Date: 4/8/98

Err, welcome to, well, you know.

All done (almost)

The conversion to page670 is almost finished. All the templates have changed, and new graphics have been created. I have just a little more work do to on it though, concerning banner (linkex) ads and getting ppl to change their link pages. Hasn't been to hard to do at all......

Shatm@t. POWER

What a load of boring, crap, uninformed, dire, rubbish. And that's being nice.

What makes it self out to be something new in the industry, Form@t Power is possibly the worst games mag ever created, or even thought of. It's a nice idea, let's have recent reviews, features, and news in a fortnightly magazine for the small price of £1.50. I'm not saying this is a bad idea, but as with most things, the execution is all wrong.

Take the news section. Instead of going into depth, something FP has the oppotunity to do, it's completly comprised of short, 20 word peices that wouldn't look out of place on digi (Actully, Digi's News section is probably more in depth, as Gossi's Big Probes have been recently), I wouldn't be surprised if most of it was copied from the aformentioned or CTW.

The next "thang" you notice about the magazine is the ratio of Features over Reviews. The reviews of the new games are stuck on 4 pages, each review taking up a small percentage of that page (Around 18 games are reviewed in the magazine, 16 of them on the 4 page spread, which gives you some idea of how bad it actully is). Most of them end in Bunder-like exclamation marks. How bad can it get! (Sorry)

So there must be something hopefull in the features, right? Err, No. Looking over them, it looks like the softies have FP in their pockets. Take an example, Page 46. A Tommi Makkinen Rally review, and an interview with the man himself. It smells of a PR lunch outing. The review is short, and bad, it explains how the game works, but dosn't explain why they gave it 8 marks over Colin MacRae, the reviewer of the latter actully said the game was perfect.

Looking at the Publisher Box at the beginning, it does look like this was an american idea. But in america, they have no Digitiser-type service. The Magazine is also incredibly out of date. This is the most recent issue and they are STILL covering the e3. Just thank god that this isn't produced by Future, if it was, they would be laughed out of the newsagents.

Avoid. Even if it does share the same last word in it's title with a certain Stu Campball influenced ex-rag....

Second Hand Titles

It is no longer wise to grasp hold of new titles, hoping that you'll be able to swap them at full price before they go Platinum. Sony are making games cheap so fast now that soon they'll be out on the street setting up a flea-market.

Even 6 month old games can't escape the wrath. The Big S (not the little and insignificant S which is now on the back of, and probably rubbing up, a large M) seems fed up with the nations exchange shops reeking in profits from full-price games, and so puts their prices down. Of course, if you buy G-Police and the like new, they'll still be £30. Of course.

Digital TV - The Ultimate Anti-News

Here's what you could look forward to on the new Digital Terrestrial TV channels.

BBC 1 and BBC 2 in WIDESCREEN! (oooohh!)
BBC CHOICE (Repeats and around 4 new shows)
BBC NEWS 24 (impressive visuals, shame about the presenters, the lack of live news reports, the teething problems.....)
BBC LEARNING (zzzzzzz......)
on Digital (Sky One and a load of crap Granada and Carlton Channels)

More of the same, really. The future isn't digital, it's just more of what we've already got (whilst making it all the more expensive, buy sticking up your licence fee, most of which will go on our expensive lunches and partys to launch the damn thing. And oh yeah, the receiver you have to buy to watch it is more expensive than a Sky Dish setup. But it'll be great, really! New Britian, New Load of fucking bollocks as per bloody usuall. If that's relevant to the BBC at all. Which it is. Oh, NOW I'm rambling. Must get out of this Bracket. Here goes. AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!)......

And Finally from the net

My second faverite "We don't actully talk about the relevant subject" newsgroup, uk.media.tv.friends could be in .net magazine. Bye then.

PAndroid likes his mail