New World Order
New World Order was a diskmag by the Dutch group Ground Zero, edited by Nothingface. Eight issues were released in the years 1993-1996. All issues are available at scene.org from where they have been downloaded about 700 times. They work fine using DOSBox. Some of the issues work even without DOSBox.
New World Order #1
New World Order #1 (May 1993) was coded by Nothingface. The graphics were done by Samsman and Nothingsface. The annoying music was composed by Telekinetic of The Flame Arrows. On my modern PC it only runs if music is toggled on. Mouse control doesn't work even though there are some buttons on the bottom of the screen, you have to use the keyboard. It's a bit confusing that you have to press Space to exit an article, while Escape quits the mag.
The font is not really reader-friendly. The layout of the articles is simple, contiguous, bi-colour (white and red), without inlay images. Some texts were justified by inserting spaces.
Apart from columns we can find in most diskmags, such as news and adverts, there are not many scene-related articles in this diskmag. Three articles deal with television and movies. A joke article is called "The Jesus Hotline". As the crew writes in the editorial, this issue is supposed to be rather a demonstration than a real issue.
New World Order #2
New World Order #2 was released in October 1993. The main menu is now sized two columns, Escape just exits the article and not the whole mag, but the buttons still don't work. The font is much more reader-friendly than in the previous issue.
There are good technical articles on the Gravis Ultra Sound (GUS) soundcard, which was a new thing when this issue was released, supercomputers and why modules sound better on Amiga than on PC. Except some demo reviews, the other articles aren't scene-related. There are CD reviews, movie reviews and a section called "The Shocking Truth", which is quite funny. Still this issue has a poor feeling to it all in all.
New World Order #3
New World Order #3, with music by SQD of TFA, is from December 1993. Again its menu is sized two columns. There are charts in this issue, about the categories groups, demos, coders, graphicians, musicians, magazines and BBS's. About half of the articles deal with the scene. There are some group introductions, information on the Demogroups Interchange network and another article on the GUS. Other topics in this issue of New World Order are CDs, movies, games, and there are lots of scary stories. A better issue than the previous one.
New World Order #4
February 1994 was the month when New World Order #4 was released. The main menu has got a new layout and now occupies two pages. There are three tunes, two by SQD and one by MiG of Bananacrap Inc.
Two reports about The Party 1993 are included in this issue, plus some more comments on the party in general and the intro compo in special. The other contents are similar to the previous issues. There's another article on supercomputers, there are some reviews of demos and games, and there are the usual news and adverts corners - no charts though.
New World Order #5
New World Order #5 was released three months after the previous issue, in May 1994. This issue is bigger than all issues before, its menu is four pages long. The music comes from SQD (two tunes) and Sulphur of Admire (one tune). There are charts again (same categories as last time, 13 voters). A corner deals with the Bizarre 1994 party. The article section starts with a rather lame article about anarchy. A conversation between a user of the PAS-16 soundcard and a GUS
user is also published, in which the two of them go into detail comparing the two soundcards. Several groups introduce themselves. There are some music-related articles, which I skipped. Moreover, there are some weird stories (not too good ones), and for the first time there are also graphical adverts inside the mag. Many articles make the impression that their authors are in puberty. So it's impressive that the editors managed to collect so many articles, but the quality is questionable.
New World Order #6
NWO #6, from December 1994, features a new design by Nothingface, which however doesn't look better than the issue five, rather worse. Two tunes were made by SQD and one each by Jazz of Diffusion and Pozor of TKB Music Development. There are charts again (27 voters) and for this first time polls with some weird questions about Jesus returning to the planet in his own spaceship and religious cults. The voters were also asked to pose questions to the NWO staff, and the answers to some of
these questions are printed in this issue - nothing serious though. There's a big corner on The Party 1994 with eight articles. An article tries to analyze why the scene in the USA is so small. There are also a report about the Polish demo scene (written by Unreal) and some group information articles. There's one interview, the victim is Shako of Thaumaturge. Several articles deal with the world wide web, which was a new thing back then, they introduce various websites, scene-related ones and others. Moreover, there are a lot of weird stories, some of which are funny.
New World Order #7
August 1995 brought us New World Order #7. The main menu this time occupies six pages. The new coder and editor is TcM of Ground Zero - Nothingface decided to stop creating NWO. The graphics were done by Connor. Modules are from The Rew of Nostalgia, Welti of Engima, Scorpik of Surprise!Productions and Harlequin of Success. Since the staff received only about 20 votesheets they decided not to publish charts in this issue. Among the more interesting articles there are a (rather short) text about the Atari scene, a Swedish scene report and a detailed description of the SoundBlaster AWE 32. There's again a lot of texts about music, Satanism and other weird stuff which I couldn't relate to. Interestingly, some of the articles from the French authors (Remdy of Arkham and Judge Miguel of Just For Fun) were already published in Daskmig #6 (May 1995). There are also quite a lot of party reports, some demo reviews and interviews with CrapWare, Flap of Capacala and Simm of Abstract Concepts.
New World Order #8
The last issue of New World Order was released in January 1996. This issue was a production of the group Weird Magic, as could be seen in the intro. The editorial was written by Mr. Logic of Weird Magic. He also coded the engine. The background graphics were from Face of Weird Magic. The musical score consists of four tunes, by MiG of Weird Magic, Guybrush of Weird Magic, The Rew of Nostalgia, and Balrog of Proxima and Noice. The charts categories are the same as always, except that there's a new category about the most popular site on the Internet. Only 16 people voted, nevertheless the charts were published. The party section focuses on Bizarre 1995 and Wired 1995. There are several more serious and not-so-serious articles and stories, all in all the menu occupies four pages. One article is a Danish scene report, which turned out to be a source of controversy. There's also an Australian scene report. The only interview is with the editor of this issue, Mr. Logic. All in all it may be a nice issue if you enjoy weird stories and nonsense, otherwise it doesn't have a lot of contents for you.