          >>>>> Cyber Angel's Totally Biased Warez Report <<<<<
                          Issue # 1 - January 1995
               Original Ware Report (c) The Renegade Chemist
           Reviews, ratings and bad jokes below (c) Cyber Angel

DISCLAIMER:  As the name clearly states, this report is Totally Biased.
             While I have done my best to be fair to all groups/games
	     reviewed, I can just see many people scream out the word
             "bias" and can also see many rag messages following this
             report.  Therefore, I decided to go with the flow and 
             declare this report TOTALLY BIASED.  Meaning, whatever
             is written below is my personal opinion.  If you don't 
             like it - don't read it, if you read it - don't bitch.

HISTORY      There were many other magazines/reports attempting to
             rate the game groups before.  Only in 1994 I recall
             PC Charts, The Scene, and The Ware Report written by TRC
             only a few months ago.  Unfortunately all of them died
             off at one point or another and I decided to do one this
             year since no one else seems to be doing one.  Credit for
             parts of the layout go to TRC but most of the report
             is made diffirently from his.  Hope you enjoy it.

RULES:       Final/Retail version of every English playable game on
             diskettes (no CD rips!) will be reviewed.  First part of
             the review will be NON biased, as it contains only the
             MEGGAGE of the releases which cannot be argued over.
             However, this first part will also be often INACCURATE, 
             as a 500k game may be much better than many 10mb ones. 
             Now, the second part can be argued to be much more biased, 
             thats where I rate the games on a 1 to 10 scale.  My 
             rating will be based on multitude of factors - mainly the
             quality of the game, demand (how many people play it),
             quality of crack if one is needed, etc.  Add-ons, scenery
             disks, updates etc. will only receive HALF the points (hence
             1942 Scenario disks released this month receive the rating
             of 8/2=4).  Games that are in foreign language but fully
             English playable (like Chinese arcade games), US versions,
             newer versions of previously released games (Doom 1.8, etc) 
             will also receive a much lower rating.  Since this will be the 
             most "biased" part of my report I would once again like to 
             state that I am only expressing my opinion and anyone unhappy 
             with the scores is welcome to release a Report of their own.

And so, let us begin - 

MONTHLY RELEASE INFO:

Bloodbrothers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
bbs_thr1.zip 610k  01/14/95  Threat Deluxe 1.20 registered (c) Fragment   3
bbs_thr2.zip 850k  01/14/95  [2/2]

Total:       1460k + 3
Average Score:       3
 
C0D
~~~
c0d-ftbl.zip 640   01/13/95  Football 4.0 for Windows registered          2
c0d-guzu.zip 740   01/13/95  The Great Ultizurkian Underland              1
 
Total:       1380k + 3
Average Score:       3

Genesis
~~~~~~~
gns-mid1.zip 530k  01/09/95  Midway (c) Turcan Research Group             3 
gns-mid2.zip 460k  01/09/95  [2/2]
gns-paw1.zip 1440k 01/10/95  1942 Pacific Air War Scenario (c) Microprose 4 
gns-paw2.zip 1460k 01/10/95  [2/3]
gns-paw3.zip 1270k 01/10/95  [3/3]
gns-pac1.zip 1410k 01/11/95  Pac In Time (c) Mindscape                    5
gns-pac2.zip 360k  01/11/95  [2/2]
gns-fli1.zip 1180k 01/12/95  Flight Light (c) Sublogic                    5
gns-fli2.zip 230k  01/12/95  [2/2]
gns-sta1.zip 1425k 01/28/95  Stalingrad (c) Avalon Hill                   6
gns-sta2.zip 1465k 01/28/95  [2/3]
gns-sta3.zip 30k   01/28/95  [3/3]

Total:      11260k + 23
Average Score:       4.6

Hybrid
~~~~~~
tube-hbd.zip 1190k 01/14/95  Tube (c) Bullfrog                            4 
pm3-1hbd.zip 1130k 01/23/95  Premiere Manager 3 (c) Gremlin               4
pm3-2hbd.zip 1375k 01/23/95  [2/2]

Total:       3695k + 8
Average Score:       4

Razor 1911
~~~~~~~~~~
euroscn1.zip 980k  01/25/95  Europe I Scenery Disk for FS5 (c) BAO        3 
euroscn2.zip 980k  01/25/95  [2/2]

Total:       1960k + 3
Average Score:       3

The Sons Of Satan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
tssdzon1.zip 1410k 01/07/95  D!Zone (c) Wizardworks                       2
tssdzon2.zip 680k  01/07/95  [2/2]
       
Total:       2090k + 2
Average Score:       2 

Tyranny
~~~~~~~
trn-dbs1.zip 380k  01/01/95  Powerboating Simulator 3 (c) Marine Systems  3
trn-dbs2.zip 250k  01/01/95  [2/3]
trn-dbs3.zip 170k  01/01/95  [3/3]
trn-gcs1.zip 1330  01/25/95  3D Game Creating System (c) Pie Software     5
trn-gcs2.zip 1080  01/25/95  [2/2]
trn-gldr.zip 770k  01/26/95  Glider 4.0 for Windows (c) Casady & Greene   5
trn-hwm1.zip 1085k 01/26/95  Hollywood Mogul for Windows (c)DeVuono Games 6
trn-hwm2.zip 805k  01/26/95  [2/2]
trn-tcs1.zip 1430k 01/27/95  Triad Campaign System (c) NTI                5
trn-tcs2.zip 1330k 01/27/95  [2/8]
trn-tcs3.zip 1380k 01/27/95  [3/8] 
trn-tcs4.zip 1420k 01/27/95  [4/8]
trn-tcs5.zip 1350k 01/27/95  [5/8]
trn-tcs6.zip 420k  01/27/95  [6/8]
trn-tcs7.zip 540k  01/27/95  [7/8] 
trn-tcs8.zip 820k  01/27/95  [8/8]

Total:      14560k + 24
Average Score:       4.8

Vengence
~~~~~~~~
ven-dm81.zip 1465k 01/27/95  Doom 1.8 (c) id Software                     3
ven-dm82.zip 1465k 01/27/95  [2/4]
ven-dm83.zip 1465k 01/27/95  [3/4]
ven-dm84.zip 1460k 01/27/95  [4/4]

Total:       5855k + 3  
Average Score:       3

Ymca
~~~~
ymca!gw1.zip 1090k 01/21/95  Gamma Wing v1.3 registered                   3
ymca!gw2.zip 780k  01/21/95  [2/2]

Total:       1870k + 3
Average Score:       3


  JANUARY TOP CHARTS

Tyranny            14560k
Genesis            11260k
Vengence            5855k
Hybrid              3695k
The Sons Of Satan   2090k
Razor 1911          1960k
Ymca                1870k
Bloodbrothers       1460k
C0D                 1380k
-------------------------
Tyranny                24
Genesis                23
Hybrid                  8
Bloodbrothers           3
Razor 1911              3
Ymca                    3
C0D                     3
Vengence                3
The Sons Of Satan       2


And now for the totally biased comments:

January is usually a really bad month for games.  Companies that did not
get their products out for Christmas are now holding most of them till spring, 
and the software pirates spoiled by the huge amounts of games out in the last
few months are now bored and anxiosly awaiting some bigger games.  What makes 
it yet worse is the fact that more and more games out there are CD only and 
in another year or so we will see very, very few disk releases.  Personally,
I think this January was not as bad as the last one.  Started as shitty as 
expected, things did heat up a beat during the last 10 days and some relatively
good games got put out.  Let us now take a look at the groups releasing during
this month.

*Bloodbrothers*, *C0D*, *Ymca* - All those are "live for a week" groups, 
not capable of producing too many quality releases.  All of the above has 
released registered shareware that all other groups passed up on. The only
one I liked out of the 4 games from those groups was Threat Deluxe, a 
decent European game.  The rest just weren't any good.

*TSS* The TSS release of D!Zone for Doom was an actual retail product, but 
it was not of much significance.  All major groups have passed up on that
one and the TSS guys grabbed it a few days after it hit the stores.  I must 
say that TSS is a decent group, but they are mainly utility oriented and I 
do not expect any major game releases to come from them in the near future.

*Vengence* Doom 1.8..  Was no real need to release that one, as there was
a patch upgrading the game to v.1.8 available.  I did award several points
however treating the game as an upgrade.

*Genesis* is very organized, with quite a few releases this month they 
definately show the ability to compete with any other group in the scene.  
While leading this month's top for the first 2-3 weeks, they did slow down
a bit at the end.  Competition heat up as Tyranny, not so active in the 
first couple of weeks, released a bunch of titles over the last week of the
month.  Some of the GNS members even made a pathetic attempt to pass one
of the TRN releases as a dupe, but that did not work too well, neither did
it help their already shattered image. At the end of the month GNS has 
almost evened the score with the release of Stalingrad from Avalon Hill and
came in an honorary second.
NOTE: I foresee most "bias alerts" to be on my report and ratings of GNS 
vs. TRN,  Well, my intention was to rate all games honestly and to try 
preventing my personal affiliations from affecting the scores.  Its up to
you whether to agree with me or not, but either way I do not want any rag
mail as I am simply stating my personal opinion.

*Hybrid* has done a very impressive job, releasing 2 cool games. It is a
refreshing change now-a-days to see such a small group be capable of
releasing quality games.  My opinion is - while HBD will not make the #1
next month, it is certainly possible that we will see a few good European
games released by them.

*Razor 1911* The last month and a half were far from best for Razor. Internal
problems have almost destroyed the group and caused it to remain inactive
for a very long time.  One of their main suppliers have quit the scene, another
was away on an extensive vacation.  As a result, their only release was a
Flight Simulator 5 add-on.  I beleive that Razor is going through its most
critical stage right now.  During the few following weeks they will either
have to reorganize - or die.  I beleive that Razor has a very good chance
of becoming a good, stayable group again, but I doubt they will be able to
dominate the scene, as they did in November, anytime soon.

*Tyranny* Ah, my own group..  We did well in October but than I was unable
to control the group working 10 hours a day and Eos has left to join Razor.
In November we weren't too active and The Renegade Chemist, founder of the
Ware Report has correctly assumed that we will not be making the charts in
December.  Now, however it sure looks like we are back in full strength. 
The D0D game division and Glory both merged into Tyranny so that together we
could put up a force capable of competing with Razor and Genesis.  Apparently,
it has worked as Tyranny got the top ratings for January.  TRN was the first
group to release a game in 1995, though it was not a big title.  Than, we were 
in the organization stages for a while, only releasing a CD rip and a couple of
trainers.  At the end of the month however, Tyranny went on a releasing spree
beating Genesis in a close competition and right now it looks like the next
month might be another close call between the two.


	I hope you enjoyed this little text file.  It took me some
	time to compile it and I think it covers all commercial
        games released this Janury. If there ARE any games missing 
        from this review, drop me a note and I will make sure to 
        review them in the February issue.  Till than - ciao.

						Cyber Angel
						TRN/PNX '95