Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-07-22 | 26KB | 58 lines
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INFO
Title : Satanic Rites
Publisher : Destiny
Country : United Kingdom
Conditions : Public Domain
Category : Magazine
REQUIREMENTS
Drives : 1
COMPATIBILITY
A500 wb 1.3.2 : YES
A600 wb 2.05 : YES$Multi-tasks : NO - Autoboots only.
Display : PAL& I'm reviewing two consecutive&issues of this disk mag here and I'm
afraid it's going backwards.& The interface would be adequate if&the text used for the menu wasn't so&hard to read. It's a terrible font for&such an important part of the&magazine. Why they didn't change it&with six months to think about it&between issues three and four is
beyond me.& In fact there's only been cosmetic&changes to the interface between the&two issues despite promising a new one&in issue three. The mag's coder is&called Kiwi too which makes this New&Zealander hang his head in shame.&Rattle your dags mate! And if you do&update the interface then please keep&the optional mouse pointers, a choice&of six is neat, but change them&between issues. Page numbers would be nice too.& They were also promising issue four&would be out for Christmas but it was&late May before it arrived. But then&being late is traditional for disk
mags.& Another sign of decline is the&decrease in the number of articles in&issue four. Six months and there's&less? A lot of the clip art has been&used again too so not much work could&have been done by the artists between&issues. They're a pretty young lot&going by the photos in both issues so&they deserve praise for producing the&mag at all but unless there's some&major improvements by the next issue&it's going to be lost among all the
others available.& One other major problem they should&address in any future issues is the&use of plagiarised stories, one from&William Gibson in issue three and&others in the Mystery section in issue&four. Gibson may have made an art-form&out of data theft but in the real
world it's a no-no.& In both issues there's a hidden§ion requiring a password. Can't&tell you anything about their contents&though. As the menu isn't broken up&into sections but is just a long list&of the articles available it's hard to&say (and see) what type of article&predominates in the magazine. There's&the usual scene news, interviews,&charts, advertisements and a well done&photo gallery plus a mixture of&general articles. Much like a lot of
meg.& This issue kicks off with a good&title picture from Narc which happily&isn't fantasy art for a change. Is&cartoon-like art a UK disk mag&phenomenon? The two others featured on&my cover this issue, ZAM and&Grapevine, also contain cartoon&characters. Narc's pic tops those two&though, assuming it's an original. He&has a style which also shows up in the&clip art in this issue. Issue four's&cover was also done by him I suspect,&although it's not signed. A slideshow&would be nice Narc, but no&self-portraits please! Your photo was"enough, or was that in issue four?& The articles are the usual mixed&bag. There's one on flower arranging&for instance. I think it's genuine but&it may be a leg pull at someone elses&expense. Would you post off money for&a book on flower arranging you read&about in a scene mag? The text IS!genuine. They couldn't fake that.& There's also an attempt at an&interactive book here. Ie - a twister&plot. Not very successful though when&there's no goto page number button on
the panel.& Looking at my notes here I find I&haven't commented on many of the&articles at all. I think this is due&in part to the horrible and nearly&unreadable menu. Each time you return&to it you're put back at it's top.&This doesn't make browsing an&enjoyable experience. The only other&article I've written down was one of&TV advert reviews. Great idea. And if&the producers of Satanic Rites think&I'm not giving their magazine a fair&review then they've brought it on&themselves. The menu's horrible but if&it multi-tasked I would check it again
now - it doesn't so I wont.& Great art, so-so articles. At least&there's quite a lot of them and they&all have lots of clip-art in, some of&it very good. A reasonable issue. I#know, damning it with faint praise.
Memory : 1 meg.& Less articles but still lots of&clip art, most of it being the same as
used in the previous issue.& The mag's title is explained in a&response to a letter to the editor.&Satanic Rite's is "aimed at atheists.&Real Satanists have seen this mag and&don't like it... most in the scene are&atheists." Is that last bit true?&Going by Grapevine, religion is very#important to a lot of scene people.& And speaking of religion, in an&interview with Melon Dezign's Seen he&reveals his real name is Jehova.&Really? And he changed it to Seen?&(Yeah, I know, wrong spelling.) He's¬ the first person to be called Seen&either. In a TV program years ago on&New York graffiti bombers there was
one featured known as Seen.& I've probably been over harsh with&these reviews of Satanic Rites. Should&anyone involved in it's production&happen to see this then I'd just like&to repeat what I said in the Editorial&of the first issue of this magazine.&"Please take any criticisms in the&reviews as constructive - they are all&intended to be that way." That still&holds. You're producing something for&free and it's very much appreciated&but my job as a critic is to criticise&so faults have to pointed out. I do&look for things to praise where&possible but in this case that&interface got in the way too much. But&please don't give up, just try to get
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