Toronto Thumbs

Hopes and Fears
Musings Before the Engineer Update

Hello, my name is Rituro and I’m an Engineer in Team Fortress 2.

It has been one hundred and forty hours since I started covering up my subpar FPS skills with sentries, dispensers, teleporters and critwrenches; I have been a credit to my team and affectionately called “Hard Hat” and “Trucky” more times than I care to count; I have been directly responsible for epic Dustbowl defenses and drawn the ire of many Spies who thought themselves clever enough to evade my wrench and shotgun.

Also, for some inexplicable reason, I also double as a magnetic pincushion for one particular Huntsman-toting Sniper on my favourite server, DuckSoup-Gaming. But I digress…

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Posted in Blog, Commentary, Mac, PC | 3 Comments »

Calzo-NET
The State of Gaming On OSX

I’ve been running OSX for quite a while now. Probably since 10.2 came out. The reasons are largely work related, and I’m certainly not here to persuade anyone that OSX is any better or worse for your own personal needs which I know nothing about; but as a gamer, I have always had to keep a machine running some version of the Windows OS close at hand.

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Posted in Calzo-NET, Mac, News, PC | 1 Comment »

Check This Out!
Plants vs. Zombies

If there’s anything that scares me more that the Conservative government, it’s zombies.  Vampires, werewolves, poltergeists, Brian Mulroney - those things I can deal with.  But zombies?  Man, I can watch zombie movies in the middle of the day, with the sun shining and children laughing and playing outside, and I’m still going to be up until the very wee hours planning my escape route and how I’m going to survive if/when the zombies come.

That wouldn’t be the case if they were all as easy to kill as the zombies in PopCap Games’ popular iPod game, Plants vs. Zombies.  In fact, they’re so easy to take out, you can do it with nothing more than a well-stocked garden.

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Posted in Mac, PC, Reviews, Xbox 360, iPhone, iPod Touch | 5 Comments »

REVIEW
Plants vs. Zombies

I’ve been endlessly excited for Plants Vs. Zombies since Shaun posted a link to the music video PopCap released as a part of its marketing campaign. Now that I have it in my hands, I love it more than I could have imagined. In fact this review is a few days late because I just couldn’t put the game down.

When I lost my laptop for a few more because my family couldn’t put it down, the review was further delayed. (Then, when the rest of the gang started playing the game, productivity in the office seemed to come to a standstill – Ed.).

I’ve been following and playing PopCap games for a long time now, and am a sucker for puzzle games. The company consistently produces puzzle titles with solid gameplay and copious amounts of fun, and Plants Vs. Zombies is no exception

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Posted in Mac, PC, Reviews | 1 Comment »

FLASH FOCUS
The Patapon 2 Mini-Game

If you’ve not yet had the chance to play Patapon, it might be hard to understand why waiting until May 5th for the North American release of Patapon 2 has me all knotted up inside. But SPIL Games is giving a chance for both players suffering through the painful wait, and those that have never been hypnotized by the repetitious rhythm and style of the series to bang out a few “Pata’s” all the same.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has announced that from March 9th until March 16th, PC and Mac gamers alike can sample the Kerb-developed flash version of Patapon. The result is as near perfect as possible - considering that the keyboard is a poor substitute for clutching my PSP. Players can get a quick taste of what’s coming and unlock designs for creating their own Patapon wallpaper - meaning you should click on through right away!

Me? I’ll just be sitting here, waiting for May 5th, unless of course I happen to get it sooner.

EBgames has also offered a demo with pre-orders of Patapon 2 that will apparently be available from March 13th until April 27th. Same game perhaps? Good question! What say you Sony?

Posted in Awesome, Flash Focus, Mac, PC, PSP, Sony | 8 Comments »

Eighth Wonder of the World
Behold the iCast

Over at the CGCC forums, mad scientist Logicdustbin has unveiled the greatest technological achievement to date – and proven why I voted him most likely to conquer the earth with a robot army. This marvel of gaming aesthetics strengthens my belief that every appliance, device, and utensil, should in some way also be a Dreamcast.

Watch the video after the break, check the forum thread for more images, and then squeeze in a few more rounds of Under Defeat and Triggerheart Exelica with me before Logic’s Killbot legions enslave us all!

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Posted in Awesome, Mac, Scientastic, Sega Dreamcast, Videos | 8 Comments »

Spore Finally Gets Release Date

Spore: Coming to your galaxy this Fall.

EA has just announced that Spore will be available September 7, 2008 on PC, Mac, Nintendo DS, and mobile phones.

“The wait is almost over,” says Maxis Chief Designer Will Wright. “We’re in our final stages of testing and polish with Spore, and the team at Maxis can’t wait to see the cosmos of content created by the community later this year.”

Spore is the brainchild of Wright, who is also the man behind The Sims. The game is ambitious to say the least. Players will get to essentially play god as they watch and control the development of their own species, tribes, societies, and universe. In fact, it promises to be a game that will undoubtedly take up all of your time should you choose to play it.

The game’s official website, spore.com, has been updated with new screenshots as well as a teaser announcement for the release date.

Posted in DS, Mac, Mobile, News, PC | 4 Comments »