Toronto Thumbs

Toronto Thumbs Game Night
Jorge and Mike are DJ Hero Fanatics

On Friday night, Jorge and Mike Jackson came over to my place for a night of gaming, eating, and all-around good times. Surprisingly, Adam also made an appearance despite being neck-deep in PhD work. The trick to get him out of the house? Telling him I needed some computer help (which I did). Mike turned out to be a real hero for bringing over not only samosas (21 of them, at that) but also some refreshing Thums Up cola (which tastes like soda did before high-fructose corn syrup became the status quo), imported from India.

Most of the night was spent on DJ Hero. Jorge, having purchased and conquered the Renegade Edition of the game, was a force to be reckoned with. I played against him, on medium, while he played expert and I barely finished ahead of him. Mike, who had never played the game before, was also playing on expert. Granted, he was a real-life DJ some years ago (turns out he’s got a rich and storied past that includes, among other things, Muay Thai kickboxing).

Things got rather intense with Mike and Jorge trading trash talk throughout the mixes, leaving Adam and I to look on with shock at how many crazy moves the two were making on their turntables. They didn’t seem to blink, either, and the look of determination on their faces said more about how lost in the game they were than words possibly can.

I couldn’t quite keep up with them at that game, and Adam didn’t even dare go near the decks, preferring instead to watch on with bewildered amusement. After hours of letting the Xbox 360 heat up the room, we all switched gears to the Wii with some four-player New Super Mario Bros. Wii action. I have been playing this game since it was released, a little bit every day or so, even if just for a half hour in the mornings. But I hadn’t played through the worlds with three other insanely competitive gamers before. Again, Mike showed great prowess here and ended up being one of the better players in the game.

Jorge ended up losing most, if not all, of his lives each stage. I made fun of him for this and thus karma took me down and I ended up being the second worst player of the game. At first we were all very competitive and tried to hog all the power-ups and coins. We even picked each other up to toss one another into pits. Soon enough, though, we realized the value of cooperation and decided to try to beat the stages as a team. This was not without its downfalls, however. For as soon as there was a question block that contained one good power-up and three mushrooms, we all vied for that better power-up (in many cases, the propeller suit).

We couldn’t get any decent photos of the four of us playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii together, so here’s another photo of Jorge and Mike playing DJ Hero:

Once Adam left, it was back to DJ Hero for what would have been the remainder of the night had Mike not wanted to challenge me in Street Fighter IV. Given the recent news about new characters and content that will be in Super Street Fighter IV, I was also excited about getting back into the game. After my first match, I questioned why the hell I stopped playing Street Fighter IV in the first place but then stared at the stack of games I’ve yet to review and remembered why. Hopefully the upcoming Christmas break will afford me some time to binge game, but this probably won’t happen. I do, after all, have a new project I’m working on with fellow Cobra member Terence Cheng. More on this at a later date.

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