PB Feedback, hold onto your balls!
All in all a very nice job. Really professional printing, perfect size, and a truly stunning WO cover. I'm not sure which boss it's meant to be (or if it's just an original idea) but it's superb nonetheless, one of Wil's most impressive game related pieces IMO. It's certainly enough to make the zine desirable for fans of Super Play and his work (which I assume was kind of the plan.)
The content is short and sweet. It reads a little more like a diary than a mag, but then it's a personal shmupper's zine and for the love. I'm impressed with the layout: clean, neat, modern, with some very pretty splash photos. The Cave collection pic means my copy is now stuck together in the centre, sadly. Thanks Sven (wild but educated guess.)
Some of Ian's writing style can be kind of puerile (most of his sales listings tend to include some UKisms about arses and food

) and this hearkens back to the days of the old-school UK games mags. I can see the influence there and part of me likes the fact he's running with nostalgia, but I have to admit commentaries about bowls of phlegm isn't really what I enjoy reading. Still, everyone's style is their own. The editor in me winced a few times and shifted in his seat - but for the most part it reads well enough considering there's no pro experience behind it (assuming.) I'm not sure why Overton keeps referring to SHUMPS though.
Certain writing angles are worryingly close to home (if you ever see something similar from me, no plagiarism, promise!) but then we're all bathing in the same vidjagame teapot, so these things happen.
I enjoyed the Aki trip and the 7BITCH info. Some choice stuff there. The survey was, well, mostly obvious, but always interesting to read about stupid hobbies you can directly relate to. And Overton talking about SP is always pure gold. The memories...
Violent Solider was a fun offbeat shmup to run with too, and since I just got Vattle Giuce (it's spelt like that) by the same IGS, kind of intriguing. It isn't quite as brutally hard as I expected from the coverage. I think the reason you might have found it so tough is because you switched to rapid fire and lost the charge functionality - a feature you basically need to make life easier. A good example is stage 3 (iirc?) where those jellyfish things fire backwards. You just hover under them while they scroll on and a couple of bursts of your charge field and they're history. Smooth sailing. It's also kind enough to drop laser power ups at all the respawn points. >_0
Anyways, nice choice, I like the game quite a bit.
So all in all, credit where credit's due. It's a shmup zine. In 2013. It's well made. It's worth owning. Applause!