
puzzlegames released.
During this period, atleast I didn't pl-
ay many of the games released. Ofcourse
there were some really good games relea-
sed. CREATURES, MAYHEM IN MONSTERLAND,
LEMMINGS and a few more. But most of the
games were pure crap!
All those puzzlegames, poor quality,more



puzzlegames even worse than the first
ones,cracked by a million groups because
none of them had no protection. How hard
could it be?!Whenever a quality game got
released the amount of cracked versions
decreased like nothing else. Only the
old and good groups were able to crack
those games... Strange!?! Anyway, that
period of time was quite boring, atleast
I thought so. But all eventually comes
to an end.Some of the not so old eastern
groups began making games, and good ones
too.

                +-----------+
           ..   |Where's    |
           -- _ |my Pirates?|
                +-----------+



        .. THE EASTERN SCENE ..
        \/ THE EASTERN SCENE /\
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At first, I think none of us thought hi-
ghly about the new groups comming out of
the communist shadows. But they learned
fast and great talents began to show gr-
eat work, howing us how wrong we were...
Fancy demos came from the eastern parts
of Europe, many of them better than the
ones comming from the west.
Now the eastern groups saw their chance
to make money,and some of them certainly
took it. Some of them did like others
had done before, producing those ever so
dull puzzlegames. I'm NOT trying to say
that the eastern groups has been a revo-
lution, or gloryfy them in any way. But
still they have contributed some things.


           .. BETTER TIMES **
           \/ BETTER TIMES \/
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Well, I believe that we're once again
moving on to better times. The C64 are
once again alive and kicking. More and
more sceners returns, hopefully bringing
more life to the good old COMMODORE 64!
The games produced today are getting be-
tter and better. I think more and more
sceners who produces games has woken
from their deep sleep and realized that
better games, more thought through makes
more money than those darn small rapidly
done ones. I hope they've done that and
I hope that older companies return to
this 8-bit wondermachine!




     ** ESCOM BRINGING NEW HOPE **
     \/ ESCOM BRINGING NEW HOPE \/
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When ESCOM bought COMMODORE and revealed
that they are going to reproduce the C64
and sell it in China and eastern Europe,
I more or less cheered.
A brilliant move by them, but more impo-
rtantly: more C64!
ESCOM believes they're going to sell ab-
out 2 million C64's. This makes the C64
comming back to life again, and I do be-
lieve that the C64 gamemarket is back on
track.

Already you can see more and more game-
companies starting up their engines.
Competition among them is comming back,



which hopefully means better games with
higher quality.

Most of the gamecompanies today are bui-
lt up by sceners and maybe that's a good
thing. Atleast it should be, considering
how well we know the C64. This fact sho-
uld result in better games, but then ag-
ain that wasn't the case during 199O to
1994!

Well, time will for sure tell but I hope
that's what's going to happen.
So all of you who believe that they're
able to produce highquality games;do it!
You've got nothing to lose and with the
eastern market and China aswell as the
old western market, there shouldn't be
anything saying that you can't make good

money out of the C64!

               GO FOR IT
               GO FOR IT!!!
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