It seems Hybrid's release of Worms 2 may have some problems with internet multiplay. Here is a quote from their trouble shooting page at http://www.worm2.com/problems.html
"Cracked or Pirate Copies. Right lets get one thing straight, if you've got a cracked or pirate copy of Worms 2 (i.e. you've not bought it in a reputable shop) then you are incredibly silly. You are the sort of people we hate and we hate you even more when you try to use these versions to play Worms 2 across the Internet. Why? Simple. They don't work because Worms 2 installs a modified direct play .dll file. Any game you try to log into will crash. Once you have tried to connect to the server we also know your IP address and will be notifying your ISP and your local police enforcement agency. Don't argue with us. We wrote the game, this is now in progress. Pack your bags and move... or face the consequences." Now this could be a bluff but I doubt it. This is the future of games, specifically games that require you to play internet multiplay games on the game producers servers. I wouldn't be supprised if Blizzard's Battle Net server tries something like this one day.

Wednesday 26th November

Wow, two races in two days, Heavy Gear (c) Activision though was eventually won by Razor 1911 out classing (excuse the pun) Class. Also yesterday Hybrid released the heavly hyped Worms 2 (c) Team17, the game best described as Lemmings with guns.

Monday 24th November

Well we don't see many dupes like this anymore. It seems Hybrid was about 25 minutes too slow on their release F1 Racing Simulation (c) UBI Soft loosing out to Paradigm. Unfortunatly Paradigm's release wasn't fully working but our heroes at Class quickly came up with an fix. A batch file to rename another file, still a fix is a fix.

Sunday 23th November

Class's efnet channel has joined the ranks of Paradigm, Hybrid and have removed their -i status. Now Class can also be flooded by lamers who act like assholes begging and flaming.

Friday 21th November

Those plonkers at Scenelink have decided to return from their very long break with a new issue. Currently their page is still not ready but expect their next issue to be online in a few days. (Click here to read some Shakespeare.)

Tuesday 18th November

The team at Paradigm has released the sequal to the most popular game of 1996, Tomb Raider. With 3d support and at only 23 disks I'm sure many people will be busy this week.

Sunday 16th November

Another electronic magazine makes a come back, this time it is Wave. New issues of the magazine will be released in a few months on Windows and new never before used format.

Paradigm releases the much awaited Fifa Soccer 98 final a day after an independent release of a 2 month old beta. Also Paradigm's webpage competition closed today.

Friday 14th November

It seems that Reality Check Network will not be returning after all. The people who wanted to restart RCN will now be starting their own magazine called Syndication (#syn). The reason for the change is and I quote from one of the new editors "we decided against it... we thought it was time to let it go... And everyone pretty much hated rebel.. and wanted nothing to do with him".

Thursday 13th November

Whats the matter with Class? Don't they think their own crackers are worthy of being mentioned in the CLASS.NFO file? Take a recent example, Sub Culture (c) UbiSoft released two days ago. In the NFO they claimed Phil Douglas was the cracker. Now you may not remember this guy but he was one of the best ever crackers for the Amiga. One of my contacts decided to call Phil and ask him about this release and he said that he had not joined the PC scene and had definately not joined Class. This is not the first time Class has used old Amiga legends in their NFO files either. So is this just a joke? Well a lot of people don't think so, infact most of these people think Class is using old Amiga suppliers and crackers in the NFO files just to make themselves look cool.

Monday 10th November

Today Razor puts out Jack Nicklaus Golf 5 which is 73 disks. Now it's good to see Razor are finally showing some activity again but like a few times in the past, Razor has broken it's own rules on this release. Except this time no one really cares and now Razor can get away with it. A year ago if a group put out a game that was missing levels or courses it would have be considered crippled and subsequencly nuked. But Razor have done just that and nothing has happened. Razor then justified this move by releasing a course addon of the missing holes. But obviously with the full set of holes the game is way over 75 disks. So no matter how tricky Razor gets this release should be nuked, but you know what they say. Law is only law when it is enforced.

Sunday 9th November

Hybrid has decided to continue their tradition and bless 1997 with their annual X-mas scene magazine. And this time they have teamed up with the guys at Razor 1911 to hopefully make it better then ever. All submissions can be sent to ice@drinkordie.com.

Not to be out done by their rivals, Paradigm are also releasing a holiday scene magazine for Christmas. Here is a quote from their NFO ..
"We want everyone in the scene to help contribute to this marvel! VGA artists, coders, etc ... and of course ARTICLES! We want tons of entries and submitions! Tired of all the rag wars going on? Write about it! Mad about current SPA guidelines? Write about it! We want everything and anything."
All submissions can be sent to pdm97@rocketmail.com.

It seems both Hybrid, Razor and Paradigm are making major comebacks, Christmas must be in the air already.

Thursday 6th November

It seems Hybrid is sort of making a come back with a few okayish releases. But their latest release Jungle Book Windows95 Edition (2/x) was originally released in it's DOS form back in 1994. I don't know about you but I could swear this would be a budget title now even if it was re-released for Windows95.

Speaking of comebacks it seems Reality Check Network is back for a forth time. Is anyone going to take them seriously now?
But you can forget about the old school members this new, 4th generation RCN will be run by Krypto and Helter. And gone too will be the outdated Xenon interface replaced by some modern 1998 code. But don't get to excidited as I doubt RCN will ever gain the strangle hold on the scene they once had. I mean we don't make the same mistakes twice do we?

Tuesday 4th November

It seems Sodom is loosing it's roots as a Russian dominated group. Saint Tok the leader of Sodom has announced he has moved to Sweden to take up an excellent job offer.

Paradigm's webpage at paradigm.org, the scene's first help page has vanished. Maybe if the scene still made money like the old days groups could get legitamate domains and servers?

This is not technically a scene article but my favorate emulator, Callus has been updated. It now supports Final Fight, Street Fighter 2 Turbo / Campion Edition, Strider and UN Squadron.