Got my copy today. Haven't read any of it yet, but here are some initial thoughts. Just to be clear - I'm being totally unbiased here, and coming at it as I would any other magazine. I also realize that this is not only a first issue, but one that was brought together in a short amount of time. So, I'd expect at least some of these things to work out as the magazine really gets going.
The main comment I had heard was that it's "OMG huge", and it is definitely big. If the magazine was thicker, I think the larger size would be nice, but as it is, it feels exceptionally flimsy. Paper stock is very thin, and being saddle stitched (as in, big pages folded and stapled in the middle, versus a hard spine), the magazine wants to bend in half vertically if you hold it upright. If paper stock and page count end up not changing, I think it was quite a mistake to go for the large size they went with. I also think it might not have been the best choice given the layout style they seem to be going for (more on that in a moment).
The magazine opens with its very first line of text being wrong - the original GameFan magazine started up in 1992, not 1994. I find that funny.
Pagination feels like a total mess. Things feel like they've been placed completely at random, and there's nothing to really help you understand the transition between content. (Which isn't helped any by the lack of a TOC.) The idea of Viewpoints - mini-reviews where more than one editor reviews the same title - are back, but there's stuck in before the actual reviews section. It feels awkward and out of place there. The original GameFan had the Viewpoints near the front of the mag, where as EGM has their very similar-styled short reviews section near the back. The problem is, it's a very structured and detailed section, and putting something like that smack in the middle of more content-focused page layouts doesn't work.
The overall layout design reminds me of the original GameFan - and that's not good. Everything feels way too dark, and layouts are either over-designed or just sloppy. I mean no disrespect to GameFan's art guy Rob, who I believe is responsible for said layouts: I'm not sure he has much history doing layouts, and he had a lot to do in a short amount of time. Still, that's just how it is. Some of the design work I do like, concept-wise, because big pieces of artwork are used, and those pages aren't afraid of open space. Going back to my previous comment, however, I think a slightly smaller magazine can work better for doing a lot of big art, because then you have a better chance to find pieces that are of a resolution that won't look like crap when sized that big. That's a small point to make overall, though.
What I think really needs to happen is for pages to get clearer indicators letting you know what you're looking at. There are far too many pages where you just have no clue what you're looking at from the information that is provided on the page. Don't expect people to know that they're looking at a preview - tell them. Every page of content should be clearly marked as to what it is.
There is a serious lack of non-preview / review content, but again to be fair this is the first issue, and Dave himself says in the opening ed zone that they didn't get all of the stuff they wanted into the issue. Don't do news, though - seriously, it's worthless. If you have worthwhile text you can write that concerns a new story, then great; recycling stuff that is old by the time an issue hits is just a waste of space. Okay, breaking my previous rule, one personal comment I'll make - Dave has said that he "wanted to do more" with Play (though, everybody on board did), so I hope that he'll make good on that and do more with GameFan. If it's just going to be a bunch of reviews and previews with a few pages of filler (like the original GameFan was), there's no place for magazines like that in the year 2010.
69 pages of games, and then 28 of movie stuff. I don't care. I understand the desire to also do the movie stuff, but are you going to be able to do quality content without needing more pages and then taking away room from the GameFan section? Do 30 odd pages of entertainment content deserve their own branding and wacky "flip over to read" requirement? I know the argument is to sell "two magazines in one," but I have no confidence in the idea yet. The bookstore I picked GameFan up in didn't have the magazine reversed as MovieFan over in the entertainment section. If they can get that done, then that'll be a plus, but I'm still not sold on the idea of doing the flip thing. If I'm spending $8 on a game magazine, I'd rather put that chunk of money toward a magazine like GamesTM, where I'm getting a thick book of nothing but gaming.
Design-wise, the GameFan portion of the magazine is what it is, but the MovieFan portion is god-awful. Almost every section has this bizarre "I just learned how to render text in 3D!"-looking logo, and elements on the pages just kind of... exist. Oh, and then there's the page where I have to hold the magazine sideways to read it. DO NOT DO SHIT LIKE THAT. It isn't cool, and it serves no purpose except to be fucking annoying. Otherwise, browsing through the content, like I said, I don't care personally, but a lot of what I see looks like total filler. I think, even more so than gaming, the market for movie magazines have some seriously good offerings, so a lot of work needs to be put into the MovieFan stuff to make it feel worth paying attention to. Otherwise, you're going to have a section movie buffs don't give a damn about, and the people buying the magazine for the gaming stuff feel is a complete waste of space.
Oh, and why is there a preview for the Iron Man 2 game in the MovieFan section? When Play and Geek were separate magazines, that kind of thing made sense. Here, it's just weird.
So, my initial thoughts, coming from somebody who (a) loves print, and (b) is very anal about things like design and formatting. It's a first issue, and first issues are notoriously rough, so I don't expect what I hold in my hands now to be what you'll find six months or so down the road. I do think that, for that price, with the magazine market the way it is, and with EGM soon to take away a decent chunk of its thunder, GameFan had better whip itself into shape ASAP. There aren't enough people who know (or care about) the name GameFan at this point, so it won't survive on brand alone.
good read though,although I disagree on the old Gamefan layout,yeah it was dark sometimes but I loved it for that back then,it was so different from the others,with tons of screenshots...it also had a lot of RPG talk and previews from games in Japan ahead of all the other mags out there.
