Toronto Thumbs

Three MCs And One DJ
A Review of DJ Hero

DJ Hero was released October 27, 2009. But before that date, the Toronto Thumbs staff already loved it and talked about it a great deal. We claimed our love for it in our coverage of Microsoft’s X’09 event and Sony’s Holiday Preview Event. When it came time to choose our top games of 2009, DJ Hero found its way on both Shaun’s and Jorge’s lists. It’s not surprising – the two love both music and amazing games.

We decided it would be fun to review the game as a group, which in turn has caused some delay in getting it all together. We’ve also included Toronto Thumbs newcomer Eleanor D.’s thoughts on the game.

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Posted in Awesome, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Wii, Xbox 360 | 2 Comments »

TORONTO THUMBS TELEVISION
As Entertaining and Infrequent as Our Podcast

We’ve enlisted the help of our good friend, Kevin Hickey, to get us started on a new endeavour: Toronto Thumbs Television. With his help as director, videographer, and editor, we’ve produced two videos so far that we’re very happy with.

Cobra Commander’s first and second reports from the Sony PlayStation Holiday Preview Event in Toronto proved to be worthy projects to launch this new initiative. A third report is on its way, I’m told. Future episodes of Toronto Thumbs Television will probably not feature the hooded evil mastermind as he’s already fulfilled the terms of his probation and didn’t seem to get along with any of us.

Still, it’s hard to deny his comedic timing and strange affinity for pandas, despite his claim that they’re useless animals.

Posted in News Bytes, Videos | 2 Comments »

PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Cobra Commander VS Tony Hawk RIDE, Heavy Rain, and God of War III

Cobra Commander has come through with his second video featuring games he played at last month’s Sony PlayStation Holiday Preview Event. In this installment, he gets some playtime in with Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time and Tony Hawk RIDE. He also shares his thoughts on God of War III and tries to figure out what kind of game Heavy Rain might be.

Interviews in this episode include Zack Cooper from Fan590’s Got Game, Jim Squires of TheBBPS.com, and skateboarding legend Tony Hawk.

Direct link to video »

Posted in Awesome, Canada, Events, PSN, PlayStation 3, Sony, Videos | 4 Comments »

PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Cobra Commander VS Namco Bandai

Cobra Commander attended the PlayStation Holiday Preview Event at the Burroughes Building in Downtown Toronto on October 6, 2009. As special correspondent for Toronto Thumbs, he interviewed game PR people and played a bunch of videogames. This is his first report from the event. In this installment, he tackles Katamari Forever and Tekken 6 and also interviews In Joon Hwang, Brand Manager for Tekken 6 and Namco Bandai Games.

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Posted in Awesome, Canada, Events, Interviews, PSN, PlayStation 3, Sony, Videos | 9 Comments »

DJ HERO CONTEST
You Could Win A DJ Hero Demo Kit

Ever since we first laid eyes on DJ Hero in-person at X’09 this year, we were in love. The game brings a much-needed fresh new play style to the music genre and is full of amazing mixes. A week after first playing it, we got to spend even more time with it at Sony’s PlayStation Holiday Preview Event, and we started loving it more.

But let’s cut to the chase: We have three DJ Hero Demo Kits (Xbox 360 version only), courtesy of Activision. They include a demo disc for the game, a wired turntable controller, and a few leaflets including an overview on how the game is played.

Want to win one? Here’s what you have to do:

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Posted in Awesome, Contests | 4 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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Posted in Awesome, PlayStation 3, Previews | No Comments »

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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Posted in Awesome, PSN, PlayStation 3, Previews | No Comments »

PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
Cobra Commander Plays Lego Rock Band With NextGen Player

It’s over a week later, and we’re still not done talking about Sony’s PlayStation Holiday Preview Event, which was on October 6 at the Burroughes Building in Toronto. Here’s a shot of our special correspondent, Cobra Commander, playing LEGO Rock Band with Alice and Paul from NextGen Player. If you click on that image, you’ll get to see a short clip of the band in action (tip: it’s also available in HD). It’s actually part of a longer feature we’re in the middle of editing here. Cobra Commander swears a lot, and we’re finding it difficult to keep things family-friendly. That, and he’s hard to understand most of the time.

We mentioned wanting to send Cobra Commander to the PlayStation Holiday Preview Event in Episode 11 of our Podcast. Now that the event has passed without incident on his part, we can safely say it went off without a hitch, and that he was a big hit at the event.

Why would we agree to send him to this? Several reasons. The first is that the poor guy needed some work after another gig recently fell through. The second is that he’s actually a pretty avid gamer. The third is that he threatened to kill us if we didn’t get him in.

That being said, a big thanks to Kyle Moffatt at Sony Computer Entertainment Canada for allowing the Commander in even though he wasn’t on the guest list. I hope he didn’t do anything too sinister when I wasn’t looking.

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Posted in Awesome, Music, PlayStation 3, Sony | 5 Comments »

PlayStation Holiday Preview Event
LEGO Rock Band

I remember having to track down a store to purchase my copy of the original Rock Band back in 2007. I played it so much that I got a passive aggressive note taped to my apartment door by my old neighbours complaining about the noise who, get this, ended up buying Rock Band themselves and serenading us through the walls with Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive” for weeks afterward.

It’s hard to believe that it was only two years ago.

Now we’re about to have another Rock Band title unleashed upon us. LEGO Rock Band is set to release this holiday season and from what I’ve seen and played, it should be a big hit – particularly with families.

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Posted in Awesome, Music, PlayStation 3 | No Comments »

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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Posted in PlayStation 3, Previews | No Comments »