The GameFan history thread

[Mzo]

Which further proves my theory that Germans love Dave Halverson.

Seriously, the man is a walking asshole.

[Jeremy]

That is some fascinating info, djpubba, thanks for sharing it with us. Knowing that Halverson did multiple reviews of stuff like that is especially disappointing, although I shouldn't be surprised.

[Compass]

More stories! This is awesome. This thread should have happened a long time ago. Gamefan is a huge happy memory of joy for me. I *really* loved the mag. I looked forward to new issues more than actually playing the games. Not to mention that was just a much better time of my life. As such, I find all these tidbits fascinating. Keep 'em coming!

That's hilarious that Dave would write three different viewpoints for the same game.

[Brisco Bold]

That's hilarious that Dave would write three different viewpoints for the same game.

Doesn't surprise me.

Curious: how does he manage to review soooo many games (even now, in Play)?

[Rumpy]

Everyone would gather around me or George and just brain dump. Several of the aliases were all Halverson -- Skid, Mr. Goo, E. Storm, sometimes Sgt. Gamer -- probably one or two more I'm forgetting... more than a few times the different Viewpoints on the same game would all be written by him.

E. Storm too? I thought he did the manual for Weaponlord...and that he was a real person. Or am I thinking of someone else?

[Jeremy]

Brisco, I would imagine that it's basically impossible for him to do anything but play a small amount of a game and then write a review based on that.

[Compass]

Doesn't surprise me.

Curious: how does he manage to review soooo many games (even now, in Play)?

I wonder about this every time I read an issue of Play. Seriously, the man must not sleep. Runs a business, plays X amount of games, watches X amount of anime, writes X amount of reviews about games *and* anime (where "X" is a large number), each and every month. Also has a family? That's crazy.

[djpubba]

E. Storm too? I thought he did the manual for Weaponlord...and that he was a real person. Or am I thinking of someone else?

E. Storm was definitely Halverson. The full name was Ernest Storm, made from a combination of Ernest Evans and Alien Storm (or Nova Storm, I forget which Storm game it was).

[cka]

haha damn what a great bunch of stories, I gotta subscribe myself to this thread

[Jetman]

haha damn what a great bunch of stories, I gotta subscribe myself to this thread

Seriously.This stuff is great. I knew Gamefan had some problems in the day, but crazy 'cannonball run' dashes to the bank by all of the staff to cash their checks while they could, the Resident Evil/Capcom demo disc pirating fiasco, and Halverson splitting his already wigged out personality three or four different ways to review games ( E-Storm, Goo, and Skid? wtf?) were news to me.

Curious: how does he manage to review soooo many games (even now, in Play)?

I know. I wish we could get Brady Fiechter, Chris Hoffman(assuming these arent alter egos/personas of Davey - although Brady was Hambleton if I remember correctly) and some of the other guys from PLAY to come over here and give us an inside scoop to how things are run at PLAY HQ. It' s got to be just like Shidoshi described from back in his GF days with Dave hogging up all of the good games and letting everyone else review shit like Megaman X7 and Harry Potter Gameboy....

Why would they put up with that? I hope they are at least getting paid on time.

After I left GameFan and started Dimension Publishing with Talko and Brody, Halverson sued Dimension when we came out with a competing publication (PS-X, later PSExtreme) and part of the suit was that we had stolen RGB screen capture technology owned by GameFan -- not any of their hardware -- no, we stole the very concept of grabbing screen shots in RGB.

And this just makes me want to vomit. Halverson didnt win the law suit did he?