A600 wb 2.05 : YES$Multi-tasks : NO - Autoboots only.
Display : Pal& This scene mag starts up with a&flashy intro and lots of credits&before showing the well drawn cover&picture and entering the magazine&proper. It's either issue eleven or&issue two depending on how you want to&look at things. The E means it's in&English with this issue being it's"second appearance in the language.& The mag's interface is very slick&with it's only problem being the&option of moving to the last or next&article by moving the mouse pointer to&the top or bottom of the screen. This&is just too easy to do by accident.&Otherwise it's a pretty good design&with lots of fun extras for you to&find out about by either chance or
experiment.& It's content covers the usual scene&territory of news, reviews, interviews&and party reports plus a few general&articles. There's also quite a few&pictures in mostly a cartoon-like&style. These aren't up to much but I&always like to see pictures in a&magazine. Unlike text you can tell&instantly whether they're any good or¬. The pictures here may not be the&greatest but in the rest of the&magazine the clip art and other&graphics used are all well drawn and&give the magazine a nice look overall.& There's two main tunes to choose&from but also eleven other modules of&chip music so you've plenty to listen&too. Chip music, whether you like it&or not, is a good idea in a magazine&as it takes up very little disk space&and hence loads very fast as well.&It's not a case of waiting for ten or&more seconds to find out you don't&like the tune. With the chip tunes&here you know in a second or so you&don't like the tune. Chip tunes could&be good though if well written even if&they do make your Amiga sound a bit&like a C64. None here are particularly
startling though.& (Just experienced a long, gentle,&rolling earthquake here at 9:50 pm on&this night of the 10th of August 1993.&Thought you'd like to know that. We're&a bit sensitive about earthquakes here&in Hastings, New Zealand - see your&history books. And did I run? Na, of&course not. Saved my text, then ran.) & On with the review. One feature of&Sledgehammer is an adventure game&included within the magazine. It's the&first one apparently and is very, very&simple. A good idea though and it&makes a change from the usual fiction&in disk magazines. More importantly&they've included instructions on how&to write them so anyone could create&them for the magazine if they wanted&to. A neat feature and I hope it succeeds.& And so to the meat of a disk mag,&it's articles. These are much like a&lot of other scene mags in quality. In&other words the writing's so-so but&the topics can be interesting. This is&one of the boons of the "anyone can&write for the mag" attitude. Many&people who wouldn't have a hope of&getting published on paper get to have&their say. Ideas are more important
than good prose in my opinion.& The fiction included here seems&quite good. Good enough anyway for me&to finish it to find out what&happened. The two pieces I read were&both by the same author whose name I&forgot to write down but he's the&compiler of the fiction column - I&think. English is obviously a second&language for him with quite a few&words being used rather oddly but this&didn't detract from the writing. Both&these stories drew me in and made me&want to find out their outcomes. Well
written.& In one of the articles there's a&story obviously sourced from elsewhere&about Japanese computer users known as&Otakus. These people have entered a&spiral with apparently no return where&their lives revolve around gathering&more and more banal trivia about&certain aspects of Japanese trash&culture such as comics or pop stars.&This article must have given quite a&few of it's readers pause for thought
I suspect.
[3m One feature of Sledgehammer! is an adventure game included
within the magazine.
[23m& One sour note in the magazine is an&"Open Letter From Fester To Pazza".&Fester is the editor of Sledgehammer&with Pazza being the editor of the&English disk magazine Grapevine from&LSD. It seems that Dark, an LSD&member, submitted some stuff for&Sledgehammer and was made a co-editor&of the magazine for a while. The open&letter from Fester is in response to&him receiving one from Dark saying he&could no longer support Sledgehammer&as Pazza had suggested he should be&supporting Grapevine. Anyway Fester's&letter suggested that Pazza was being&dictatorial and suchlike and this has&of course produced a response in&Grapevine 15. What concerns me here is¬ whether Dark should or shouldn't&support other groups but that a&presumably private letter should end&up being discussed in a public&magazine. Did Dark know this was going&to happen? Was he asked? If not then&it was a rather shabby thing to do.&Private correspondence is written&differently than that which is for&public consumption and may be much&more unguarded in what it says. Either&way it shouldn't end up as a source&for public slanging matches. It's not&too smart either as other people will&be very wary in the future about&writing to someone who's done such a
thing.& Perhaps Fester should stick to&writing about scene productions as&he's written a good round-up of the&1992 ones. If you want to know what&was hot last year then this is a good&place to look. It seems most of the&major productions were all released at&parties in an attempt to win the&prizes. Fester however thinks that&money will ruin the scene. Personally&I believe the opposite is more likely&to be the case. People deserve rewards&for the effort that goes into&producing Demos and the other scene&stuff. As the producers of them age&they're going to need to earn a living&somehow. When the choice comes between&making demos or TV adverts or the like&I'm afraid some are just gonna have to&go where the money is. If the scene&wants to keep the good coders, artists&and musicians long term it's going to&have to come up with a more reliable&form of payment than just the hope of
winning a prize at a party.& One article that rang a bell with&me was on Action Replay III copy&protection. The author of this article&also writes for a Hungarian magazine&and of course needs pictures from&demos and such for his articles. One&example he gave was Mirage's Forgotten&slideshow. This he didn't review as he&couldn't rip any pictures from it. I&also put it's review aside for exactly&the same reason. While I'm not so sure&that copy protection is always the&reason Action Replay won't save&pictures sometimes, (how come it can&display a picture but not save it&properly?), it is a pain when you&can't get something for a review. Copy&protection like this is a bit silly&really as the only people it will stop&are those in a hurry such as reviewers&with deadlines to meet and unless&you're frightened of having your stuff&reviewed it all seems a bit pointless
to me.& All in all Sledgehammer's a good&enough disk magazine. It has a nice&look and feel with a good mix of&articles and a few features to set it
apart from the crowd.
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Postscript...& The earthquake measured 6.4 on the&Richter scale and hit the Gisborne&area worst with quite a bit of damage&done such as chimneys falling down and&bridges showing cracks. No one hurt
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