Toronto Thumbs

Event
God of War III Preview

Sony was kind enough to extend us an invitation to their God of War III preview event; especially nice of them considering they only hold a couple events a year.  GoW has been a hugely successful franchise for Sony and they are confident that the third installment is one of the most anticipated games of 2010. The event was held at a local venue - not far from Toronto’s downtown core - to let the media get their hands on the game a week or so before launch, further propagating the buzz that surrounds this title.

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Posted in Events, PlayStation 3, Previews | 1 Comment »

In ʘur Sights
Sniper: Ghost Warrior

Anyone has ever listened to one of our Thumbscasts would know that I am a big fan of snipers. In almost every war-like FPS-type game that allows you to choose a class, I will be hanging back in the bushes or the trees picking off clueless people with abandon thanks to a very powerful rifle.

So what is the first thought that enters my mind when I find out that City Interactive is releasing a game in which the main character is a sniper? Hell yes!

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Posted in Microsoft, PC, Previews, Xbox 360 | No Comments »

PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
The Saboteur

While I was walking across the floor in one of the rooms at the Sony PlayStation Holiday Preview Event, I was compelled to check out a screen displaying unfamiliar gameplay. Corey Lewis from Pandemic invited me to have a seat on the couch as he showed me his team’s upcoming release, a single-player sandbox stealth adventure game.

The Saboteur is a stylish title that takes place in Paris during World War II. You play the part of Sean Devlin, an Irish racecar mechanic whose friends are being killed at the hands of the Nazis. After you witness the brutal killing of close friends, you finally reach your threshold and kill the Nazi responsible for the heinous act. From that point you become devoted to ridding the city of Nazi scum.

The game plays very well. I’m not sure if it was the final build that Corey was demonstrating, but it was fairly smooth and looked really good. He handed me the controls and it was far more intuitive than I would have thought, given the level of complexity of what your character can do. Your character will seek cover automatically, which is awesome, and can switch between melee and ranged combat, depending on what’s needed. Parkour seems to be a huge element in third-person-shooter games these days, and this game is no exception to that.

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PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
MAG

MAG (Massive Action Game) is an interesting concept. As a massive multiplayer first-person shooter, MAG utilizes a new type of server architecture that allows up to 256 players to engage in battle simultaneously. Each side is composed of platoons, which are in turn composed squads. Squads can contain up to eight players; platoons can contain up to four squads; and companies can be composed of up to four platoons.

The story is fairly simple. The year is 2025; the world faces a security threat in the form of small military groups (gangs, pirates, etc.) and maintaining a large military has become a financial and strategic burden. Thus, small defensive forces have been created in place of full armies, and it’s these teams that respond to national threats. Bound by the terms of the Millennium Accord, these defense forces are forbidden from crossing the borders between their countries. Thus, for out-of-country interests, one may procure the service of a PMC (Private Military Corporation). On the surface the world appears at peace, but in the shadows, a war is being fought to establish dominance. You are part of that war.

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PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game (not to be confused with The Last Airbender) is a game adaptation of the movie. Or, at least, it sort of is. Many videogame adaptations of popular Hollywood films suffer from a disease called lastminuteitis. It’s a horrible affliction where, in a desperate attempt to cash in on the entertained public as much as possible, a half-assed game is created at the last minute that does nothing other than empty your wallet and leave you feeling cheated. Speaking to Ubisoft about Avatar: The Game, however, leaves me feeling somewhat assured about the quality of this title.

The development of Avatar started during the pre-production phase of the movie. Ubisoft had access to all of the assets being used for the film. James Cameron himself did not want a simple re-telling of the story, nor does it seem like he just wanted a direct port of the movie. Instead, he wanted something a bit different. So, a new story was written expressly for the game – one that is set two years before the events of the movie take place. Once he gave his blessing, the project began to unfold.

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PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Dead To Rights: Retribution

Dead to Rights is a “Gun-Fu” franchise involving a good guy surrounded by corruption who kicks that corruption’s ass fairly hard. Dead To Rights: Retribution marks the first time a game in the series will hit the current-generation consoles.

The game places you in the shoes of Jack Slate, Grant City police officer, and details the origins of his relationship with his faithful dog, Shadow.

The build I played was still in its Beta phase, but was nonetheless very impressive. The combat system is simple, yet effective, allowing to switch back and forth between melee and ranged combat. Currently some of the fancy options (like grenade targeting arcs) have yet to be implemented (it’s also possible they weren’t enabled on the demo I played).

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PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain is possibly the most messed up game I’ve ever tried to play. I couldn’t quite get into it at the Sony PlayStation Holiday Preview Event as I was too distracted by every other game being played near it (God of War III, for instance, was right beside it).

What I do know, however, is that I could probably end up spending hours with Heavy Rain when it’s released early 2010.

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Posted in Art, Awesome, PlayStation 3, Previews | 2 Comments »

PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Where the Wild Things Are

When I first heard that Spike Jonze was helming a film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, I was somewhat skeptical. How is such a short book going to translate onto the big screen? Of course, if memory serves me correctly, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was originally an eighteen-page short story in a magazine in the early half of the century before it was adapted into a three and a half hour movie. Strangely enough, game adaptations don’t puzzle me as much, so when I approached the display for Where the Wild Things Are at the PlayStation Holiday Preview Event, I wasn’t really surprised.

At first glance the game looks just like the movie. Actually, for a brief moment I thought it was the movie and that perhaps Warner Brothers was using a PS3 setup as a trailer display. When I finally clued in, I was enthralled by how life-like the game looks (which is something to say considering all of the characters except for Max are monsters).

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Posted in Art, PlayStation 3, Previews | 2 Comments »

PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Dragon Ball: Raging Blast

I didn’t really spend too much time with Dragon Ball: Raging Blast at the Sony PlayStation Holiday Preview Event. Reason being? It was right beside Tekken 6. Another reason is that I’m not really a big fan of the Dragon Ball series. Despite this, it’s hard to deny how fluid, crisp, and all-around impressive the game looks.

The characters are completely cel-shaded, and from what I’ve seen of the anime the likenesses were great. What’s funny, actually, is that the game looks better than the anime. I’ve never actually played any of the Dragon Ball games before (the only thing I’ve played that’s remotely Dragon Ball is Battle Stadium DON for the GameCube), but I have seen enough of the anime to know that the fights are over-the-top crazy, so I was wondering how that would translate to a console.

Well, this game is to Dragon Ball what Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm is to the Naruto anime.

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Posted in PlayStation 3, Previews | 2 Comments »

PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Tekken 6

I walked into the Playstation Holiday Preview Event with Richard and Don from Gamenorth.ca, and as the elevator doors opened up reaching the venue floor, our eyes all settled on the Tekken 6 setup. The three of us are huge Tekken fans, so this was a very fortuitous moment. Rich and Don sat down on the couch to display the obvious rivalry between them while I chatted with In Joon Hwang from Namco Bandai.

The last Tekken iteration I played was the arcade version of Tekken Tag Tournament, and that was a while ago. But I was a huge Tekken 3 fan back in the day and owned all of the soundtracks to it. Tekken 6, however, is a whole different beast.

First of all, although Tekken games have a history of looking great, Tekken 6 is absolutely stunning. The character designs are incredibly detailed and they come to life with an absurd clarity in high definition. I know describing a giant fighting panda, a boxing kangaroo, and an android girl with mech wings as realistic sounds weird. But trust me; the characters behave and move realistically.

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Posted in Awesome, PlayStation 3, Previews, Sony | 4 Comments »