January '94

	  The month has been pretty slow, January always is.  Sure,
       there were a few major releases, but most of the programs
       that came out were cheap.  What this month is remarkable for,
       however, is the number of FAKES released.  There you have
       "Jetpack registered" and "Vision X 1.1" supposively released
       by RZR, "Sexy Stories" supposively released by TRSi, more fake
       NTA releases, Galactic Hero "from" SCUM and, at the very end of 
       the month, "Mystery's Eyes" - the fake NEXUS release.  


       Group report:
	
          It seems like the major player in the scene during January
       was RAZOR.  Even with their accounts with European distributor
       companies being closed, they were able to beat others to the 
       few major titles like Sim City 2000, Archon Ultra and manage
       to put out quite a few smaller releases as well.  Next would 
       come NEXUS, it did not come in first on anything big, except maybe
       Russian Six Pack from Interplay, but they overwhelmed other groups 
       with the amount of games released.  PENTAGRAM has been the first 
       to release the game this year, beating RAZOR by just some minutes 
       to Accolade's Unnecessary Roughness, but that was the only release 
       they won on over the whole month.  PTG slowed down quite a bit in 
       December and now its inactive.  Some of its members call it taking 
       a brake, but there is a good chance that it is dying just like UNT 
       did before it. 
          The Humble Guys got themselves into quite a mess by duping the 
       Alone In The Dark ][ English verison released by a smaller group 
       a day before.  TRSi has been inactive for almost the whole month, 
       but it made a nice comeback at the end putting out 3 arcades.
          The most promising new group right now is HEMP - Hardcore Elite
       Mother Phuckers.  They do not appear on our list, since the wares
       they released so far are beta copies or utilities, but it seems 
       that they have gotten a few good suppliers including someone in 
       Apogee and they were also able to beat PWA to the release of the
       latest PCB beta, and thats after a long monopoly PWA had on all
       PCBoard releases.  INC seems to start releasing quite a lot lately,
       mostly educational games and some utilities though.  I've heard the
       rumours that they made some kind of a deal with PTG and are getting 
       all the stuff Pentagram would not want to put out.  This information
       is not definite however possible.

       Most awaited games in February:	

       MechWarrior ][
       Ultima VIII
       Tie Fighter
       Pacific Strike  
       Dungeon Master ][

       Also, many of you will be pleased to know that there is a good chance
       Civilization ][ WILL be released, somewhere around the summer '94