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                         NARSIL MAGAZINE ISSUE 4o
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system... ST, STe, Falcon, 1MB RAM, RGB/VGA

size..... 1,8 MB on harddisk

shell.... coded by EMPTHY HEAD of HEADACHE PROJECT
          grafx by JS of FAEN
          musix by TEQUE of AGGRESSION

writers.. JIRI, JS, RADO, WORM, TM DYK, MAJA, MIKRO, BEA, SIDDIE, NEZNAMY VOJIN

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Finally  they reached  another frontier... The guys  behind the  bemonthly czech
magazine reached some volume number the most other magazine makers never thought
to reach at all. At least the  scene magazines, didn't matched it  so far and at
least "MAGGIE", atm the longest running magazine will not reach it anymore, coz'
it is just a zombie-magazine nowadays.

Furthermore the NARSIL makers matched it in just 4 years or so, but as you maybe
remember to other articles I wrote  about NARSIL in  older issues of UNDERCOVER,
therefore the  magazines always had some big drawbacks, such as  they're useless
for  people, who  aren't speaking  the czech language, they  featured  no actual
reviews as well and just a small ammount of articles at all.

Anyway, NARSIL is the only lifesign of the czech 16bit Atariscene nowadays. It's
still maintained by the guys of FAEN and supported by the HEADACHE PROJECT coder
EMPTY HEAD, who's responsible for their shell.

So, enough of this crap, let's take a closer look to that issue.

At first "NARSIL 4o" is the first issue since  one year that  comes along on two
disx  again, featuring  the mag  at the one  hand and some  special stuff at the
other.



After loading the magazine, the same crude stuff comes up again. NARSIL is still
released  as shareware magazine. Without key  you can't read the whole  magazine
and several articles are for "members only". But that's not the only problem.
Also with issue 4o they're still holding up the czech  language only... and that
is the biggest problem at all. So the magazine is more or less still useless for
"foreigners". I checked it up anyway.

After loading a scanned picture, showing a young girl comes up. And after that a
little intro, or better  intro-animation, comes  up... nice done! It  shows some
planets  landscape, some blinking object and  an ufo, firing in it's  direction,
followed by  an animated little FAEN logo... Oha! That's the first  time that it
featured something like an intro, maybe because of the issue's number?



After that the usual  main menu comes up, showing some alien grafix and the menu
of articles  as well. "NARSIL 4o" offers just 24 articles and  that's really not
much. I can remember last years issues which featured the double contents...

Therefore the magazine features some new specials again, so there are some
grafix to load, some animations  to run as well  as some animated  comics of the
makers of the magazine! All I can say is that those thingies are well done, esp.
the pixeled  animations. Some  animated, or better with  colourcycling blowed up
grafix, such as a screen from the czech "LAMEMANIA" demo, are included as well.

The articles itself featuring as  always reviews of  older games ("BAD COMPANY",
"SECOND WORLD", "ALIEN BLAST" and a few others), an overview of the TOS versions
available  including their  features and  differences, tips for  HTML coding, an
article about Internet browsers  on Atari, reviews of  later "WINSTON" versions,
an overview of module players for Falcon, an  article about the Internet at all,
a czech party report (!) of the ATARI HODY 2K, hold in Brno in autumn.
Besides a few other articles, also a review of  the "NOSTALGIC-O" demo is packed
in too.

Last but not  least the usual  stuff like  announcements, credits  and so on are
included too and just one (!) article is for registered users only this time.
Ok, what's  left? There are some specials  included too, just a  demo version of
"BAD COMPANY" (a game from 199o), a  mod file  and to czech  translated resource
files of CAB v2.8.

Ok, I think that's it... time for the last words...

"NARSIL 4o" isn't a blast in the NARSIL history, it's a quiet normal issue, uses
the known  shell that offers still no scrolling in  the viewer, but  viewing the
articles by pages and including pictures, several fonts and colours as well.
The mag  gives module  sound to STe users  only... What else... it's  still just
interesting  for czech users and if you think that the  team behind the magazine
includes about 1o people it seems that there are enough readers  around too. The
articles, esp. the reviews aren't really up-to-date and the special stuff on the
"cover" disk isn't usefull for all readers too. But after all  they're trying to
entertain the czech Atari posse as good  as possible, unfortunately  they forgot
that there are  more Atarians out there and as long as they're  limited to their
national scene only, a support of them by foreign people is nearly impossible...

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contents........  2o % - not much articles, just czech language, not up-to-date
shell...........  5o % - no scrolling, just a text viewer, just STe msx support
shell grafix....  65 % - ok and changing from issue to issue...
shell musix.....  8o % - musix by TEQUE of AGGRESSION, for STe only :(
loader pic......  3o % - just a scanned girlie...
intro...........  65 % - heavy pixeled animation, but nothing more
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overall.........  52 % - just interesting for czech Atarians...
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.tSCc.                                                                   moondog
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