Toronto Thumbs

Review
Shoot Many Robots

The clock is counting down to that most wonderful time of the year again. Not the holiday season, mind you; I’m talking about summer. Besides blasting that Alice Cooper classic, do you know what else I love about summer? Not-too-important video game releases! It’s the perfect opportunity for myself, and many gamers, to catch up with games we’ve had on our backlogs and dip our toes in the download-only waters during our spare time.

My first catch of the year comes from Demiurge Studios and is available as a download for XBLA, PSN, and Steam. What we have on our hands is a distractingly addictive (and very literal) side-scrolling action game: Shoot Many Robots.

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

Summer Nights
Summer Multi-Player Goodness

Nature takes a turn for the worse in Gears of War 3′s latest DLC.

Summer is almost upon us. Sadly, that means that game releases will be slim for a couple of months. Now, more than ever, our library of games become very important to cure our boredom. So what games are great to play during the summer months? Multi-player games of course! With their high replay value and social aspects, multi-player games are great for having friends over or playing online with people from around the world. Here is a small list of great multi-player experiences so far this year.

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Posted in Byte-Size Reviews, Recent Plays | No Comments »

Review
Sine Mora

When I got the press kit for Grasshopper Manufacture’s Sine Mora I was super-excited to get my hands on it. For starters, it’s a bullet-hell-shoot-‘em-up (my favorite), and second: it has some heavyweight industry contribution. Another side scroller you say? Hardly. Sine Mora has design input from Mahiro Maeda, the legendary anime director of the Final Fantasy: Unlimited, Animatrix – Second Renaissance and most of all, the amazing animated sequence in Kill Bill Vol. 1. Needless to say, his contribution has led to some truly detailed and imaginative backdrops. To accompany the phenomenally creative design comes a unique and engaging score created by Akira Yomaoka (Shadows of the Damned and the Silent Hill series) which matches the frantic game-play like glow sticks at a rave.

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Posted in Byte-Size Reviews, LIVE, Xbox 360 | No Comments »

Review
Mario Party 9

The majority of Nintendo fans have strong memories of Mario Party. We’re talking late nights with friends, screaming at each other for stealing stars, and nursing our hands back to health after brutal-analogue-stick-rotating-mini-games. Those were good times; simpler times – but the good times for Mario seemed to have dried up as things went on. The mechanics became tired and over-used, the soda had gone flat, and people just wanted to get on with their lives. When the Wii was released, interest in Mario Party was piqued again because of the play mechanics the Wii promised. Sadly, Mario Party 8 showed up to the party disoriented, confused, and lifeless. Now, however, with the release of Mario Party 9 for the Wii the development of the game has been handed to Nd Cube from Hudson Soft. Does this new developer breathe life into the stagnant series? Or is Mario left with only fond memories of his former party glory?

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Posted in Reviews, Wii | No Comments »

Review
Kinect Rush: A Disney/Pixar Adventure

When it comes to catering to the inner child, you don’t need to look farther than Pixar; they deliver the goods every time. People just fall in love with their movies; whether it is a story about toys that come to life, cars that are people, or a rat that can cook – there is magic within each adventure that resonates with something in our souls. My daughter once asked me if there was a way to jump into a Pixar movie to join our favourite characters. Asobo Studio’s Kinect Rush: A Disney/Pixar Adventure does a fairly good job answering that question; and while it may fall short of an “ultimate” experience, it is an exciting precursor of what (hopefully) may be.

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Posted in Kinect, Reviews, Xbox 360 | No Comments »

Review
Fez

You have never played a game quite like Fez.

In its early stages, you may think that you already have experienced it: the cute pixel graphics mix Cave Story with Minecraft; the platforming is nothing revolutionary; the 2D-to-3D rotation mechanic has also been done before; and there is no denying that Fez is proudly and openly influenced by the original NES Legend of Zelda, right down to a poster of that pink-sky and sky-blue waterfall of Zelda’s title sequence in Fez’s main character’s bedroom. That poster is a nice touch, and a revealing glance into Fez’s attitude toward play. Not every player will notice that poster; but those with a keen eye for detail and the desire to take their sweet time exploring the environment will be rewarded – in this case, with a little nod to one of gaming’s great sources of inspiration. Later on in Fez, that keen eye and that desire to take things slow become necessary to discover everything, just like in that original Zelda game. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

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Review
Tropico 4: Modern Times

Ah, the modern world. Reams of information at our fingertips; transportation as varied as needs be; supplies and sustenance so easy to acquire they make even the weakest of us credible hunter/gatherer types in nature’s eyes. Also, space travel is possible for even a small island country of barely three hundred people. Wait, what?

Si, mis compañeros, El Presidente has lurched Tropico into a world of steel-and-glass skyscrapers, bio-organic ranches, fish farms and a space program. Tropico 4: Modern Times is the latest DLC for Haemimont’s island city sim and -as the name none too subtly suggests- it’s time to move your creaky buildings into a new age. Well, in theory, anyway.

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