GameNOW

Starting in August 1998, EGM² became Expert Gamer (often abbreviated to XG), and the magazine's focus shifted away from news and previews to strategy and tricks.

Although GameNOW maintained a healthy tricks section and occasional strategy guides, the magazine's focus shifted to in-depth previews and reviews.

In November 2002 (issue #13), the GameNOW staff was almost completely replaced when Ziff-Davis moved its video game magazines from the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, Illinois to San Francisco, California.

Starting with issue #4 (February 2002), the Fan Club section was expanded to include regular (and often humorous) mini-features in addition to the reader mail.

Additionally, extra features in the Solid Snake mode included the return of Nastasha Romanenko (from the original Metal Gear Solid), a boss fight against Revolver Ocelot, the chance to assist Raiden in battles from the first play-through (this time from Snake's point of view), and access to previously locked areas of Big Shell.

In the first-person screenshot that shows Snake in a helicopter shooting down at a Harrier jet, the hand holding the gun belongs to Mike Vallas, the man who created the fake screens.