Pain 57 & Eurochart 48 (Done by Magic of Nah-kolor)
Pain issue 57 - October 2005
The two starting pictures don't impress me. Though they have a summer look (always nice) they are horribly pixeled. However, in my eyes the good thing about Pain isn't graphics anyway, but the fact that they have a good bunch of sceners on board to write. Quality and quantity wise, it's good. I just wonder: Why isn't Pain released more often when they have such sceners on board? :)
Pain issue 57 was released on the occasion of the wedding of Eva and XXX / Haujobb. A report and photos are of course inside the magazine. Most of all I liked the interviews and reviews inside Pain #57 - it's quite a lot of them.
The first music became boring soon, so I loaded the second one.. Not my taste, either. The third one then: Yeay, this sounds much better!
A lot of articles are very interesting, for example articles about the making of demos, the backgrounds behind the demos you've recently seen at a party or at home. A nice feature is the section with articles where sceners describe their memories of their first visits to a demo party - this section has been a good idea.
Pain#57 is full of articles which are surely interesting for demo sceners. Therefore I suggest to download the magazine if you haven't read it yet. Though diskmags aren't released much anymore in general, the few that still exist should go on for ever! Pain was advertised at the big screen at bp06 so I expect at least one issue in 2006, guys! I hope, however, that it will have better graphics than this issue; at least that would be nice!
As Zoom of Conspiracy comments at Pouet.net: "The background is a bit annoying this time, but lots of interesting articles, and that's what counts :)"
Eurochart issue 48 - April 2006
This issue of the Eurochart was announced ages ago. But Iris finally kept their promise. Eurochart has been released since 1989 on the Amiga. With this issue, it has become a multplatform magazine. They now use the panorama2 engine by Chris Dragan which Hugi also uses ;-) Ransom of Iris ported this engine to the Amiga.
The magazine of Eurochart#48 is focused on the Amiga scene though. Why release a multiplatform magazine if the magazine contents focus on the Amiga scene? I hope this is going to be different in issue 49. Also write about PC topics. Or c64 topics. Thank you :)
In contrast to Pain#57 the Eurochart has a great graphical design, layout and title picture. For a diskmag that's not the most important thing but it really helps for the general feeling and look! Great work by Dr.Doom of Iris!
The contents are, though Amiga-focused, good. It's all there - interviews, reviews, party zone. But somehow I miss something. I felt I was just reading another issue of the EC instead of THE issue of EC. But it's still nice, of course.. Please download this issue if you haven't already seen it. If it's alone for the great graphics in it ;-)
By the way: EC team, since the EC is still also a chart, why don't you make the chart section multiplatform as well? Why should a PC scener only see a chart with Amiga related stuff in it? Quoting Axel of Brainstorm: "full respect, great production. Too bad it's still only Amiga-focused. But good job guys! o/"
The release of this issue of the EC cost me one beer for Darkhawk of IRIS at Breakpoint06. (I promised him this because EC#48 had been delayed over and over again.) So now I give him a new challenge: The contents of issue 49 chart and magazine should be multiplatform-related and not only about Amiga. If this happens you'll not get one beer but two at Breakpoint07 ;-)