Author Topic: How long will the new GameFan last? (Read 5658 times)

Rman · « **on:** February 17, 2010, 12:13:53 AM »

Stolen from GAF, but who cares:
http://www.gamesabyss.com/news/1243-dave-halverson-re-launches-gamefan-magazine

So apparently Dave Halverson is relauching GameFan magazine and shuttering Play.

With this and EGM relaunching its like the late 90s all over again.

I doubt both will see two years, though. $:-\$

bork · « **Reply #1 on:** February 17, 2010, 12:20:24 AM »

If he can get back some of his old staff (I think Nick Rox is already there, and Shidoshi is too, although Shidoshi's posts on GAF are a turn-off to his writing style) and they can go for the old style layouts and import coverage, I'll bite on Gamefan.

Ichirou · « **Reply #2 on:** February 17, 2010, 12:20:59 AM »

Will Nick Rox be writing about b-b-b-blue shadows?

Rman · « **Reply #3 on:** February 17, 2010, 12:23:32 AM »

I heard the dude has had issues paying his staff during the end of his magazine runs. Don't know if it's legit.

Regarding the import coverage, when GameFan was in its heyday, Japan game development was at its peak and the center of console gaming. I'm just not at excited about imports these days because of the decline of Japanese game development. Capcom's the only company whose output it still exciting in the East, IMO.

Ichirou · « **Reply #4 on:** February 17, 2010, 12:24:37 AM »

Dave Halverson is a notoriously sketchy character. He was infamous for being a major cokehead during the initial GameFan run.

Rman · « **Reply #5 on:** February 17, 2010, 12:26:40 AM »

Quote from: Good Day Sir on February 17, 2010, 12:20:24 AM

If he can get back some of his old staff (I think Nick Rox is already there, and Shidoshi is too, although Shidoshi's posts on GAF are a turn-off to his writing style) and they can go for the old style layouts and import coverage, I'll bite on Gamefan.

What did you think of Play, lyte?

bork · « **Reply #6 on:** February 17, 2010, 12:51:18 AM »

Gamefan used to cover games that the other mags would only have a blurb on or wouldn't cover at all. That's what I mean about the imports. I loved their layouts too. The "new" Gamefan after Halverson and crew left was never the same.

Quote from: Rman on February 17, 2010, 12:26:40 AM

Quote from: Good Day Sir on February 17, 2010, 12:20:24 AM
If he can get back some of his old staff (I think Nick Rox is already there, and Shidoshi is too, although Shidoshi's posts on GAF are a turn-off to his writing style) and they can go for the old style layouts and import coverage, I'll bite on Gamefan.

What did you think of Play, lyte?

Never really bothered with it. I think the last issue I read was a freebie from an E3 I went to, so that was around 10 years (or more) ago.

bork · « **Reply #7 on:** February 17, 2010, 12:54:05 AM »

Quote from: Ichirou on February 17, 2010, 12:24:37 AM

Dave Halverson is a notoriously sketchy character. He was infamous for being a major cokehead during the initial GameFan run.

All those stories posted about the shit he did and that some of the other GF crew did were hard to believe, but so damn funny!

Arbys Roast Beef Sandwich · « **Reply #8 on:** February 17, 2010, 01:23:50 AM »

Can anyone elaborate or at least shoot out links on the Dave Halverson stories?

Ichirou · « **Reply #9 on:** February 17, 2010, 01:35:52 AM »

Quote from: Arbys Roast Beef Sandwich on February 17, 2010, 01:23:50 AM

Can anyone elaborate or at least shoot out links on the Dave Halverson stories?

A lot of that stuff was posted by former GFers on Usenet, so I wouldn't know where to begin searching for it. I remember one story where Halverson got high on coke and started playing some really, really shitty Japanese game and he was so high he thought it was THE GREATEST THING EVER so he gave it like five or six pages of coverage in the magazine.

Then there's the incident with the review for that game that was accidentally printed with the filler text instead of the actual review - and the filler text was all asian slurs.

Human Snorenado · « **Reply #10 on:** February 17, 2010, 01:39:42 AM »

KILL IT WITH FIRE

Dave Halverson should be shot, run over, shot again, lit on fire and then raped. In that order.

originalz · « **Reply #11 on:** February 17, 2010, 01:48:30 AM »

Quote from: Ichirou on February 17, 2010, 01:35:52 AM

Then there's the incident with the review for that game that was accidentally printed with the filler text instead of the actual review - and the filler text was all asian slurs.

Oh man

Howard Alan Treesong · « **Reply #12 on:** February 17, 2010, 02:00:04 AM »

New GameFan?

bork · « **Reply #13 on:** February 17, 2010, 02:09:20 AM »

Quote from: Ichirou on February 17, 2010, 01:35:52 AM

Quote from: Arbys Roast Beef Sandwich on February 17, 2010, 01:23:50 AM
Can anyone elaborate or at least shoot out links on the Dave Halverson stories?

A lot of that stuff was posted by former GFers on Usenet, so I wouldn't know where to begin searching for it. I remember one story where Halverson got high on coke and started playing some really, really shitty Japanese game and he was so high he thought it was THE GREATEST THING EVER so he gave it like five or six pages of coverage in the magazine.

IIRC that wasn't a Japanese game, it was that ultra-shitty Cybermorph on Jaguar. Didn't one of the writers slip Halverson the coke without him knowing?

There was a GAF thread with all these stories a year or two back.

Quote

Then there's the incident with the review for that game that was accidentally printed with the filler text instead of the actual review - and the filler text was all asian slurs.

Unless my folks threw it out -and sadly they may have- I have/had this magazine; found a shop that didn't pull it and showed it to the guys working at the place.

Howard Alan Treesong · « **Reply #14 on:** February 17, 2010, 02:20:33 AM »

it wasn't coke, it was shrooms. and yes, it was Cybermorph. That's where "Atari is back, come pet the cat." came from

ManaByte · « **Reply #15 on:** February 17, 2010, 02:32:14 AM »

I heard someone put acid in his coffee prior the review.

Sho Nuff · « **Reply #16 on:** February 17, 2010, 04:20:28 AM »

3 issues

Olivia Wilde Homo · « **Reply #17 on:** February 17, 2010, 06:02:13 AM »

- Cybermorph review was done by Dave after drinking coffee with LSD in it
- Gamefan staff taking turns with a hooker while playing Yoshi's Island
- Halverson spending staff paycheck money on a three foot tall Sonic doll

There was a huge thread at The Next Level about it.

Anyway, I won't really read this so whatever. This thing will last a couple of years at the most.

Ichirou · « **Reply #18 on:** February 17, 2010, 06:13:03 AM »

A lot of that dirt came out just after GameFan folded in the Usenet days. I know Vic Ireland had a fairly massive grudge against them because Nick Rox reviewed Lunar 2 based on just a few hours of the US version, claiming he'd already completed the Japanese release. Then AFTER his review came out, he posted on Usenet asking for tips on how to beat a certain boss (Borgan), which he already should've known how to beat if he'd finished the Japanese version as he claimed.

The blue shadows debacle was funny too (Rox claimed the Street Fighter Alpha Saturn port sucked because the supers had the wrong color shadows, not realizing that if you turned the soundtrack from 'remixed' to 'original' you'd get the proper color shadows). Actually, all of Rox's 2D fighter reviews were funny. He would come up with percentages of missing frames on the console ports of 2D arcade games ("This game is missing at least 30% of its animation frames!" "Vampire Hunter runs with 80% of its animation frames intact on Saturn!" "X-Men Children of the Atom is missing 50% of its animation frames!"). Years later he admitted he was just pulling these percentages out of his ass.

There was actually a Nick Rox HATE page back in the day.

It was a total amateur operation but for me as a teenager, it was the most fun to read of all the major magazines. Then this guy ECM came along and basically ruined the magazine. Horrible writer.

bork · « **Reply #19 on:** February 17, 2010, 07:13:54 AM »

The hate page was "Monkey Boy Rox."

It wasn't just Gamefan that Victor Ireland took issue with, it was also Gamepro too, IIRC, for the same reason. The mag's rebuttals were that they had played enough for the game to be reviewed.

Rox didn't say that the Saturn SFA sucked, but he did say that the PSX version was better because of its blue shadows -making it "arcade perfect"-. I think he scored the Saturn version a 90 and the PSX version like 95 or something. Both his complaining the shadows weren't blue and the fan reactions to it were ridiculous.

And agreed on ECM. The "new" Gamefan sucked. I liked reading gaming mags back in the 90s, but as the internet improved more and more in the 2000s, I just quit buying them, plus since I was working at a game store I could flip through most of them anyway.

tiesto · « **Reply #20 on:** February 17, 2010, 09:12:31 AM »

Loved reading the hyperbole back in the day, also appreciated the import coverage. Don't really have much hope for the new mag though.

Don Flamenco · « **Reply #21 on:** February 17, 2010, 09:43:40 AM »

well, he's still got at least one guy fooled:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=19841799&postcount=98

two things you never see: praise for the Jaguar and praise for Halverson. Bonus points for getting convinced to buy a Jaguar by a review that was written by Dave Halverson while he was on LSD.

and here is a huge ass 50 page thread about gamefan, complete with stories:
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/showthread.php?t=33808&page=1&pp=30

tiesto · « **Reply #22 on:** February 17, 2010, 09:53:02 AM »

Not saying much, but AvP was one of the better Jag games, a decent early FPS. But beyond that game and Tempest 2000, there's little reason to bother with the system.

Gamefan's hyperbole "fooled" me into picking up copies of Gunstar Heroes and Landstalker, can't say I minded that tho!

archie4208 · « **Reply #23 on:** February 17, 2010, 10:12:55 AM »

Holy shit at the RE2 story. It's crazy that the feds got involved.

Don Flamenco · « **Reply #24 on:** February 17, 2010, 11:36:24 AM »

Quote from: tiesto on February 17, 2010, 09:53:02 AM

Not saying much, but AvP was one of the better Jag games, a decent early FPS. But beyond that game and Tempest 2000, there's little reason to bother with the system.

Gamefan's hyperbole "fooled" me into picking up copies of Gunstar Heroes and Landstalker, can't say I minded that tho!

the review the guy talked about was Cybermorph aka "the first video game"

Cravis · « **Reply #25 on:** February 17, 2010, 12:31:54 PM »

Haha. The Cybermorph story reminds me of when I got my wisdom teeth taken out. I was doped up on painkillers and rented Fantavision for the PS2. I thought it was hands down the greatest "puzzle" game I had ever played. I immediately ordered it off eBay.

Don Flamenco · « **Reply #26 on:** February 17, 2010, 01:03:39 PM »

whoa, apparently Hardcore Gamer Magazine had its roots in that next level thread.

edit: and the name doublejump. hah

Arbys Roast Beef Sandwich · « **Reply #27 on:** February 17, 2010, 01:46:48 PM »

Wow, thanks for that thread. I already knew some of the stories like the football review and the SFA blue shadows debacle just from reading the mag back in the day, but holy crap at some of the "backstage" stories. "Gamefan staff taking turns with a hooker while playing Yoshi's Island"

On the topic of nostalgia, anyone read Game Player's around '94-96? Would not be surprised if heavy amounts of coke were also involved in that operation.

demi · « **Reply #28 on:** February 17, 2010, 01:52:51 PM »

I've got some Game Players magazine. Thats the NES/GB era right?

Don Flamenco · « **Reply #29 on:** February 17, 2010, 04:02:06 PM »

The guy sounds beyond insane. I'm assuming most of these people are doormats though. It's like they're telling all these insane stories about him, but I only caught one in there where somebody actually stood up to him.

Don Flamenco · « **Reply #30 on:** February 17, 2010, 04:14:29 PM »

Quote from: a slime appears on February 17, 2010, 04:08:04 PM

Wow, after pouring over that thread a lot of people have an unhealthy obsession with GameFan and their writers. It's actually kind of creepy.

not as bad as gaf when 1up was still alive.

This is like finding Disney porn on the internet...like you read game magazines growing up and you're all "yeah, these cool guys get to play games for a living!" and then it's all "They got a hooker and took turns fucking her while playing Yoshi's Island"

Olivia Wilde Homo · « **Reply #31 on:** February 17, 2010, 05:11:09 PM »

Quote from: Don Flamenco on February 17, 2010, 04:02:06 PM

The guy sounds beyond insane. I'm assuming most of these people are doormats though. It's like they're telling all these insane stories about him, but I only caught one in there where somebody actually stood up to him.

These people worked for years at a place where you had to rush to the bank to cash their paychecks. I assume they were all doormats until proven otherwise.

originalz · « **Reply #32 on:** February 18, 2010, 01:06:58 AM »

It's like the NOVA teachers in Japan, who kept working for several months even without receiving any money and rent not being paid to their landlords! It's amazing what some people put up with even when the writing is on the wall.

It amazes me that the IRS weren't all over their asses, considering the complete disregard of using company funds wisely. Did they even have proper accountants? Shit, if I worked at such a place, I'd definitely make a few "anonymous tips" to the feds. Those employees sure were loyal!

EmCeeGrammar · « **Reply #33 on:** February 18, 2010, 01:18:06 AM »

Y'know, it's nice knowing that I correctly judged Dave Halverson as a dubious manbaby just from his masturbatory editorials.

ManaByte · « **Reply #34 on:** February 18, 2010, 02:24:11 AM »

Anyone post the GameFan Resident Evil 2 piracy bit yet?

News:

Author Topic: How long will the new GameFan last? (Read 5658 times)