PLAY Issue 012 (December 2002)

This was a fav issue

[Forgive these details if earlier issues for the mag exist, this was the first issue on Retromags of this writing.] GameFan magazine had been purchased by Metropolis Media around 1996, and the experience for the staff wasn't pleasant. By 1998, Dave Halverson invited several of the staff over to his home and mentioned his plan to launch a new magazine, which would become Gamers' Republic. After 35 issues, the magazine would come to an end, but Dave would start another mag, Play Magazine, which would last 97 issues before Fusion Publishing would go bankrupt. Mollie Patterson would later mention that they believed that Play was the "closest we’ve ever gotten to a true successor to GameFan. It was the biggest concentration of ex-GF staff that’s ever happened after the death of GameFan, with it having Dave, myself, Nick Des Barres, Casey Loe, Mike Griffin, and Michael Hobbs." So, if you loved GameFan back in the day, then Play Magazine was the best modern version that we would ever see.

Highlights from this Issue: A big feature on Metroid Prime (6 pages), and coverage from Tokyo Game Show 2002. There's an Anime section, DVD Reviews, and an interview with Sam Rami and his producer on the Spider-Man movie. There's even a spot for toys, but they are sculpted and painted from Lord of the Rings characters and space marines from Warhammer 40K. I don't like the page layouts in these earlier issues. They would get better, but here the titles to segments and games are very small, with the same style text. Many pages have a HUGE image or two across them, but then the article would only have 300-400 words on the page, to the point where it seemed like they didn't have a whole lot to say about a game, but they got some great images to use. Designs would get better, but I did grow to love this mag later.