Toronto Thumbs

Interview
Marcus Smith (Insomniac Games)

The Chimera sometimes like to re-enact West Side Story.

An awesome tidbit from Erika and Ricky to tide y’all over until our Resistance 3 review is out.

With the recent release of Resistance 3 exclusively on PlayStation 3, we had the opportunity to speak with Insomniac Games’ Creative Director Marcus Smith about the game-play and plot changes from Resistance: Fall of Man to the latest iteration, articulating the measures taken to make the game what it is today. We also talk about alien invasions, nightmares about the Chimera and other influences this series holds dear. Insomniac has certainly done an impressive job with this series and hopefully this interview will shed some light on more aspects of it.

Read the rest »

Posted in Interviews, Move, PlayStation 3 | 2 Comments »

Awesome
Do Or Die – Follow-Up

Our intrepid travelers have returned home from their spontaneous trips. They all survived (which is awesome) and are settling back into their routines.

For those who don’t know (and are too lazy to click on the link), Microsoft Canada started a contest called “Do Or Die” which involved a group of potential survivalists lobbying for the support of the internet community. Each of the top three candidates received some swag (in the form of laptops and phones) and two plane tickets to a city somewhere in the world; their destinations were a mystery to them until the last minute.

Toronto Thumbs was lucky enough to catch up with these crazy Do Or Die peeps to ask a few questions! Don’t forget to visit the page to check out the official event page!

• Introduction
• Alex Hugh
• Trevor Jones
• Josette Jorge

Posted in Awesome, Events, Interviews | No Comments »

March Break Madness
Off the Wall? Off the Couch!

A lot has been made lately of the interactivity of games; and rightly so. The image of the stereotypical gamer up until recently has been synonymous with ‘couch potato’ (even with Nintendo’s more active innovation years ago). Now, with Sony’s Playstation Move and Microsoft’s Kinect, it is getting harder to refer to us gamers as ‘sacks of potatoes’; especially so, since the introduction of so many new offerings in fitness software.

I had the chance to chat briefly with Sharon Vinderine (founder and CEO of PTPA Inc.*) about motion gaming and its role in family fitness. Sharon spoke about the role of Kinect and urges families to give it a spin, especially in light of the upcoming March Break**.

Read the rest »

Posted in Interviews, Kinect, Move, Wii | 1 Comment »

Here There Be Dinosaurs!
Chatting About Orion: Prelude

“Hey Luuuucy!”

Recently, a game being developed by Spiral Game Studios hit our radar; the game is a melding of space marines, dinosaurs, mechs, and jet-packs. This awesome idea is called Orion: Prelude. David Prassel, CEO and Founder of Spiral Game Studios, was nice enough to field some questions that we sent his way. We don’t know about you folks, but this concept sounds like our childhood dreams come true*.

Read the rest »

Posted in Awesome, Interviews, News Bytes | No Comments »

Interview
The Current State and Future of “Exergaming”

I recently had the opportunity to pose some questions about “exergaming” to Ubisoft Montreal game designer, Nicola Godin. After some phone interview glitches prevented us from connecting over the PSTN, he was nice enough to answer the questions I posed via E-mail. Here is what we talked about…

Read the rest »

Posted in Interviews, Kinect, Xbox 360 | 5 Comments »

Chillin’
With the Industrial Brothers

The other day I had the chance to hang out with the Industrial Brothers; this intrepid group of 10 guys is busy working away on their latest release: Beast Farmer 2. The Beast Farmer series is about capturing and raising creatures on Beast Planet, a mysterious world frozen in time. Part of the game involves interacting with your beasts; feeding them and teaching them tricks with swipes of your finger; as you do so, progress bars will fill and your creature will gain levels. The other part is made up of minigames, where you earn food for your creature, race them, and enter them into battles.

Read the rest »

Posted in Interviews, iPhone, iPod Touch | No Comments »

Interview
Ryan MacLean from DrinkBox Studios

Recently we had the chance to chat with our friend Ryan MacLean; Ryan is the CEO and a cofounder of Drinkbox Studios, creators of the game Tales From Space: About a Blob. It sounds like things are coming along nicely, but we figured we’d discuss the game in a small amount of detail; don’t want to give too much away, after all…

Read the rest »

Posted in Interviews, PSN | No Comments »