Toronto Thumbs

The Future Is WOW
Pure Will Bring Unrealistically Fun ATV Racing to 360, PS3

By Shaun Hatton - July 1st, 2008

Last month Toronto Thumbs was treated to a preview of Black Rock Studio’s upcoming ATV stunt racing, adrenaline-pumping title, Pure. While the game shown wasn’t the actual final build, it was polished enough to be more than impressive and, oddly enough, sent me on a stunt racing games kick lately (hello, Excite Truck!).

While on the surface Pure may look like your standard racing game, it isn’t a typical racing sim. Instead, the game adopts a much more arcade feel and puts a greater emphasis on being able to pull of stunts rather than actually finishing the race in first place (though that’s a good bonus).

The courses are all off-road and there’s no “one set path” to take to get from start to finish. You can come across alternative pathways that take you on more scenic routes or even be sent over crazy, death-defying jumps. There’s a stunt metre that fills up with each successful stunt you perform and ultimately allows you to execute more complicated tricks.

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Posted in PC, PlayStation 3, The Future Is WOW, Xbox 360 | No Comments »

Want to be a Jedi? Play Force Mod

By Shaun Hatton - June 7th, 2008

I’ve always been a huge fan of Star Wars and by default, Star Wars games. Although they haven’t always been the most enjoyable, there was always just a certain something about playing a new Star Wars game that excited me. I even played through the horrendously bad Yoda Stories on my Game Boy Color back in the day.

Yesterday we recorded a new Thumbscast which will be posted online shortly. Without getting into the details of what we discussed too much, one of the topics touched upon was the LucasArts layoffs and what that meant for Star Wars video games.

Right now, there’s isn’t much on the horizon for the franchise in terms of its exploitation via the medium of video games. Yes, there is The Force Unleashed. And yes, it has fanboys the world over crossing their legs and crapping their pants in anticipation. Recently revealed screenshots of even the under-powered Wii version look great. Everyone seems to be excited about the prospect of using the Wii Remote to dole out Force punishment and participate in lightsabre battles.

Hrm. Sounds familiar to me. Yes, I think it’s coming back to me now. Wasn’t there already a game just like this, whose multiplayer mode was indeed a balls-out Jedi vs Jedi vs Sith vs Sith assault? Yeah, there was. It was called Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, which was available on Windows, Mac, and Xbox. There was a trivial single-player mission where you learn about Jedi-like stuff but really I couldn’t care less for that. It was all about multiplayer mode.

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Posted in Editorial, PC | 1 Comment »

REVIEW
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Soulstorm

By Jorge Figueiredo - April 4th, 2008

Developed by Relic Entertainment and Iron Lore Entertainment and published by THQ.

Some would argue that real-time strategy titles are a dime a dozen. There are so many of them that this statement might be true. However, there are a few franchises worth mentioning.

The Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War series (which will be the subject of an upcoming Retro Review) started back in 2004 with a wonderfully produced slice of RTS goodness. Utilizing a persistent tabletop game with a rich background, Relic produced an awesome product. In my opinion, this PC conversion was actually better than its source material. But this is a whole other debate.

I like having a few RTS games on hand to play to suit my mood. For example, when I’m jonesing for Medieval-style fantasy, I’ve got Battle for Middle Earth II. Dawn of War really satisfies what can only be described as the “war-torn bleak future” craving. Relic has done a great job with the series in terms of game ambiance and feel.

In the last few years, there have been several expansions. Each expansion introduces a few new races to play with, and in a great move, you can play almost each expansion on its own. The catch is that while all of the races (cumulatively up to that point) are available within the game, only the races tied to the expansion are playable, unless you own previous expansions (or the original), thus enabling you to be any corresponding race.

Soulstorm, the latest expansion, continues the DoW legacy of the Risk-style single player campaign, and ups the ante by introducing three additional planets (with their own territories) to the series. Each area has distinctive advantages (the more areas you control, the more perks you get). Also, there is an RPG element, as your commanding officers gain experience and access to more (and subsequently better) weaponry/armor.

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Posted in PC, Reviews | 4 Comments »

The State of PC Gaming

By Adam Russell - March 27th, 2008

Will future generations of gamers know the significance of these keys?

As usual, I seem to be writing about the PC again. That’s not to say I don’t love consoles, too: The ‘Hottest Party’ is every night at my house (bad DDR joke [you’re tellin’ me – ED.]). But as a diehard PC Gamer hearing all the recent talk about the future of the PC platform, I feel the need to address a few things.

This isn’t so much my opinion on the future of the PC, but rather a review of the current popular ideas that are floating around. The waters have gotten a bit murky as of late and are in need of some clearing up.

First are the detractors. Those that subscribe to the quite common belief that the PC Games platform is dying, if not already dead. Recently we have seen some high-profile developers call into question the validity of the PC. There was Cliffy B. of Epic games saying that the PC is in a state of “disarray,” which isn’t too surprising considering that his main focus is on the console. However, even Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games (his last game being Supreme Commander, a big PC title) believes people are going to stop making big investments on the PC “when it just doesn’t work” and instead take their investments more console-centric, so that games will only be “ported back over to the PC.”

Quite probably the most popular sound bite comes from another person at Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, who was famously quoted as saying “PCs are good for anything, just not games.”

All this talk inevitably causes many people to shout “The PC is dying.”

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Posted in Editorial, PC | 9 Comments »

The Next Battlefield Game Will Be Free

By Shaun Hatton - March 26th, 2008

Battlefield Heroes features super stylized visuals.

The popular Battlefield war series will return this summer with Battlefield Heroes, a game that will be free to play. It’s EA’s first title to be released through their new Play 4 Free business model.

Battlefield Heroes will offer online matchmaking so you won’t find yourself up against players from other skill levels. Additionally, the game seems to have taken a design cue from Team Fortress 2 and even Battalion Wars 2. All the character and vehicle designs are intentionally cartoony, blocky, and bright.

The game’s currently in development and is being worked on by DICE in Stockholm, which is the same team behind the outstanding Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 1942 titles.

“Online gaming garners a massive audience,” says Gerhard Florin, EVP Publishing Americas-Europe at EA. “People want to play games in new ways, with easier access that is quick to the fun. With Battlefield Heroes, EA brings its first major franchise to North America and Europe with a new distribution model and pricing structure adapted to the evolving way that people play.”

Check out battlefield-heroes.com for more information. The site’s updated semi-regularly by the dev team with screenshots and news. They even recently posted a video. From these early glimpses, it looks like the game is going to be absolutely hilarious and outstanding.

Posted in News, PC | 2 Comments »

ODD PROD: n52te

By Shaun Hatton - March 10th, 2008

The Belkin n52te takes the awesome design of the Nostromo n52 SpeedPad and adds back lighting to it.

“Just what is the n52te?” you may be wondering. Well it’s a computer peripheral that first and foremost is a video game controller. Taking the WASD key movement setup found in most first-person PC games and mapping them to easier-to-reach keys, the n52te effectively makes using a keyboard for gaming a distant memory. All of the keys are programmable with not only mapping functions, but also complicated macros, too.

And it’s not just for gaming. Let’s say you have a complicated set of Photoshop macros. The n52te, with included software, can pull that off, too. All with just the click of one button. Of course, this all has to be programmed in the first place, but once that initial set-up is out of the way, you might end up forgetting a few keyboard shortcuts.

Now let’s say you have to switch programs. Not a problem for the n52te. It knows what program you’re using, so you don’t risk accidentally applying a Photoshop macro to a Word document, for instance. The controller even has 4 different modes it can switch through - so you can set multiple mapping and/or macro sets for individual programs. The whole thing may sound complicated, but it really isn’t. I’ve been using its predecessor, the Belkin Nostromo SpeedPad n52 for the past four years, and I have absolutely no complaints other than the fact that they don’t make a right handed version of the product. I’d love to be able to replace my keyboard entirely with two of these.

The n52te is set to release soon in Canada. For more information, check out n52te.com.

Posted in Odd Prods, PC | No Comments »

Your Cure For The Portal’s Done Blues

By Syd Bolton - March 3rd, 2008

If you’ve played through Portal and still want more, there are some fixes out there for you. You may have heard that Portal was developed by a team of students at the DigiPen Institute of Technology. But before that, they had actually developed a finished game called Narbacular Drop, which was essentially the proving ground and test for what became Portal.

Narbacular Drop is a free PC download and clocks in at only 26 megs. It’s an enjoyable game and it’s fun to compare it with the more polished Portal. There’s also a really cool unofficial Flash version of Portal that gives you an idea of what the game might have been like if it wasn’t played from a first-person perspective. It’s arguable that Portal is not a first-person shooter, but rather a first-person puzzler. Thinking about all that can really start to make your brain hurt, especially when you realize there might have been cake after all. So instead, sit back and enjoy the game that inspired Portal and a game inspired by it.

Posted in PC | 3 Comments »