Newsgroups: alt.cd-rom.reviews Path: cdrom.com!barrnet.net!decwrl!decwrl!netcomsv!netcom.com!cdsale From: cdsale@netcom.com (Todd Ostrer) Subject: ADULT CD-ROM REVIEW: EROTIC ENCOUNTERS Message-ID: Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1] Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 17:29:08 GMT Lines: 249 Erotic Encounters 2 =================== This review is broken up into several posts and contains four major sections: General - Miscellaneous comments that didn't seem to belong in any other section; Statistics - the quantitative, measurable characteristics of the CD; Operations - a more qualitative analysis of the "usability" aspects of the CD which tries to consider factors of interest to both the sysop and the end-user; and Visual - a purely qualitative opinion of the intrinsic qualities of the images themselves. Note that section boundaries are not inviolate. To those of you who have read some of my previous reviews of adult CDs, you will be familiar territory with this one as well. If you're a "new" reader, let me iterate: I am NOT an expert (whatever that is) on adult (or any other kind of) CDs. Accordingly, what follows is ONE PERSON'S OPINION. General ======= The front jewel case insert of the review issue Erotic Encounters 2 (EE2) is bears a picture of a very lovely lady in lingerie and a Mardi Gras-style mask. Besides the title, this cover also has a ridiculous price printed on it plus the curious phrase "Banned in the USA". How can that possibly be true? I certainly didn't get this copy from the underground or black market! Looks and sounds like just so much more "Madison Avenue" hype to me. There is also anonymous warranty registration card pre-addressed to Clayton, CA (another curiosity) promising a $20 gift certificate (for what isn't stated) if the registration is returned. Most unusual, a second card is included to be redeemed for a FREE CD-ROM from another anonymous address, this time in Columbus, OH. The free CD-ROM ($2 for shipping) is identified as "PC Paramedic(tm) Diagnostic CD-ROM" (sic) supposedly a $79.95 value. Some brief text is included regaling its capabilities. Another $15 is solicited for a "CD-ROM Surprise grab bag" - returnable if not completely satisfied. The back jewel case insert has several proclamations of its own. There is a bold warning to the effect that the pictures contained on the CD are sexually explicit and shouldn't be viewed by those offended by such material. There is a one-line "installation instruction" which proved mostly accurate. There is a statement of requirements - PC compatible and a 512K VGA video. There is an identification of the CD's producers as Peek-A-Boo Entertainment in Chicago, IL - which is why I called the other addresses "curious". In other CD's, notably those from Florida Lion's Den and Graphical Images of Florida, all included correspondence is pre-addressed to them, not some third-party go-between. Personally, I like KNOWING whom I'm doing business with. Most questionable is the statement: "This is not your average adult CD-ROM disk!" As we shall see in the Statistics section, this statement is open to interpretation. Finally, the producers DID put titles on the edges of the back insert so that identification of the CD in a stack or while the jewel case is stored on its edge is possible. Thank you Peek-A-Boo! Statistics ========== Tabulation of EE2's GIFs totaled 3323 usable pictures, counting neither the "catalog" GIFs (more on these in Operations), nor the miscellaneous GIFs in the MENU directory. The requirements previously mentioned as stated on the back cover are generally adequate as MOST of the GIFs are 640x480x256 (or thereabouts). However, there are a number of 800x600 resolution GIFs and even 63 (by actual count) 1024x768 GIFs. A 512K video board won't handle the latter ones without "panning" (see Operations). The GIFs average 152,890 bytes each - a healthy size for a 640x480 GIF. I found NO duplicated files through examination of either file names or file sizes. That doesn't guarantee there aren't any, just that my processes didn't detect any. It's worth saying that several GIFs with names other than what I was accustomed to associating them with were found on EE2. That is, there's been some re-naming along the way somewhere by somebody. Comparison of EE2's file names to the ones in my GIF name data base was, shall we say, revealing. For the first time, I got a 100% hit count! That is to say, there was NOT ONE SINGLE FILE NAME on EE2 that wasn't already represented by one or more other CDs in the data base. Sort of calls into question the producers' statement about EE2 not being an "average" adult CD. In my opinion, as far as the GIF selection is concerned, "average" is an understatement. EE2 does have redeeming qualities - more on this in Operations. The hit list from my data base comparison was as follows: Seedy 6-Pak 3219 7th Heaven 4 BB1/R1 131 BB1/R3 108 Ecstasy 102 FAO-2 276 FAO-3 382 FAO-Gold 262 PCPIX-1 358 PCPIX-2 13 PCPIX-3 26 Visual Fan. 129 Pork-Ware 1 67 Storm-3 257 Note that there were only 104 (3323-3219=104) files on EE2 NOT found on one of the six CDs in Seedy ROM 6-Pak. Now while some may say that it isn't fair to compare a single disk with a set of six, let's remind ourselves that Seedy has been out for several months - EE2 is a current release. For a "new" CD to replicate 97% of the files on an older (by at least several months) CD represents a classic case of re-hashing. Operations - Sysop ================== There are 31 directories on EE2: "0" through "Z" hold the GIFs where the directory name represents the first letter in the GIF name (save "0" where all files whose names begin with a number are stored). Additionally, there is the CATALOG directory where all the "catalog" GIFs are; the MENU directory where the GIFReed program resides along with its support files; the TEXT directory where the text file descriptions are (text file names are d.BBS where "d" is the directory name - filename.GIF in column 1 and descriptions beginning in column 15); and the VIEWERS directory where other GIF viewers and graphics tools programs are in ZIP format. The VIEWERS directory also has a FILES.BBS file except it's the "expanded" type which includes file sizes and date stamps. Given the above and what I've picked up by reading this echo, I'd guess one could call this CD "BBS Ready"" from a mechanical standpoint if the file description files' format suits the sysop's needs, or can be made to do so. The back jewel box insert makes a statement to the effect that the producers believe the GIFs to be free of copyright entanglements. leave it to the sysops to judge the efficacy of that statement given the 100% hit ratio mentioned in the Statistics section. Operations - End User ===================== To begin, the reverse side of the front jewel box insert is stamped: "MS DOS 6.0 Notice:" A poorly printed (i.e. faint on the review copy) statement follows saying that the ASSIGN command is required but not included with DOS 6.0 and therefore DOS 6.0 users may have to use an alternate viewer. This notice was hidden by the inclusion of the warranty card and the "free CD" card mentioned earlier. I suppose it's reasonable to assume that the purchaser would find this notice sooner or later, but it seemed to me to be a weak attempt to inform the user of potential problems. That warning notwithstanding, I followed the instruction to log to my CD drive and type "INSTALL". This brings the immediate response that two parameters are required. (Recall, I said in the General section that the installation instructions were MOSTLY correct.) One has to specify the drive letters of the CD drive and the installation drive. The net result of a successful installation is that a customized EROTIC.BAT file is written to the \DOS directory of the installation drive. Since the \DOS directory is VERY likely to be in the DOS path, entering "EROTIC" from anywhere will start things rolling. Now about that ASSIGN warning...I run DOS 6.0 and while its "help" facility denies knowing anything about this command, the installed .BAT file works flawlessly. Others may not be so lucky. I'm no DOS guru so I can't offer much in the way of explanations. Here's where the fun begins! The ONLY thing (in my opinion) that would keep EE2 from being your "average" adult CD is the file viewer/manipulator that INSTALL activates. It's a shareware version (4.12) of GIFReed - one of the new breed of point-and-click front ends for image-oriented CD. (SHOWOFF on Busty Babes V.1/R.3 and GDS are other examples.) This is the viewer that I panned in my review of Digital Dreams some weeks back. Well, either the producers of EE2 knew how to use GIFReed better, or this is an updated version, or something, but results this time are much improved in certain sectors. To begin on a positive note, the catalog images (remember the CATALOG directory?) are considerably larger and much clearer than either the catalog images on Digital Dreams, or Busty Babes V.1/R.3 for that matter. This is likely due to heavy anti-aliasing during their generation. Secondly, only about one inch of screen real estate is hogged by a repetitious (and still useless IMO) title, not almost half a screen as in the case of Digital Dreams. Secondly, while I didn't fully explore the version of GIFReed on Digital Dreams, this version seemed to have more functionality. There's lots of image manipulation functionality and the point-and-click interface is Teflon-smooth. This is a slick, mouse-driven interface, folks. It's hard to imagine any function that 99% of the users would want that isn't already included (at least in the registered version). Of particular note to those with only 512K video systems (recall, there's a number of 1024x768 images on EE2), panning large images is a no-brainer. After getting the image on the screen, just push and hold the left mouse button and the image is "grabbed" such that it follows all mouse movements - and QUICKLY! This is a MUCH better and easier to use method than the usual arrow-key or PgUp/PgDn methods supported by a lot of viewers. Now for the gripes: The included shareware version of GIFReed is too crippled to permit a full evaluation before registering it. There are no less that five annoying beeps or messages at EROTIC.BAT startup, PLUS a repeating beep/notice from GIFReed every time a directory of more than 25 images is selected, i.e. most every directory on EE2. Further, the "NON-REGISTERED" notice on the screen (common in shareware) F-L-A-S-H-E-S constantly when anything but a image is on the screen. It's most annoying, which I suppose is its purpose, but also self-defeating if it's meant to encourage me to register. I can't be annoyed into registering a product - quite the reverse! Since this is a holistic review of EE2, I don't want to concentrate on this shareware version of GIFReed too much. Still, it's worth saying that if a shareware author wants ME to evaluate his efforts with an eye towards purchase/registration, don't give me a crippled version to look at. The very thing that's left out or disabled might be just the function I'm most interested in, and the author will miss out. I register shareware I use because it's fair and because I want the benefits of registration like technical support, new release notices or versions at reduced costs, etc. I DON'T register shareware to get functionality that should've been there in the first place. Visual ====== Well, here we go again - how do you spell "re-hash"? E-r-o-t-i-c E-n-c-o-u-n-t-e-r-s 2, that's how. Image-wise, this CD has nothing going for it that LOTS of other CDs of its kind don't have, but nothing against it either that they don't also have: tired images full of BBS ads, and perhaps some questionable copyrights. There's no animated files, nor any text "story" files which some of its kin have - whether this is a blessing or a curse is up to each purchaser to decide. What EE2 DOES have is GIFReed and this nifty product (judged by the version and catalog images on the review CD), can make looking at even tired images a more pleasant experience. The images are, by and large, good clear scans - many of which are full or near-full screen in size. If you've seen virtually ANY other adult CD, certainly any of the comparison CDs, you'll recognize the works of the BBSs that produced them, (that's the good news) if not the images themselves (that's the bad news). ------------------------------------ Review by Bob Jackson: Houston, Tx. ------------------------------------ Pacific Data Graphics / Your Adult CD-Rom Source 2473 S.E. 135th / Portland , Oregon. 97233 (503) 257-7255 '24' Hr. Voice# for Questions/Orders 1-800-400-7255 '24' Hr. Voice# for ORDERS Only: Email: cdsale@netcom.com For Our Latest 350+ Title Adult List: -- Pacific Data Graphics Inc. 'your cd-rom disk source 1100 titles' 503-257-7255 '24' Voice# for Questions,Orders 1-800-400-7255 '24' # for Orders Only: