Brad Gallaway's blog

So for the last couple of months (and especially over the last few days) there's been a resurgence of "no one should ever write for free, ever, never never" among freelance games writers and paid career professionals. As someone who takes games writing very seriously and who's also worked as a mostly-unpaid-but-not-always reviewer for the last twelve years, I wanted to take a few minutes and share my thoughts on the subject.

After Amy, I took @KayinAmoh's advice and spent some time with Cabela's Survival: Shadows of Katmai on 360. You may not believe it, but the game is completely awesome.

Wrapped up Professor Layton and the Last Specter (DS) a couple days ago. I'm just finishing my formal review as we speak, but the bottom line is that it was a pretty big disappointment.

I did play the game back in the day when it was new, but it's been so long (released in 2000) that I couldn't remember much about it except that I had an intense dislike for it.

I'm not playing anything substantial at the moment; just a little of this, and a little of that. However, instead of starting up something big, it's usually around this time of year that I get the urge to go through my backlog and weed through the accumulated pile. I've got quite a bit of stuff stacked up, so I need to start deciding what I'm actually going to try to play, and what I'm never going to get around to.

Some people may disagree, but for my taste, a lot of the games walking away with top honors right now just weren't cutting it. Of course, your mileage may vary (and probably does) but for me, the ten titles I've selected were the ones that left the best impression and were most deserving.

My good friend Nathan Fouts over at Mommy's Best Games has just released a new project on the XBL Indie channel called Game Type. However, it's not exactly a game, although it sort of is...

So, it's been a while since I've posted anything. Honestly, I blame Fallout: New Vegas. In fact, I blame it for anything else I haven't gotten done over the last couple of weeks. It's a pretty fantastic title.

If you ask me what a review should be, it should absolutely include feelings, thoughts, and emotions that are stirred in the player. However, it needs to also include other factors, such as various aspects of design, how bug-free the technical side is, and how it functions overall. On top of that, a good critic will take into account a game's content in terms of how it relates to others that have come before it.

Completed Fallout: New Vegas the other day, and although it got a little buggier than I would have preferred towards the end, I still pushed on and rolled credits in support of the New California Republic.