Brad Gallaway's blog

This weekend was the 7th annual Retro Gaming Expo, taking place in Portland, Oregon. Since it was just a three-hour drive away, and I had never attended the Retro Gaming Expo before, I made the trip accompanied by my wife and youngest son. Game family…Gooooooooooo!

I'm currently in the middle of a marvelous little window of time where I don't have any reviews that need to be done, so I took the chance to pick a few titles out of my back catalogue and get caught up. After three days of fairly steady play, I put the wraps on Infinity Blade II.

After playing Hitman: Absolution at PAX Prime, I felt a lot more confident about it and decided to put $5 down at Gamestop in order to play the Sniper Challenge demo level.

So I've been thinking a lot about this Steam Greenlight thing for a couple of days, trying to come at it from a few different angles. I had originally written up a blog post about it, but after discussing it a little further with some (very smart) friends of mine, I decided to do something else.

My first event of the day was one of my most anticipated—Dishonored, from Bethesda.  When I sat down with the game, I asked Seth Shain, one of the developers, to show me all the highlights and details that I might miss walking into the game cold.  He was happy to oblige, and I hit him with every question I could think of.

My second day at Seattle's biggest gaming convention began with an upcoming XBLA/PSN title called Harold. I spoke with pleasantly French game designer Loris Malek, who talked me through the inception and creation of the game. His energy was infectious, and it was a real joy to see someone so excited about their project.

Once again taking place in the Washington State Trade & Convention Center located in downtown Seattle, there was more to see and do than one humble writer could possibly cover. However, I did my very best, and here is what I saw...

Before PAX Prime opened its doors, there were a few events happening in Seattle. One such event was a preview for an upcoming XBLA/PC game called State of Decay. The developers, Undead Labs, were kind enough to extend an invitation to see the Alpha build, and I was glad to accept.

Looking back at the various ninjas that have populated the gamescape over the years, the vast majority of them have focused on combos and combat, rather than truly employing stealth to its greatest degree. Klei Entertainment wants to change all that. With its upcoming XBLA release, Mark of the Ninja, they aim to bring sneaky back, and they're doing it in a big way—2D.

For my next big review, I've been working on Risen 2: Dark Waters (Xbox 360). I was a big fan of the first Risen, and I was always disappointed that the game never got the credit I felt it was due. It was rough, to be sure, and I can understand why a certain section of people wouldn't give it the time of day. That said, there was a lot of great stuff happening in that game once you got past appearances, and people who I would've expected to dig into it never did.