BRITISH SCENE REPORT ]---------------------- by GANGSTER / Mad Vision UK This is a small guide to the crews that are, or were in Britain. I do not know much about some of them, and there may be a few that I have missed out - so get in touch with us if we did not mention your crew. ]ADDRENALIN This is a new group formed in January 1992. They do not have a cracker, but have a coder. The interesting thing about this group is that Ruthless is a member. His name in this group is 'The Eskimo In Egypt'. They have done just over 5 CD's at the moment.Their intros are coded by a guy called The Monster Beetle. Their CD's look quite good, but they will have to work hard to establish themselves in Britain since there are many other crews similar to them. ]AUTOMATION R. I. P. again another famous crew who died out. These guys did more CD's than any other group in the world (over 500). Originally there were many , many members including groups such as the BBC, Unnameables, Sub Humans in Turkey, Guardians of Logik etc. they all eventually left or were thrown out ( G.O.L. ). In the last few months, there were only two guys making CD's ; The Bald Eagle and Vapour. Most of the ex members joined the BBC. Automation attempted a late come back recently, but without any success. ]AWESOME - R.I.P. they are dead. Everyone knows about Awesome, quite good intros coded originally by people who were not even members. They went through a lot of members near the end. Lots of modem guys joined, and then left this group. Ruthless as always was criticised because he would not let other members do anything in this group. He wanted all the credit. He also went under the name of 'Ecstacy' of the Replicants and claimed to have coded some of the last few intros. Many people say that this is not true because Ruthless/Ecstacy cannot code. The group died when some members left to join Hotline. ]B.B.C. - R. I. P. the Bad Brew Crew. Guess what ? - yes, they too are now dead ! This group was originally a part of Automation, but because of some problems between Andy the 'Arfling and Vapour of Automation, the BBC split away and became an independent cracking crew. They produced over 50 CD's which contained games that they had mainly cracked themselves. The Law of the Unnameables soon joined after leaving Automation. In their last few months, they were joined by the Medway Boys, Apollo from Guardians Of Logik, and a few other guys. At this stage, they had about 5 or 6 crackers in the group. But sadly, only Zippy from the Medway Boys was cracking anything, the others were busy with exams and things. So this group too died out due to inactivity from most of the cracking guys. ]CYNIX This group appeared out of nowhere ! They started up in late October 1991 and are definately the number one British cracking crew. They do not make menus. Rumour has it that there are some famous British crackers in the group who are using new names so no one bothers them. Their members list changes constantly. ]D-BUG This is a new group who only use their own cracks on their CD's Their main problem is that they are too slow. All the games work 100% but come out too late to spread very well. The 3 main guys are Vapour, The Law and Apollo - all ex members of Automation, but they are obviously using new names. They have done 29 great Cd's so far, and if they can crack games a bit faster , then they have excellent potential. ]DODGY SOFT - This crew has made a LOT of CD's - not sure exactly, but it may be about 200. Their biggest problem is that nobody spreads their CD's well. Hardly anyone has got more than a few of their CD's. They have also made a lot of utility CD's including some with midi software, childrens software, art and others too. They have a cracker who is called Dodgy King - he claims to have cracked a lot of their games, including B.A.T. which very very few people have cracked 100%. If they had better spreaders, then they would be a very poular crew. Sadly, not many guys have even heard of them. ]D.T.B. - Dirty Tricks Brigade. Not sure if this group is still alive. Their last menu was 29. They are very strange because most of their last CD's contained professional software - yet their first few CD's contained games. Perhaps they started as a games group then decided to do professional CD's instead later. They had no coder or cracker and perhaps no grafix guy too ! They used mainly one intro - but their CD's contained very good software. Not as good as T.R.B. or F.C.C. but still they were good. Hey guys, if you are sill alive - get in touch with us ! ]DREAM WEAVERS - This is an example of a group with potential that died young. They created over 20 CD's and did some utility disks. Ruthless joined later as Dream Warrior. R.I.P. ]EVOLUTION - not much known about this CD crew. They have no coder or cracking guys. Get in touch with us, and let us know about you please ! ]F.C.C. - The Floppy Copy Crew. These guys were the first to make CD's with professional titles on them. They are dead now because their main coding guy - The Monster stopped doing illegal activities and made the main code for the Monster Stereo Cartridge. There are rumours that Alec from F.C.C. has been threatened with grevious bodily harm by unknown guys if he makes any more CD's. Not sure if this is true - but Alec has certainly not made anymore CD's since ! They did very good CD's with good quality software - but not as good as T.R.B. for example. ]FLATLINERS - An other menu making band Very various menus,some with Sound trax sound ship music,fonts and games. They have a section in Iceland. ]GENESIS INC. - These guys are only known because of the mega slaggings that they gave to Ruthless on their menus number 2 and 3. They have cracked only 2 games and some professional software. The two main guys - Gor and Lawz are ex members of Pompey Pirates and they both left controversially with lots of rumours and gossip about this. If these guys were more consistent and a bit faster, than they too could have a lot going for them. But sadly, it seems that they only produce their disks whenever they feel like it. ]HOTLINE U.K. - This is basically all the surviving members of Awesome who joined Hotline. Ruthless created 11 CD's for Elite before leaving and is now in Quartex. Ruthless had many problems in this group. He was accused many times of ripping other crew's cracks and claiming them as his. He also claimed to have cracked some games which had NO PROTECTION AT ALL ( Crime City etc.). The second part of the intro o n the last few Elite menus was possibly ripped from the Dream Weavers - though he claims to have coded it ! ]MEDIUM RESOLUTION - Not much known about these guys. They did the grafix for the Genesis Inc. menus which had mega slaggings to Ruthless. - Get in touch with us ! ]THE MEDWAY BOYS - Yet another big crew who died out 6 months ago. They did 100 great menus and then cracked numerous games. They joined the BBC for a while but left soon because the other members were not doing anything. They died in the autumn when Zippy got a new job. ]NOW 5 - They did nearly 30 CD's. They had a cracker and a couple of coders too. They have joined with X.T.C. and become Pure Energy. They are hated by Ruthless, because they were the closest rivals to Awesome. They were the fastest CD crew recently. ]POMPEY PIRATES - this crew is possibly the best known British menu making crew they have currently done 99 numbered menus, and several other cracks plus a few more menus numbered as 13 part 1 to 5. They have a lot of guys who dont do anything (Richard III, Juggler etc.). Almost all their menus have full Docs on them, and all the games seem to work 100%. When they slag someone, they go at it with a vengence - Derek M.D., Illegal etc. They also seem to hate all non-English people. Rumour has it that they will stop after menu 100. ]PURE ENERGY - This is a new group. It is a joining of two older English CD crews - Now 5 and XTC. All the old members from both crews are still here and are joined by The Penguin - the main coding guy from T.R.B. ( R.I.P. ). They have at least one cracker - The Bootlegger - but they have not as yet cracked any of their own games. But, they are still definately the fastest English CD making crew - due to their many contacts in big cracking crews. ]QUARTET - This is a strange CD making crew. They have an excellent coder called Bloodangel, and a really good grafix guy called Percy. They also have another grafix guy called Nik. But these guys do not make many CD's. Their productions do not spread very well. In fact, Bloodangel and Percy do more work for other crews than for Quartet ! Ruthless said that Bloodangel is now a member o f Hotline - but Bloodangel denies this - he says he does not like Ruthless and he is NOT a member of Hotline ! ]THE RADICAL BANDITS - R.I.P. these guys did 30 great CD's with professional software and no games. Probably the best non-games crew in Britain if not the world. They died before Christmas due to internal trouble mainly between The Rude Dude and Derek M.D. The coder and artist left and joined Pure Energy, The Rude Dude is now on the P.C. ]TIME WARP - Not sure if this crew is still alive either. They did well over 50 CD's. Almost all of their CD's were 'theme' disks, i.e. they contained similar types of games or programs. An Example is their 'Sub Logic' disk - this contained Flight Sim 2 + Jet + 2 scenery disks - a theme disk - okay ? They did some interesting Source Code disks with lots of nice source coded by cool coding guys world wide - and they also did some font and grafix disks to accompany with the source code disks. Please get in touch guys ! ]THE SOURCE - Frosty did professional software menus. MUG UK did his famous Depacker & ripped lotsa music...