Domination 05 Mag Reviews

• Magazines *

Diary log: Monday April 9th.

"The clock keeps going round,

It won't tell me the time,                        
Santa claws gave a gun to me...                        
Let loose the puppies of war!                                  
I died last night..."   

Hello and welcome to the chapter of journalistic observations. Not so many magazines to review this issue, but the quality of each are above average. Tested this issue:

Relax #12 by Phuture. Propaganda #19. The Pulse 'October' Edition.

Relax Issue #12 by Phuture

Edited by RRR/Oxyron and Marc/Alpha Flight, this magazine has developed quite a lot since issue one (one file) and has turned into one of the most read board based magazines around. Let's take a look at the bits and pieces that have made the mag how it is today.

Intro sequence: A typical RRR styled 'Phuture' logo appears and some nice music from PRI/Oxyron begins, the logo fades out to reveal a picture of a naked girl. Appearing on the screen is some greetings.

Main outfit: After pressing space from the intro, a very nice 'Relax' logo by RRR appears at the top, the chapters in proportional font are below in a up/down scrolling selection format. The background in the menu is black giving highlight to the chapter names and logo above. At the same time, a nice funky tune by PRI/Oxyron starts. Upon choosing a chapter a small 'Loading' arcs from left to right across the 'Relax' logo as the chapter is IRQ loaded into memory. Once loaded the menu disappears and the chapter appears from the bottom, upwards in a light grey proportional font. Using the joystick in up or down motion allows a slow reading scroll speed for the vertical scrolling text. Left and right allow a fast skip through the text. The magazine is very easy to handle and isn't too slow either. Also the one and only music in the main mag is tolerable due to the quantity of text. More text means more reading, so the music would get repetitive after a while, but I think there is a nice amount of text for only one tune.

The text: Text wise it is easy to read and the English is quite good in an easy to read format. The 'Relax' magazine offers 10 chapters in all, they are:

Editorial - comments in general, credits, information.

Global report - is in group form and covers a global format of both the illegal and legal scene.

Release charts - are performed by Deff/AVT and Marc/AFL, are of quite nice standard, although they have had some problems in the past. But this issue appears to be fine.

Board charts - the scene charts are gathered from vote counters set up on their boards, TEI, HIC and Escapade. Of course only board callers can vote here.

Mail charts - these are not your normal charts made from votesheets. Instead the points are gathered from other magazines recently released, this time they use 7 magazines to make the mail charts.

Interview - this issue is Duke/Ex-Regina. (Hello Alex!) They have performed quite a nice job of it, asking suitable questions for the right person.

Back to the roots - is the chapter Max/AFL normally edits, but instead RRR/Oxyron does it this time. In this chapter they relive the past and talk about the Ikari/Zargon party in 1989. Great reading.

Demo reviews - this chapter their legal specialists step in to review the latest demonstrations. Reviewed this issue is Extremes by Byterapers and 7 years by Beyond force. The reviews a divided separately into coding, graphics and music sections. Editing each section is one of the specialist, RRR/Oxyron for graphics, Fuben/Oxyron and Scroll/Megastyle for coding and PRI/Oxyron for the music. An excellent and precise way to do reviewing!

Open letter - in this chapter, anyone can send a article to be published. This time several notes from Crossfire/Motiv8 and AFL, of course very interesting!

Advertisements - Mail addies, a nice amount too.

Credits: Programming by Fuben/Oxyron. Graphics by RRR/Oxyron. Music by PRI/TIA/Oxyron. Editing by RRR/Oxyron and Marc/Alpha Flight. Additional editing by Fuben, Scroll, PRI, Deff and Max.

Overall comments: Very nice magazine and they try to keep the text to an objective level. More chapters on other scene related topics would be nice, but it’s still a very nice, compact and straight to the point magazine. 84/100.

Propaganda Issue #19

The independent production by Newscopy and staff is seeing better days since earlier issues, and lately has provided the scene with some great issues on a regular basis. Here we test their latest issue.

Main outfit: Upon loading the mag, it goes straight into the main magazine. Some may complain because of no intro, but then again we watch demos for code and we read magazines for text. Some music by old musician Red/Ex-Judges begins, and it suits well, as it gives a inspirational feeling whilst reading the text (for me anyway). Some straight forward blue 'Propaganda' logos by Scope.

Choosing the chapters is quite easy, using left and right to scan through the chapter icons. Pressing the fire button on the chosen chapter IRQ loads the text into memory. After the chapter is loaded, its is displayed in the popular proportional font, with other graphical abilities, such as the extra 1x2 font for headlines and some other characters that give the mag a professional touch.

Flipping through the pages is quick and easy by using joy left and right.

The text: Propaganda boasts 10 chapters with some dropped of former issues, whilst some new ones have begun. Main editor Newscopy, is talented with a nice and easy to read style. The 1x2 and gfx added also help make the chapters more definable and easy on the eye.

Contents for issue #19:

Editorial - contents, articles and credits.

The list - typical board first release charts performed by Deff/AVT (ed: Hi mario!)

The real list - This is a nice idea to do a complete years coverage on the game releases of all board based groups, it grows with each issue.

News - Although they do get carried away sometimes with the way the news is written, it's generally in a very good form, with the latest illegal and internet news gathered from internet, the boards and phone call conversations. One of my favourite chapters of this mag.

News 2 - The quantity this issue is more than ever.

Business news - This issue they introduce something I introduced in this mag last issue. The latest from the commercial scene, quite nice news and definately a chapter worth reading.

The Wall - Another new chapter which replaces the usual interview section. This time instead of a normal styled interview they ask sceners that are involved in current major events questions, very interesting. This time they question: Vengeance/Onslaught, Cyborg/F4CG+AVT and Curlin of Hitmen.

Quizzing - Old scene nostalgia quiz for the more established sceners from the boards.

Awards - The Propaganda awards are given to sceners, groups and productions and are awarded by the Propaganda staff. Included is: Most valuable group right now, Most interesting event and Most admirable effort.

Charts - Firstly they have a board based chart, in which only BBS callers can vote for, this included other tables such as Top scener and Top BBS. After this the mail charts are included, which are gathered from votesheets and edited by their mail scene correspondent Walker.

Credits: Programming by Devil/F4CG. Graphics by Scope, SES and Draz/F4CG. Music by Red/Ex-Judges. Main editing by Newscopy/F4CG. Additional editing by Tranziie/Hitmen, Deff/AVT, Draz/F4CG and Walker/F4CG.

Overall comments: The Propaganda is a very competitive board based magazine. Which keeps everyone very uptodate on what is happening in the illegal and commercial scene. There is obviously much work gone into each issue and Propaganda deserves full credit for such a quality piece of journalism they present to the scene. 90/100

The Pulse 'October' Edition.

After the comeback editions, Duke and staff have really gotten things back online. Providing a very cool new outfit and the return of former chapters, on top of this is the additional promise of releasing the magazine on a regular month to month basis. Let's take a look at the former number one.

Main outfit: This time coded by talented The Syndrom/TIA/Crest, provides a very easy to handle and understand outfit. Featuring a very lush 16 colour logo on the bottom of the screen of 'The Pulse', this is done by Earthquake of Cosmic Style/Antic, who has recently returned to activeness. The music is a typical 'Pulse' styled music done by their regular sound wizards Metal and Drax of Vibrants (Ed: shit, I was about to type vibrators!).

When first loading the magazine there is no intro, and it takes you immediately to the main outfit. In the main outfit the 'Preface' chapter is already in memory. Pressing fire button takes you to the main menu, where the text in replaced by some very stylish back ground graphics in light grey colours, which do not effect the eyes. Chapters are displayed in vertical format and using the joy, you can very easily cycle through the chapter you wish to read. When cycling through the chapters, a nice colour effect is added, which gives a bright to faded appearance, hard to describe, but looking nice. The chapter once chosen, is then IRQ loaded into memory. The proportional font text replaced the main menu and back ground graphics. The page number is shown in the top right of the screen. Another original idea is used in the loading system of the text. The first page of a chapter, when chosen, is automatically displayed. So whilst you read the first page the other text in the chapter is being loaded into memory. Generally by the time you've read the first page, the whole chapter is loaded and you can then flick through from left to right the contents of the chapter.

The text: Duke is quite well known for an excellent even English and uses his skills to full effect throughout the entire magazine. The popular proportional font style, is probably commonly used because of its easy feeling on the readers’ eyes. Text is performed mainly by Duke and Crossfire/M8. But other specialists are included in the staff to write on special subjects. Here are the contents of this issue...

Preface - Introduction/Editorial, credits. News Journal - At the moment this would be the weakest point of the magazine. As they don't really have a consistent board caller to correct any rumours that are false. For example they made a mistake on saying Bizarre/[O] joined Accept as second group. This certainly needs to be improved, being a major component of the magazine. But because of a huge internet support from their staff, lots of news is still retained.

World of Demos 1+2 - This is the demo review section containing reviews of: Fantasy by Chromance, Nergeza Anyagil by Profik, Lilith by Apsheron, Love by Agony Design, Defect Failure by Coders and Plazmolytic by React. The coding sections are handled by Mr.Sex/Byterapers, graphical comments by Earthquake/CS/Antic and musicial research by The Syndrom/TIA/Crest. With a combined total of the demo rating in percentage. Satirica - Similar to older issues of Shock, this chapter makes fake jokes and stories on sceners in a nice way, all in pure fun.

Profile - This time they interview main editor of the "Skyhigh" magazine, Bizkid/Camelot.

Scene illustrated - One of the longest chapters is based on the Pulse opinion polls, interview with CBA of TRC*Success about the internet and other discussions. The board report - Here the Pulse staff focus on and review one of the online C64 bulletin boards. This time the victim is "Escapade" (+49/XXXXXXXXXXXX) the Alpha Flight EHQ.

Meet the press - this contains the latest mag reviews, in which they judge: Nitro #19 by Excess, Skyhigh #18 by Camelot. Also there is articles on the future ambitions of The Pulse magazine, some story to the delay of the 'Shout' magazine, and they interview Bacchus/Fairlight to coincide with questions about Shout.

Tales from the darkside - Legal demo debating and talk from The Dark Judge of Focus.

The Internet report - Information and discussion on the superhighway by Playboy of F4CG. Overall charts - This chart, as with the Relax mag, is made up from several other disk magazines. Advertisements - KBS/Onslaught takes over in this chapter with 15 pages of mail addresses for the swappers.

Credits: Programming by The Syndrom/TIA/Crest. Graphics by Earthquake/Cosmic Style/Antic. Music by Metal & Drax/Vibrants. General Editing by Duke. Co-Editing by Crossfire/Motiv8. Additional editing by TDJ/Focus, KBS/Onslaught, Playboy/F4CG, Mr.Sex/Byterapers, The Syndrom/TIA/Crest and Earthquake/Cosmic Style/Antic.

Overall comments:

The Pulse magazine has had a tough road back, but is for sure pulling the strings together to have maybe another number one staff and magazine. But certain things let them down, such as the delay of a release chart in the magazine and correct and updated news. This will improve though as they 'plug' more in with the scene when the ball gets rolling again. Otherwise I would have given it a higher rating. 89/100.

Well, that's all we had time for this issue, its great to see what I believe is a vast improvement in magazine quality since earlier years. the question might be, how much more will magazines change? and for the better or worse? Time will tell, as it always does.

Jazzcat.