Brad Gallaway's blog

There was a short news piece in GameDaily today quoting one of the senior producers working on Gears of War 2 as suggesting that developers may be reaching the "upper end" of the 360's graphical capabilities. The producer goes on to say (in essence) that the ceiling hasn't been hit, but the very fact that this comment was actually seen as a kind of news got me thinking—even if (and that's definitely an IF) the 360 is closing in on the best that it can do.... so what?

This may not be news to anyone, but I recently signed up for the XNA Creator's Club on Live. For those who may not be familiar with it, this is the program that enables players to make their own game on a PC and then upload it to Xbox Live.

The third and final day of the Penny Arcade Expo started slow, both for the wife and I, as well as for the rest of the convention-goers. Taking a look around, more people seemed willing to queue up for coffee or crepes before the show got going. The halls weren't as crowded, and the people who were there seemed to be walking slower, and perhaps sagging a bit.

Day Two at the Penny Arcade Expo started off in true PAX fashion with the sounds of Rock Band flooding the Convention Center. A group of eager musicians gave their rendition of ‘Learning to Fly' quite earnestly, with quite a few more would-be rockers waiting in the wings offstage. After a polite golf clap, the wife and I made our way to the press-only Q&A session with webcomic superstars Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik.

Although the idea may be discouraged by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, (the super-popular webcomic's writer and artist, respectively) the fact remains that the Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX for short, is quickly becoming the de facto place to go or those in the games industry who want to be seen, now that E3 is a mere shadow of its former self and E for All seems to be a non-starter.

Played two demos recently, neither one convincing me to drop the cash. On 360—. From the Behemoth, the same wacky guys that brought us comes a four-player side-scrolling beat-‘em-up in the vein of just about anything that was in arcades during the 90's.

After launching the great kid-friendly title on Nintendo's WiiWare service, Bryan Jury, cofounder of Epicenter Studios was gracious enough to speak with me about the studio, where it's been and where it's going.

I just received a review copy of Soul Bubbles for the Nintendo DS. I didn't know anything about it except that I saw a full-page ad for it on the back cover of Play magazine and I thought that the illustration looked appealing. After spending about two hours with it this morning, I'm absolutely impressed.

So now that I have a functioning (for the moment) 360 back in the house, I spent some time catching up on all the DL stuff I missed over the last month or so. Of course, while it was gone I was spending time catching up with all the PS3 stuff. Anyway, I've talked about some of this stuff earlier, but whatever... it's overview wrapup time!

I had a comment and/or question regarding my use of the phrase "rooted in the last generation" and what exactly that meant. To be honest, I think it's a little bit lazy of me to use that phrase often because it's shorthand for a couple different things. I apologize for my lack of specificity, and no, that's not sarcasm.