Toronto Thumbs

FanExpo 2010
4th Dimension - Two Things Worth Trying

Conventions are a hotbed of marketing; so many products are being pushed into the spotlight, and at a crowded event like FanExpo, you can be pretty sure that companies will push even harder. Even so, some overshadowing is bound to occur, and interesting and worthwhile projects may not get the attention that they deserve.

When I was wandering the floor, I found two really neat things that I wanted to share with our readers…

Read the rest »

Posted in First Impressions, PC | No Comments »

FanExpo 2010
B Number 2 - Tron: Evolution

Easy to recognize.

When Tron 2.0 came out, it was pretty clear to me that only those of us who saw the original movie would be excited, if at all; fans are a fickle bunch; resistant to change; any departure from the plot is met with a frown and an insistence that “this never would have happened in the original”. Monolith did a good job toeing that line between canon and the introduction of new material. Even with generally favourable reviews, Tron 2.0 underperformed from a sales perspective, and support was eventually dropped; a shame, really, since the faithful user community kept producing mods for it, as well as an expansion.

Tron: Evolution, though, is a whole other story, and has something going for it that 2.0 did not: an accompanying motion picture (Tron: Legacy); even though that film may not be as closely tied to the game as one might expect.

Read the rest »

Posted in Events, First Impressions, Move, PC, PSP, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 | 2 Comments »

X’10
Chapter 4 - We Are All Brothers

As I walked through X’10, I rounded a corner and my smile widened impossibly; two screens were displaying Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood in vibrant majesty. As many who read this site know, I have a thing for the Assassin’s Creed series, and for good reason: it’s one of the best franchises in the history of video games? Some may think that this is a lofty statement: they obviously haven’t played it yet…

Read the rest »

Posted in Events, First Impressions, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 | No Comments »

Free Rambling
Mirror’s Edge In 7 Hours

Mid-June saw “EA Week” hit Valve’s digital download service, Steam. In amidst the crazy discounts on titles like Dragon Age and the Mass Effect series, DICE’s parkour title Mirror’s Edge was listed at 75% off. I’d always been intrigued by the concept of a game centred on free-running, so with no price point to hold me back I pushed everything else to the bottom of the “To Be Played” pile and started downloading DICE’s 2009 darling.

Jamie Love’s previous articles  for Toronto Thumbs on Mirror’s Edge do an excellent job of reviewing and retelling the game in eloquent depth. Those of you looking for a well-thought-out review would be better served by reading those; I would be doing the game a great disservice were I to re-review the game with Jamie’s works already on the site. Instead, let’s recap what my seven hours of the game were like.

Read the rest »

Posted in PC, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Xbox 360 | 1 Comment »

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…

Read the rest »

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

Review
The Settlers 7: Paths To a Kingdom

A long time ago I used to play a game called Serf City by Blue Byte Software; it was a charming little RTS with great depth and charming gameplay that was (in my opinion) ahead of its time. The game had tiny, cleverly animated characters (up to 64,000 could function simultaneously and autonomously) that went about their business, helping you build and shape your empire. I played it endlessly in University.

When the workload got more demanding, I stopped playing it (and subsequently have no idea where my original copy went); I did not pick up anything in the series until The Settlers 7: Paths To a Kingdom for the PC was placed on my desk. A quick scan of the case had me wondering why I had not played any of the previous games since the first!

Read the rest »

Posted in PC, Reviews | 2 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.

Read the rest »

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

Review
Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening

Dragon Age: Origins was likely my favourite game from 2009; it was certainly the game I spent the most time playing (count ‘em: 60+ hours). I have played through all of the DLC for the game as well (Stone Prisoner, Warden’s Keep and Return To Ostagar). So naturally, as soon as Awakening was available (which is officially described as an expansion, not DLC), I logged onto Xbox Live and purchased it.

Read the rest »

Posted in PC, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Xbox 360 | No Comments »

To Infinity and Beyond!
Toy Story 3 Preview

Last week we were invited to check out some of Disney Interactive’s new offerings, namely Guilty Party and Toy Story 3. Disney is always fun to check out because they usually have the added challenge of accommodating a larger demographic than other companies (Street Fighter IV is not officially for kids, is it?); they always do a great job when it comes to games that involve the whole family. We settled onto some comfy couches in an office in downtown Toronto - amidst a pile of plush friends and some stand-up cardboard likenesses of well-known characters - and watched Wideload Games and Avalanche Software show off their shiny new games. In this second segment we take a look at Avalanche’s offering…

Read the rest »

Posted in Awesome, DS, DSi, PC, PSP, PlayStation 3, Previews, Wii, Xbox 360 | No Comments »