Play Magazine has ceased its publication since first appearing in the early years of the past decade and giving some of the best independant takes on games and the gaming industry. However, in its place, Dave Halverson has decided to revive his Diehard Gamefan magazine (the best independant video game magazine of the 16 bit era imho being the first and only US magazine of its time to give news and information on such games as Terranigma, Seiken Densetsu III, Treasure Hunter G, Super Mario RPG, and many classic Sega CD rpgs such as the Lunar series and digital novels like Snatcher and Policenauts) under the new name Gamefan.

I managed to find the first issue today after I had been looking for it for a few weeks. The first issue's cover story is about the game Blade Kitten which the magazine implies will give the PS3 it's own heavy hitting dlc game to compete with the likes of the 360's Shadow Complex.

This first issue includes articles on the state of the three console networks xbla, wiiware, psn, and their downloadable content offerings. An interview with Grasshopper Studios and Suda51 (Suda mentions he is thinking about designing future No More Hereos games for the Wii's successor). Like DHGF and Play it includes beautiful ads for games like Fragile Dreams. And the principal reviews in this issue are for God of War III (Game of the Month 10), FFXIII (awarded a 10), Fragile Dreams ( a 9), Mass Effect 2 (9.5) Heavy Rain (9.5), and Resonance of Fate (9).

The magazine is actually divided into two halves: Gamefan and Moviefan. I thought there was going to be more anime coverage in the magazine, but there was only a slight bit of anime and manga coverage in the Moviefan part.

All in all, I would give this magazine a 9 out of ten. There were only a few quibbles that I had with it. It isn't as sturdily construced as Play and Die Hard Gamefan were though it is as asthetically appealing as the former Halverson mags. It's newstand price its acceptable, but its subscription price might be a bit high. And, I've always placed a great deal of importance on Dave Halverson's opinions and have often based my game purchases on the ones that he has listed in his top 10 games for each year in his former magazines. However this year, since Play ceased publication prior to their release of their 2010 Year in Review Issue, and Halverson didn't give any thoughts on the last year of gaming in the new issue of Gamefan, I feel that I am at a loss as to an important resource on gaming that I always like to be able to flip through.

All in all though I think the first issue of the new Gamefan is another admirable effort by Dave Halverson and company and I'm looking forward to seeing what else they have in store in the coming months. If you would like to get some of the best independent thoughts on games and gaming, much like a good college indy radio station gives you with its music, then I would suggest checking out Gamefan.