MegaFan Volume 1 Issue 2 (July-August 1997)

This is the first official spin-off from GameFan that received a separate publication, and it seemed to last for only 3 issues. Dave Halverson was the Editor-in-Chief for the first issue, and he insisted that "MegaFan is a completely new concept." The mag focuses on four categories: strategies, tips and tricks, behind the scenes/interviews, and arcade. Look at my comment for Issue #1 for a few more details.

If you loved GameFan then SOME of the names are still recognizable -- David S.J. Hodgson is the Editor-in-Chief for this issue. You got Greg Rau, Nick Des Barres, Ryan Lockhart, Jody Seltzer, Jay Puryear and a few more. Terry Wolfinger doesn't return for the artwork, and Hodgson mentions in the editorial that a whole new team worked on this issue. We don't have much info about this publication aside from possibly what some former members have mentioned in forums from a while back (I'm still searching through them:). We do know that sales were low, with multiple months in-between releases. EGM2 and Tips and Tricks did a much better job back in the day.

This second issue is a full-sized magazine now, with 116 pages. The Arcade section is gone. Tekken 3 has a strategy section, along with Street Fighter III, Fighters Megamix, with moves lists and some combos. Powerstone has some tips. Suikoden has a write up on all 108-characters, and Wild Arms has some nice maps. Super Mario Kart and StarFox 64 get some coverage too. This issue holds up well, but there's not much that stands out from the several other mags that featured strategies and tips at the time. The Tekken 3 coverage is solid, but once again, several places have hard-to-read text. The colors use in the Suikoden write-up section look messy, and the Powerstone text is very thin. Thanks for making this available -- these issues are rare to find.