TITLE:When things get better announced than delivered
PALETTE:0113 055b 089a 09ae


3                              A CULT-URAL DESASTER


To  insert  a new mag in ones floppy has always something stimulation.  What may
it bring?
Much  too  often,  I  have gotten disappointed.  Just the so-so-so articles.  No
ideas and no meaning.

Then  again,  there  are  pearls.   2"Random  Pearls" 1like 2Macno 1would call them.
Well,  this  is  what  they  makes  them  precious, isn't it?  Too bad, however,
producers try to make their releases to not-so-random pearls by boasting them in
the forefield.  Mega advertised they get along and 2"Puff!" 1they are gone as they
really can't keep what they've promised.

3Now, we have CULT.
Background  information:   2SLEDGE  HAMMER1, a quite recognisable diskmag from the
Hungarian  based  group  2ABSOLUTE!  1died when some of its heads (namely 2JEAN 1and
2BEN1)  thought it was over for them.  2CULT 1is the predecessor by parts of the old
team plus new stuff.

New  spirits  promise  freshness  and so the scene expected at least a more than
average mag.  3Now, we faced the first issue - what can we say?


2CULT#0.5  1was meant to be an out-of-the-row release just to review the Party IV.
Therefore,  they  stood  under a massive timelimit - so much is recognised.  The
makers  apologised  themselves  for it (honesty is top) and claimed it was a cut
down version so there would be bugs.
Cut  down  would  have  been  pretty  ok, but after the first careful looks, 2I'd
2rather say it looked SCISSORED OUT!

3But let me give you some more info...
CULT came on two disks.  Normally this should indicate that there is a mag to be
expected  with  many  articles  and nice gfx (eg slide) plus several tunes.  The
CULTidians,  however,  decided  to  help their poor editing job out by giving an
intro which takes almost one full disk.  Brilliant.

After  a  loooong "intro" (it looks good, no question, but what has it got to do
with  the mag itself?), the gathered crowd is expected to wait 5 minutes for the
mag  to  decrunch  as they didn't manage to get it on one disk unpacked (and XLD
takes  its time...)!  I won't mention that I was told that my A4000 with 4MB was
told  to be out of memory after a while - something ain't right here...  Anyway.
Ok,  after having it unpacked on my harddisk finally - it's quite a procedure if
you  ain't  practicising this daily (at least this disqualifies 'lamers' to read
the  mag  as  they  don't  get it unpacked), I am prepared to see the mag, still
wondering what user-friendliness means to the CULTidians?

3Here we go:
Whaaaat!   Uh-oh,  how could I prevent myself from dragging this down?  About 15
(I  guess  less)  articles  are "crammed" into the menu.  Five of them the usual
"Editorial and disclaimer"-stuff.  Leaves a fistfull of articles which - after a
short  read  -  will  be  remembered  by me for being "unread-worthy".  They are
fillers.  Excuses of articles.

2"1000bytes, we got it. Another article, mates!"

One  article  refers  to  the next one, but they all contain one major sentence:
2"We  didn't like the party." 1If they'd put it that way, I could have saved a lot
of  time  actually.   Moreover,  the primar goal of journalistic objectivism has
gone  away there - every single word they give drags the party down and spits on
everything there was - is this onesided, or what?

3Some personal greets and advises to the CULTidians:
2-  1Pre-stories  like  "it  took  me 18 hours to get to the party" don't interest
anyone and can be left out.
2-  1Discrimination  against French people as background for the misjudging at the
gfx-compo  is  pretty ridiculous!  They've rather have just taken some disks and
showed  pictures  randomly.   This  is bad enough, it doesn't need investigating
against racists!
2-  1Although  I  agree  that  the  organizers  misbehaved,  there  can never be a
legitimation to create a virus and destroy others harddisks-contents.  If I pick
that  guy,  you called a hero and who made this virus, he gets trouble as it was
him  giving  the  reason  for  letting  us  wait  for  the intro-compo.  How can
reasonable people like the idea of viruses, killing harddrives?


Yes,  I  know:   2"RokDaZone/INFECT  is  a lamer, because he talked bad about our
mag!"  1Yet, believe me:  You can hide behind big names like 2FACET 1as long as you
will.   You can also release dozends of brilliant scans for a slide.  You can go
on  doing  one-disked  intros.  Still, you will never create a great mag without
great articles and if it rains pigs from the sky.

I  wish  you the best and hope for the real CULT.  Well, you maybe wanted to put
the  pressure  off  you by releasing this one, but I can only fear:  Now, people
will  have  less  expectations from CULT, but on the other hand, they will think
negative about it without ever having seen it.