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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.

I wholeheartedly agree. I scrub and I scrub, but only a shower of money is ever gonna get me clean. Anyone who'd like to help can hit me up via PayPal at gimmeallyourmoney@icandream.com.

This is impressive, I hope you have a job that lets you put these talents to work professionally. You should be showered with money with these skills. Thanks for the mag rundown again -- I can't remember the original forum post where you mentioned this.

thank you ! brings back so many memories of this issue for me.

Great job, but I think you are missing page 51 which is this one...

Thanks

Archive.org is a secondary host for my files, much like here. They don't have all of my files because some of them have been removed and some I never uploaded. Retromags doesn't have all of my files because some of them are slightly beyond the cutoff date and a whole bunch of others I just haven't had time to upload yet LOL. The only place with all of my scans is OldGameMags which is my home base, if you will. Of all the sites scanning gaming mags, it's probably the largest collection of original scans out there (currently over 12,000) but it's a very small community (around 300 members) with only a handful of people interested in the Japanese stuff I scan, which is why I mirror it elsewhere so it can reach more people.

Thank you for this. There were so MANY game magazines at the time that I bought as much variety that I could, but it is so awesome to be able to go through ones I missed like this now. A hi-res digital copy of a whole magazine just wasn't a thing while these were first coming out, though 1998 might have been close. I don't know when the first digital mags showed up -- this site started in 2005, right? They must have started being made once home scanners were of a decent quality in the early 2000's. Good scan @rydamusprime, and solid editing as always, @MigJmz.

Most people like whatever they get comfortable using, so I imagine that was the appeal of Sumatra to whoever chose to recommend it here. They were probably already very familiar with PDF readers and wanted something that behaved identically. I don't know what's best for everyone, the only way to know is to try different software and see what you prefer. But there are some functional differences in PDF readers that make them less desirable for files which have been created specifically with CBR in mind which I will discuss later I've been using CDisplay for over 15 years. Unfortunately, I don't know where you can get it anymore. The developer died a long time ago, so the software hasn't changed in ages, but it was always available at www.cdisplay.me but recently that site has gone dead. It has some drawbacks (probably because it's so old, it's one of the only CBR readers that can't open PDFs as well), but I'm so comfortable with it, it's hard for me to adjust to anything else. It's got to be available someplace though...this is the Internet, right? I think a lot of people use CDisplayEX now. What I don't like about it is that (on my computer) there are load times, especially on big files like magazines. I like to click on a mag/comic and have it open instantly, which is one reason I preferred the older software. Depending on what reader you use, it might be worth installing CDisplayEX anyway, even if you don't use it, as just having it installed on your system will ensure that all cbr/cbz files have shell integration so you can see a thumbnail of their cover in Windows Explorer. (Possibly other readers have this as well, I'm not sure). I've heard recommendations for YACreader, and it doesn't have load times. It seems decent, if perhaps not as robust as CDisplayEX, and the image is actually a bit sharper than the reader I use, but there are other things I miss, so like I said, it's hard for me to change to anything else. Here's something to keep an eye out for (you're unlikely to see this in any CBR readers, but this is what you'll get from a PDF reader like Sumatra): Comics are meant to be a mix of single and double-page spreads. Because the text on a two-page spread crosses from the left page to the right and then back again, these pages must be saved as a single wide image. A CBR reader knows to expect this, and makes the reading experience seamless regardless of whether you're using single or two-page viewing mode. A PDF reader expects all pages to be more or less the same size within a single document, so two-page viewing mode in particular can get really screwed up when it encounters wide images, such as you get when two pages are saved as a single image. For example, using this issue (Games for Windows #9), at the beginning of the issue there is a foldout ad. Here it is in a CBR reader, using two-page/book mode (set to fit-to-page/fit width): And here's a PDF reader like Sumatra in two-page/book mode: CBR readers dynamically shift between single and double pages all the time, so if you're in book mode and have two single pages, they will be displayed side by side, but if you encounter a joined image, it will understand that this is actually two pages already, and display just a single joined image, even when in two-page mode. PDF readers aren't expecting this, so their "two-page" mode will display two files side by side, no matter how big they are (in this case, it ends up displaying FIVE pages all at once.) And joins aside, let's say you're looking at a two page ad that has been saved as two separate pages (which unlike comic scans, is how magazine scans are usually handled). A CBR reader set to two-page mode shows this: While Sumatra shows this: Any reader that inserts a space between pages I've painstakingly edited to be a seamless join is unappealing to me (though I can see how it's a welcome obfuscation for anyone who doesn't bother to edit their mags as carefully).

I keep getting a 404 error with this file in specific whenever I try to DL it, but everything else works. Could the link have possibly been broken when being put in?

Superb edit job!!!!! Wow!

Yep, Doomguy2000 pulled through and promptly uploaded YET ANOTHER copy of this file. A lot of people who reupload our files elsewhere without giving any sort of acknowledgement of where they come from pretend that they're simply helping out by ensuring that the file is mirrored in multiple places. That argument doesn't hold water when you're uploading it to your own account at the exact same site that the creator of the file has already uploaded it. How sad that some people can only find self-worth by falsely laying claim to the efforts of others. But what do I know, maybe this guy has a really terrible life, and the artificial sense of pride he gets from seeing that someone has downloaded a file he copy/pasted is the only thing keeping him from sucking on the end of a shotgun. Who am I to take that away from him? So run and be free, Doomguy. I won't bother you again, and I hope you find a way to climb out of the rut your life has taken and find joy in something that you can claim as your own someday.

Thought I would provide an update: Windows Defender no longer seems to tag this file as infected presumably due to new definitions.

Yeah, I've never had any problems before and trust it's a false positive but figured I'd mention Windows Defender seems to be angry about it since it's so out of the ordinary for anything on here and that's such a prominent antivirus.

Thanks Stryker! We have @MkMoveList who is also contributing to some piece!!! All together, we will get this set done!

Thanks TheRedEye and dablais for donating, scanning, and making these available for this site. Its great seeing this collection getting close. We've seen about 30+ issues get released here in just the last 20 days or so, right? That's a lot of work -- thanks again to all those working on these.

The pages are mixed up!

The first generation of Pokémon was really special. The nostalgia of the original generation will never leave me. I mean seriously, look at the cover of this. It is just like the weirdest designs and funny enough some even look like they could be official Pokémon these days. As in like the ball fakemon kinda looks like a a Chingling in shock over having its wings clipped. A little bit at least... Anyhow, thanks for the upload. I'll be sure to give this a read.

Excelente!

Been looking for this for ages - cheers

Okay thank you

I'll let it slide this time but in the future i told him he needs to put it in cbr/cbz format.

Thank you for amazing scanned! But it's not in CBR format?

they dont list correctly in order if you do it that way.

They should actually all be renamed to use the volume and issue numbers found on the cover than just issue numbers.

For consistency reasons (and the fact that it screws up the chronologic listing) this should probably be renamed issue 20 (it's issue 8 of volume 2).

I'm aware of three variations of the first volume of How to Win at Nintendo Games. They're all mass-market paperbacks; the first printing had a black cover, the second had a red cover with yellow lettering that was shot through with "scanlines", announcing it was an updated edition with 10 new games, including the first two Super Mario games, and the third edition had a red cover with solid yellow lettering.

This brings back a lot of memories of pre-phantom release hype.

Core-is-can't? Cut, let's do it again.

Like I said, I took one look at the scan and said "nope, waste of time." Just not a good scan at all for "making pretty." I'm willing to put in lots of time fixing a mag in editing when the problems are due to the mag itself being damaged. But when the problems are just because it wasn't scanned well, I'm inclined to just leave it alone and wait for a better scan. But you worked some magic with this one. It would be almost impossible to make it perfect, but it looks pretty damn good, especially considering what it looked like before being edited.

Im particularly proud of the ad edits myself that I eliminated the side markings completely. Yes theres some waves here and there but I think there not too noticeable. I straightened them out by moving each letter! You can imagine how long that took. Also there were alot of block lines on pages that look too wavy so those got fix. Thx for fixing the db issue I didn't notice it was broken.

Checked it out, and although there is still warping here and there, a lot of it got straightened out. What a pain in the ass that must have been! Good work, MigJmz!

I haven't downloaded this yet, but is this from the same scan that's on the Internet Archive? How in the world did you compensate for the wavy lines on all the pages? I don't know if the entire mag had water damage or just wasn't laid flat when it was scanned, but the pages on the archive.org version looked almost unfixable to me, they were warped in so many places. Also...how can the scanner also be the donator?

Super, thx :)

No N64 coverage in this issue. A couple of years early for that...

I remember the mag giving all the Japanese N64 release games 99 out of 100, best version of Shogi ever apparently.

great... thx

thx man ... great up