Propaganda 23 ch02
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+------------+ |THE INTERNET|RELEASE LIST |THE INTERNET|RELEASE LIST +------------+ +-------------+ |by COUNT ZERO| +-------------+ FEBRUARY 1ST-JUNE 6TH, 1997 W ___________________________________ Welcome to the very first edition of the new internet based release list. We seem to have caused quite some trouble before we announced it in the last issue of Propaganda already and got a tremendous feedback after the rules were printed in the last issue. _____________________________________ Q Quite some people seem to fear this new list and I read a sentence which made me think. It was printed in an issue of Domination and went like: Never cut the roots of a growing tree _____________________________________ WELL WELL, quite some dudes out there know and even share my opinion about this new list ... Without the Inet the 64 would be a dead horse. Some more or less crappy emulators helped the Commodore 64 to survive until this point and now it gains even more popularity each day. This was just possible due to the unbelievable explosion the net had to suffer during the past years. A Anyways. The list like we all knew it is gone and waxed from Propaganda and it was transformed into something new. May the reader decide whether he likes it or not ... Personally, I have to think over again and got to remark, that in the very beginning it sounded weird to me aswell ... but NOW, having composed the first list based on the new standard, it looks good. ____________________________________ ATTENTION ATTENTION _________ +--------------------------------------+ |I was busted on May 13th and the cops | |carried away all my Amiga equipment, | |along with all the stuff for the list | |which I had sorted on that harddisk. | | | |I recompiled the list from stock and | |I am pretty sure that I left out | |some stuff, as certain people don't | |seem to care about their E-Mails. | | | |Incase you mail me about a missing | |release in this list, I will | |include it in the next issue !!! | +--------------------------------------+ Before we start with the rules and the list itself, some words about releases in general. When checking the about 5O programs I gathered together for the list, I had the strange feeling, people just want to play tricks on me ... I stumbled about BASIC GAMES from 85 just being translated, totally lame cracks and heaps of stupid mistakes. THIS IS THE END OF THE CENTURY !!!! THIS IS THE END OF THE CENTURY !!!! ___________________________________ Get real and release properly !!!! Oh my god, stuff like leaving the Hi-Saver on when a trainer is selected may happen once ... but twice ? No Way! Removing a Hi-Saver totally is just as stupid. I would have been happy about a 1OO% version for sure. And releasing translated Basic Games from over a decade ago was beyond my wildest imaginations before I saw it. The guys who did these releases know what I am talking off right now and the reader will recognize it later on. Most of the people still being around try to find challenges opon improving their skills and finally you sit down check out some stuff and shake your head once ... then twice ... HOW THE HECK can a computer like the Commodore 64 survive THAT long when there are so few people around trying to make GOOD stuff ? To put it in a nutshell: TRY TO MAKE IT BETTER AND STOP WHINING! People cry about LITTLE bugs on the boards and on the net aswell, but seem to miss the real cannoncraters. Over for now ... Let's go for punishment +---------+ |THE RULES| |THE RULES| +---------+ How to become part of the list: THIS HAS CHANGED ! READ IT ! To get one of your releases into the list you have to upload it via ftp to: The Digital Dungeon: XXXXXXXXXXXX Gangster's Paradise : XXXXXXXXXXXX Both FTP sites contain textfiles in /pub/C64/ about upload rules and conditions ... check them out or mail me for a helping hand. W Whenever you uploaded the release make sure to mail: countO(at)mail.netwave.de or _________________________ newscopy(at)algonet.se ______________________ whenever your mail bounces from the netwave account. HAVE YOU HAVE TO MAIL US! ____________________ If we get no mail, there is virtually no release at all ... We will ignore mails which where sent using an anonymous mailer like hotmail.com or earthling.com ! This has several reasons. First of all we want to be able to get back to you for further discussions or when problems occur. Second reason is that we want YOU to stand for a release ... And finally normal ISP mail-servers rarely suffer the problems a mailer interface has. If you don't want your E-Mail revealed, we will not give it away ! Conclusion: The first mail I get concerning a release, that release will be checked first. If it is ok regarding PAL/NTSC and other conditions it will be counted as the first release. Regardless to any other release which might have been there a day before. This ofcourse only goes for games released after the 6th of July 1997, the day I closed THIS list. That's it for the explanation about uploading, mailing and troubleshooting. Questions left ? Use your mailer ! +------------+ |THE RELEASES| WHAT'S A RELEASE |THE RELEASES| AT ALL ??? +------------+ We are ignoring: - Basic Games, Fake Label releases and anything that was created using SEUCK and other game makers. - Non-English releases. -- Very little exceptions may happen -- Still want points ? Read on ... _______________________________ A Release will receive points whenever it is: - Working PAL/NTSC - English (or multilanguage) - a fully working version Whether a 1OO% version is necessary or not, groups may decide by themselves. Whenever a game is working fine for me, I consider it being 1OO% ... Incase you think it's not 1OO% and has remarkable bugs which were not in the original, let me know about it and I might consider your or another version is 1OO%. Points for FULL GAMES are given like listed here: O.O - 3.O for the quality of the GAME O.O - 2.O for the quality of the CRACK 2.O will be added if the game was released PAL/NTSC from the first release on. 1.O will be added if a former version being PAL or NTSC only was released before. 1.O will be substracted for major cracking bugs or if a 2nd version was necessary to complete a release. up to 1.O will be added if something very special was done to the game or a new cracking technique was introduced with the release. There are no categories like Budget or Full Price anymore ... +--------+ |PREVIEWS| 0.0 - 1.0 points are given |PREVIEWS| for previews. +--------+ A preview has to be playable, else it will receive O.O points. Only the first preview of a game will be counted. V2 previews will be ignored +-------------------+ |TOOLS UTILITIES| |TOOLS AND UTILITIES| +-------------------+ Up to 3.O points are given for Tools. Not caring about PAL/NTSC at all. We want such stuff, so release your good underwear aswell !!! NOTE NOTE THIS WAY EVEN LEGAL GROUPS CAN ENTER THE CHARTS. This is a release list, no Gamer's Guide OK, half of the chapter wasted on the rules and additional crap-talk ... But before we start for REAL: The editor is as objective as possible regarding the releases, but mistakes are always happening, so get in contact with me to correct mistakes. Unlike others I stand for the bullshit I sometimes do. The rules are there to be broken, so if a new situation comes up, I modify the rules to fit them. The rules are based on Psychobilly's rules for The Pulse, which were an extended system of The Shock Magazine. FINALLY ... The List was started on February 1st and closed on June 6th 1997 ! +----------------+ |ALPHAFLIGHT | OVERALL: 44.9 |ALPHAFLIGHT 197O| +----------------+ The german based group had a very active time during the last months and came up with a chop full of releases. REMEMBER (fixed) gave them 2.9 pts and the 2 Player game REVERSI (fix) added another 4.3 pts to their score. They raged on with the Final Sales Version of UPSIDE DOWN (4.3 pts) and a properly fixed version of DEADLY MESSENGERS, which gave them 2.9 pts. MERCHANT (fixed) was released along with Hitmen and only 2.1 as the points are shared. EAGLEWARE made them happy and gave them FUGITIVE (fix/2.9 pts) and SAMBER (fix/4.2 pts). The translated and fixed STARMERCHANT from LK AVALON resulted in another 3.3 points. With the release of VISION (fix/4.O), TARGET (PAL/NTSC/2.O) and BLOODHAND (fix/3.6) some more points where added to their final score. MEGA MOLECULES was fixed and had a final judgement of 3.4 points. The previews of SAVAGE PLATFORMS (O.5) and SCORTIA (O.4) were just little Overall a steady list of releases, but people have claimed that their version of MYSTERY (fixed) would bug. After a closer check and nobody except for the people whining on the boards, no real bugs where found. Nobody was able to specify memory locations or bring up a remarkable way to get to these discussed bugs. AFL earns 4.1 points on this quite well designed puzzle game. +--------------------------------+ |"LOOK FOR BUGS! LOOK FOR BUGS! | | WE WILL MAKE THE 100%-VERSION!"| | | | - HEARD AT AFL'S HOUSE. | +--------------------------------+ +---------+ |CHROMANCE| OVERALL: 22.7 |CHROMANCE| +---------+ The traditional hungarian Gangsters scored astonishing well when looking at the games they released. BUDDHA OF BADNATH and MAGIC LAND (both BASIC) gave them O.O aswell, as the V2 preview of CHRONIC THE BADGER. The unplayable, but nethertheless nice preview of KYRIL THE LEGEND resulted in O.O along with the non- working HORSEKILLER PREVIEW. (We tried many times and finally concluded that the IFFL system sucks) Still Chromance managed to release the pretty well done GALLEON (fixed) and gained 5.1 pts for it. LASTG (fixed/3.1 pts) and MR.SETAM (fixed/3.O pts) were released to upgrade their points. The fixed TWIN TERRORS (3.4 pts) and UNDENOID (3.1 pts) made them look better again. They finalized the session with INTERLACED PAIRS (fixed/5.O) and ranked up pretty well in the end. +----+ |F CG| OVERALL: 9.9 |F4CG| +----+ The Fantastic Four had only 3 releases which were counted this time. They started off with the fixed POWERTRIS, but loose one point here on some bad cracking. The Hi-Score saver which was originally in the game was removed and the F4CG intro looks much smoother on PAL than on NTSC. Maybe atleast THAT should get fixed somewhen. Overall POWERTRIS was rewarded 3.4 instead of 4.4 Next one was MANGANOID, a breakout clone which was nice in the first place, but I detected 2 major flickers on the end sequence (actually a 2 byte fix which could have been done VERY easily) and a Levelskipper would have been nice, as it's a pain to play a complete level. Last but not least, this 98% version got 3.8 points after having substracted 1.O for a bad fix. Their final release was KNOORKIE THE PIG, a funny and well translated polish game. I was told that the game contains some sprite bugs, but were not able to detect them, so the full 3.7 points for an already PAL/NTSC running game were given. +--------------------+ | AND RRR SAYS WE'RE | ** |CHEATING THE CHARTS!| \/ +--------------------+ +------+ |HITMEN| OVERALL: 2.1 |HITMEN| +------+ Along with Alphaflight they released the fixed MERCHANT and gained 2.1 pts for it. Additional info: a nice crack, but some of the english phrases in the release could have been better. +------+ |LAXITY| OVERALL: 0.0 |LAXITY| +------+ TRAZZ preview didn't deserve anything. Not even space on my disc ... O.O pts +------+ |MOTIV | OVERALL: 4.8 |MOTIV8| +------+ Crossfire seems to be one of the shy or hard to reach guys. Lots of E-Mails went to nirvana, but nevertheless, we tested some of the Motiv8 releases. As there are FOUR CORNERS (O.O) and AFTERLIFE 2 (O.O) which were both BASIC. MONSTERPOWER (PAL/NTSC/1.7 pts) would have been below my dignity. The nice ZWEI BERETEN PREVIEW (O.6) was surprisingly well done though. And finally a 2nd version (-1) of X-TRIS (fix/2.5) was necessary to satisfy the scene. +---------+ |ONSLAUGHT| OVERALL: 19.3 |ONSLAUGHT| +---------+ Jazzcat's soldiers fought well and released a preview of CRAZY BUSINESS (O.3 pts) and DOMINESs (PAL/NTSC/2.6). SHOVE PREVIEW was worth another O.2 and FIND THE PAIRS PREVIEW was selling at O.4 pts. Later on they surprised some people with a fixed version of CANNON CRAZE from MAGNA MEDIA (4.1). Too bad the following games suffered some seriuos cracking mistakes and were both deducted -1 on their points. BOTH games happily save the Hi-Score when using the installed trainers. Something WE don't want in 1997. These games were GHOST TRAP (fix/3.7) and TROOZE (fix/3.9). Both of them were cracked well, contained massive trainers, docs, titlescreen, iffl packs, etc. but it looks like STING forgot to disable the saver. Something which turned into a standard in 1989 already. Last but not least the final version of CRAZY BUSINESS made it to the FTPs giving them 4.1 including a deduction of -1 as there was no version of the archive to be found that contained a working intro. The intro which Onslaught supplied simply crashes while depacking. +-------+ |SCS TRC| OVERALL: 15.3 |SCS&TRC| +-------+ With CBA quitting the scene, we get more active every day as we have to spank one monkey less. Therefore some nice releases came in resulting into a good mid-field place for the co-op. They started off with XIOM 101% (fix/4.9 pts) and the preview of an average 2 Player preview named GRAV (O.4 pts). The preview of BLOODHAND (O.3 pts) made SCORTIA (fix/4.2) look even better. For some reason Burglar added another 3.8 pts to the account by releasing MONSTERS (fix) and his innovative and steadily developed program REAL SID PLAYER (1.7 pts) +-----+ |TRIAD| OVERALL: 0.1 |TRIAD| +-----+ After their X-Mas 96 release BUBBLE PREVIEW, they managed to release AAKE 2 PREVIEW (O.1) This is one the previews which should be kept by the programmers or child- ren that just started experiencing the more advanced scrolling techniques. For sure. ** THE FINAL RESULTS COMING UP ** \/ THE FINAL RESULTS COMING UP \/ +---------------+ |FTP RELEASERS Top |FTP-RELEASERS --- FEB1ST-JUN6TH 1997 +--------------1 0 __________________ ___________________________ ALPHAFLIGHT 1. ALPHAFLIGHT 1970...44.9 2. CHROMANCE..........22.7 3. ONSLAUGHT..........19.3 4. SUCCESS & TRC......15.3 5. F4CG................9.9 6. MOTIV8..............4.8 7. HITMEN..............2.1 8. TRIAD...............0.1 9. LAXITY..............0.0 ___________________________ +---+ |d=b| |'o'| |/_\| +---+ MAY THE BOARDCHARTS BE AS EXCITING.