Toronto Thumbs

Review
Disney Universe

Boxing Week is upon us, which means that there are a few prime shopping days left in the year. This fashionably late review is well-timed, since it deals with a great game that the whole family can enjoy (aka: possibly a great purchase): Eurocom’s Disney Universe. Back during E3, we got the breakdown from Michelle Liem about this game; then we got to play it a few times since (once at X’11 Canada and then at Playstation Holiday). Now that we have spent some personal time with it, do we think that it will be to everyone’s taste? Perhaps not. Do we still think it is a great game? Yes. Yes we do. Read on.

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

Review
Country Dance 2

There are a lot of sexy cowboys and cowgirls in this game.

Kat has been on an understandable hiatus for a while and decided to place dibs on this particular title. I could tell you what she has been up to and what she thought; but given her method of direct and entertaining communication, I figured I would just let her tell you herself…

I haven’t written a review in a long time because I had a kid; and seriously, it’s hard to hold a controller and a baby. I also really don’t want to drop the controller, because I’m sure as hell not letting go of my kid. However, now that my kid is getting bigger (and mostly sleeps and gives me some free time), I thought it would be a fun to review Game Mill Entertainment’s Country Dance 2 for Wii.

Oh brother.

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Posted in Byte-Size Reviews, Wii | No Comments »

Reviews
The Black Eyed Peas Experience

Let’s get it started.

Earlier in the year, the gaming community was treated to The Michael Jackson Experience, a great dancing game chock full of fantastic music and a style of presentation that fit MJ. Both the Kinect and Wii versions were a lot of fun to play. Now, Ubisoft has released the next title in the “Experience” series: The Black Eyed Peas Experience. We take a look at the Kinect and Wii versions to see if they have the Boom Boom Pow that one would expect from a series where the bar has been set high from the get-go*.

• Introduction
• Wii Version
• Kinect version

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

Review
Mario Kart 7

All pics in this article are 2D representations of 3D images.

A group of colourful characters, some good and some not-so-good, fight it out to establish their supremacy; MK7 is here! Of course, I’m not talking about Mortal Kombat; I am referring to the newest title in the other MK franchise: Mario Kart 7. In light of the awesomeness that is Super Mario 3D Land, does this latest foray manage to stay ahead of the pack? Or is it the pits?

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Posted in 3DS, Reviews | No Comments »

Review
Super Mario 3D Land

Remember: all pics here are 2D representations of 3D. Don’t complain or I will ground pound you.

It is always challenging to review Super Mario titles; while there are a whole whack-ton of them, they are all just so damned good. Of course, there is a big pile of expectation placed on our plumber friend’s shoulders due to the fact the his latest adventure, Super Mario 3D Land, is a first party title on a relatively new platform (that has some less-than-stellar titles available for it since launch). Of course, there are other great titles available already; but there is just something about Mario that brings out the best in Nintendo hardware; it really defies description. This 3DS title is no exception, no matter which dimension you’re looking at.

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Posted in 3DS, News Bytes, Reviews | 1 Comment »

Review
Rayman Origins

Rayman is back you guys! Before the Raving Rabbids took over the series for some reason, Rayman games were solid 3D platformers that provided a great alternative to Mario. Rayman’s strange design and overall art direction was always a draw for people in the past; and it turns out that in Rayman’s return, things have not changed at all. Rayman Origins is developed and published by Ubisoft for the three major consoles and tells the tale of Rayman’s first adventures. You know, I’ve never done LSD before, but I’m pretty sure that after playing this game I know what it feels like.

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Posted in PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 | 1 Comment »

Review
Fossil Fighters: Champions

A long time ago, I swore to myself that I would never play “collect-and-battle” games. The likes of Pokemon and Monster Rancher seemed like endless grinding to me, and I thought that those types of games would be a waste of time. Then, I started writing for Thumbs, and playing games I never imagined. Eventually, I ended up playing the very games I promised myself I never would – and I sort-of liked some of them*. Fossil Fighter Champions (developed by Nintendo SPD, Red Entertainment, M2, and Artdink) adds to the “love” side of my love/hate relationship with the genre.

In FFC, you pit your creatures (in this case, called vivosaurs) against other vivosaurs. So far, this is the common denominator among the genre. However, the catch is that you attain new creatures by digging for their bones, cleaning them, and then bringing them back to life. I’m sure this DS title has some of you interested now.

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Posted in DS, Reviews | No Comments »