This past week the newest Gears of War 3 DLC, entitled Fenix Rising, became available for download on Xbox Live. The DLC features several new character skins, five new maps, and a new leveling system for those who just cannot get enough of Gears 3. For 800 Microsoft points Fenix Rising offers some decent content but not everyone will use all the features available for download.

The new character skins offered in the Fenix Rising DLC are not particularly special and ultimately add little to the overall gameplay experience. Still, the new skins do add some extra content for the diehard Gears fan who enjoys seeing some new characters running around the battlefield. The five new maps offer much better content with a decent variety of map types that range from brightly lit outdoor environments to dark and claustrophobic interiors. As well, the new maps are based upon particular moments of Marcus Fenix’s life. Having the new maps themed around Marcus’s life is a nice touch but only the most fervent Gears fan will likely care. Unfortunately most of the five maps do not stand out as exceptional or better offerings from what Gears 3 already gives players. Perhaps the two maps that stand out the most are “Escalation” and “Depths.” Escalation is essentially one long staircase with flat plateaus at different heights throughout. It’s a small map but the novelty of its design makes for some unique strategies and is a fun map for Horde gameplay. Depths is a visually distinct map that takes place in a huge underwater structure with long hallways (ideal for snipers) and a few close-quarters rooms that one can use for ambush and defense. The other three maps (Academy, Anvil, and The Slab) are not particularly memorable but all are well-designed and fun to play.

The other major addition Fenix Rising offers is a new leveling option for elite Gears 3 players. Essentially the new leveling system allows players who have reached the max level to reset their experience and level in order to move through the ranks again to gain bragging rights and some new exclusive content. The new leveling system (which is similar to Call of Duty’s “Prestige Mode”) is designed to offer the most devoted of online gamers some extra incentive to keep playing. However, for those who do not have the time or drive to reach the max level the new leveling system will largely add nothing to the game.

Ultimately, before choosing to purchase and download Fenix Rising a player must ask how much of the new content he/she will actually use. For the occasional Gears 3 online player the new DLC essentially offers five new maps to explore. Unless an occasional online gamer really wants some new maps to play through he/she can skip this DLC without missing much. However, Fenix Rising gives the avid Gears 3 online player new content that can potentially add hours of extra gameplay. If one will continually replay each new map in each online game mode (Versus, Horde, and Beast) and take full advantage of the new leveling system, then purchasing Fenix Rising will be worthwhile for the added content it offers. However, for everyone other than the most avid of online players Fenix Rising is not a necessary purchase for one to fully enjoy Gears of War 3.

Devil May Cry 3's Vergil v. Hero for Hire Iron Fist

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 raises a lot of questions from the get go. Are 12 new characters, additional modes and updates enough to justify a $40 disc release 10 months after its predecessor? Is this “expandalone” any different from a $60-$70 yearly sports or military FPS franchise? How will the changes to the previous characters affect the high-level tournament scene? And what the hell is a raccoon doing with a repeater cannon?

So the skinny goes something like this: UMvC3 adds 12 new characters, six each from the Marvel and Capcom sides to the 3-on-3 inter-franchise battle royale. If we were to add up each character’s worth as $5 a piece (the price for DLC fighters Jill and Shuma-Gorath last time around), we would already have broken the price tag for Ultimate. This doesn’t take into account the remixed backgrounds, updated Arcade Mode ending vignettes, menus, improved online play and tweaks for all the returning fighters.

12 characters is a big addition, and every one is substantially different from the next. The list of newcomers hits most of the right notes, from Marvel vs Capcom 2 favourite Strider Hiryu to Marvel characters enjoying some recent spotlight, like Ghost Rider and Rocket Raccoon. Each brings something different to the table – Ghost Rider feels like the an exceptional keep-away character with his *chortle* chain combos, whipping the enemy into submission from afar, while Iron Fist brings an incredibly complex ground game in stark (pun) contrast to flyers like Iron Man, Storm and Sentinel.

Phoenix Wright's "Objection!" move is the beginning of the end for the opposition.

It would be foolish to ignore newcomer Phoenix Wright, from Capcom’s Ace Attorney series of games. Wright isn’t a fighter in the literal sense: he’s a lawyer, and that philosophy carries over to his appearance here wonderfully. The dapper attorney instead searches for pieces of evidence – such as a cellphone or potted plant – hopefully gathering enough to find the opponent guilty in the most damaging “Hyper Combo” in the game. Nothing really compares to the look on Doctor Doom’s face while Wright presents the utterly mundane miscellanea to convict him of an unnamed crime, sentencing him to a penalty of 600,000 health points.

There have been numerous other changes under the hood (and including the HUD). X-factor, a last-ditch desperation mode, has been toned down making uncanny come-from-behind victories with a single character slightly less brain-dead to pull off. Every character has been tweaked, some with subtle changes to their properties while others gained new moves. The result is a mixed bag: She-Hulk moves slowly and has trouble hitting combos that she relied on before, while powerhouses Spencer and Albert Wesker have inexplicably become even stronger.

Yes, this is exactly what it looks like.

The spectator mode has been added to lobbies, so players can finally watch matches while waiting in the queue like in Super Street Fighter 4. It’s the most significant update to the online element of the game, allowing you to sit back and actually watch two other players face off, learning playstyles and strategies without actually being in the frantic thick of it.

It’s the only real way to “learn” how to play the game, though, because as usual Capcom has made an incredibly opaque fighting game here. “Training Mode” doesn’t actually teach you anything, and the simplified command lists say nothing about how or when to use a certain move while in play. The only way to really learn anything is to jump online and get your faced smashed in until you figure out how to stop it.

And make no mistake, UmvC3 online is the Wild West. For your first few hours, you will lose, you will lose quickly, there will be nothing you can do about it and you won’t understand why you lost. Complete newbies will run into 10-month veterans with clean slates, since win-loss records from MvC3 don’t carry over. At its worst, UMvC3 is 5,000-page encyclopedia written in a foreign language in invisible ink.

On the other hand, it can be one of the most fun and spectacular games this year. I can’t fully convey in words the joy it is to see your perfectly placed game plan pay off, with your assists working in just the right way to extend the murderous combos that you’ve practiced getting right in the Training Mode for hours, that you’ve lost more than a dozen ranked matches trying to get into position to attempt them in a live situation to begin with.

Hawkeye joins the game's ranks of Marvel's rotating crew of Avengers.

Perforating the opponent with smarmy newcomer Hawkeye’s his heat-seeking guided missile of an arrow, followed by Taskmaster firing a volley of more arrows, hits the enlarged pleasure centres of the gamer’s brain like no other online experience.

But despite the predilection for gandiose speeches and flashy effects that make fights look like an explosion in a fireworks factory, UMvC3 bucks the trend of over-directed, over-scripted blockbuster games by allowing the players to create their own set pieces. It’s a blank slate for players to master the combos, mix-ups and mind games used in international tournaments, or come up with your own wacky tactics.

Much like how a measure of gin transforms an old-hat Americano into a Negroni, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3‘s changes, both large and small, make a fresh experience for newcomers and veterans alike. It’s just as beautiful, manic, and painful as it was before, and is absolutely worth the price tag – especially to those who plunked down for the original.

Gamercamp founders Jaime Woo and Mark Rabo. (Photo by Ryan Couldrey)

Toronto’s video game community will gather this weekend for Gamercamp LV 3, a mishmash of panel discussions, demos, game jams and social events that is growing almost as exponentially as the local community itself.

The three-day event runs from this Friday, November 25 to Sunday, November 27 and will feature over 40 hours of panels and other events in five locations – more than double the locales of last year. The Gamercamp website describes itself as an event that “celebrates the artistry, innovation, and power of play.”

Launched in 2009 by Mark Rabo and Jaime Woo, Gamercamp started with a handful of game devs and presentations at the Toronto Underground Cinema. Since then it’s become one of the city’s most important video game-related events. This year sponsors run the gamut from local shops like the Snakes and Lattes coffee shop to George Brown College and the Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC).

Of course, something as integral to the local gaming community won’t go unnoticed by the folks here at Dork Shelf.  The ‘Shelf has partnered with Toronto After Dark to present Full Motion Video.

On Saturday, November 25 a series of works “about or inspired by video games” will play from 2:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.  in Room 141 of George Brown College.

On Sunday, we’ll be screening Manborg and Gift Bonus: The Movie at Room 141, starting at 2:00 p.m.

Later that night, we’re moving to the Toronto Underground Cinema, the birthplace of Gamercamp, to present The FP at 7:00 p.m. and The Warriors at 9:30 p.m.

All films are free with a Gamercamp Badge with the exception of the The FP (tickets = $10) and The Warriors, which is free for everyone, badge or no badge.

Come join us, and the rest of the Gamercamp…er, camp, and celebrate the very best of video games from Toronto. We at Dork Shelf can’t wait to see you there!

To get an idea of what to expect, be sure to read our lengthy write-up of Gamercamp LV2 here.

Toronto's Berkeley Church adorned in Assassins' garb

Few places in Toronto are as appropriate for an Assassin’s Creed event as the Berkeley Church on Queen and Parliament. Originally built in 1871, it’s a mix of the modern and the historical – a perfect fit for the time-jumping, history-shaping saga that continues this week with the release of Ubisoft’s latest chapter in the series, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.

Banners with series stalwarts Ezio Auditore and Altair Ibn-La’Ahad draped over the building’s entrance. To the side, flickering braziers could make a visitor wonder if they had been invited to a clandestine Templar gathering. Inside, multiple television screens were hooked up to Xbox 360 consoles, allowing guests and the media to try out Revelations‘ multiplayer mode, improved and expanded from last year’s version in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

Darby McDevitt, lead writer for Revelations and the tie-in short film AC: Embers, ran though a demonstration of the game’s single player story. An older, burlier Ezio Auditore is joined by a team of assassins on their way to meet the young Prince Suleiman in Constantinople, while also protecting him from potential Templar attempts on his life.

The sequence began with the need for more subterfuge than usual – procuring disguises to enter a party thrown by Suleiman’s family, not unlike the festive scenes in Venice we’ve seen before. To do that, McDevitt-as-Ezio punches the living daylights out of those irritating minstrels, throws them into a straw wagon, and then dresses as one himself – including the ability to play the lute as a distraction.

Once at the party, Ezio uses his Eagle Vision to find the Templar infiltrators. Once found, he plays the lute – often singing a ditty belittling the Borgias from Brotherhood – distracting the crowd. Meanwhile his Assassin brothers grab the Templar, dispatch them with a trademark Snikt, and throw them in down a well or behind a bush. The crowd at the Berkeley Church roared with laughter at every Templar’s demise, punctuated by the juxtaposition of onlookers applauding Ezio’s performance.

Left to right: Art director Raphaël Lacoste, Revelations and Embers writer Darby McDevitt, Live Producer Andréane Meunier, Embers Producer Louis-Pierre Pharand and Marketing Brand Manager Carl Caldareri

The event’s host, Shaun Hatton, then sat down with McDevitt to talk about Revelations and where it fit into the Assassin’s Creed lore. They were joined by Live Team Producer Andreane Meunier, who oversees the multiplayer mode’s development, and Art Director Raphael Lacoste.

Hatton asked about the creative process for making a Creed game – which comes first, the game mechanics, or the story? McDevitt answered that, at least for AC2, the Renaissance was the first thing they decided upon. After that, “you immediately start to imagine a character in that world, and because he’s part of the Assassin’s order, how does that fit into the first game?”

For Revelations, “we looked around in history, wondering what else was going on in history while the Renaissance was going on [in Italy]. We looked to the east and realized there’s this amazing city called Constantinople. We saw this chunk of Ezio’s life where we said that yeah, he could plausibly go there – because there were certain questions that we wanted to have answered.”

When asked about fan interaction, McDevitt said he reads many online forum discussions to see what the fans of the games are talking about, and also what plot points they are feverishly debating.

“Around the time when I’m making the script, I will read the forums a lot, because I want to know the topics that the fans are arguing about, and getting into flame wars about. Because maybe there’s something that makes me think, ‘oh, you know, I didn’t even intend for that to be confusing. I should probably answer that question.’”

Meuning’s mission statement deals with the multiplayer component, “we’re really giving you a new inside look at what’s happening on the Templar side,” she explains. “You’ll have people from [Abstergo] talking to you, and it’ll probably let you in on a lot of secrets that are blurring the line of good and bad, Assassins versus Templars, and you’ll probably realize that there’s a lot more to the story than just the Assassins’ side of things.”

As for Constantinople itself, Lacoste said he and his team worked hard to introduce a wider array of vistas, colours, and personality to the different areas in the game compared to Rome in Brotherhood. He noted they especially paid attention to the large buildings such as the Hagia Sophia and Topkapi Palace, making no secret about the amount of planning it took to make sure Ezio would be able to climb and traverse the locations with aplomb. “It was a great challenge to re-create the city of Constantinople,” said Lacoste. “We hope it’s an exotic, fresh new experience for the players.”

As for the team’s Dork Shelves? McDevitt’s includes the collected works of Orson Welles, PC classic Another World, “all the Lucasarts Sierra games,” and two copies of Dark Souls. Lacoste owns several reference books about architecture, and his favourite designer is American Frank Lloyd Wright.

Meunier says she currently has a homemade, in-progress crochet Sackboy. “It’s mising a limb right now…I’ve been working on it for six months on-and-off.”

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations launches this Tuesday, November 15, on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. PC gamers will have to wait until November 29th.

Screenshot from the Eye Pilot - flying using only your eyes (http://damiansommer.tumblr.com)

It has buttons, says Sony’s PlayStation Move. You are the controller, says Microsoft’s Kinect. Pfft… that’s all child’s play. Have you ever flown a plane using only your eyes?

This was one among many questions posed by Locative Media Innovation Day, the first of four events held by the TIFF Nexus project at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Independent game developers and hardware hackers got together in an uncommon creative jam to build, from the ground up, new and innovative ways to interact with a video game.

“The Nexus project is really about bringing together diverse sectors that aren’t necessarily talking to each other – the game developers, the hardware hackers, the filmmakers, the digital media creators – as much as they’d like to,” says Public Programmes Director Shane Smith. “We saw a niche there from talking to them about what this building, the Bell Lightbox could provide, they wanted to connect with each other, and we thought this was the perfect hub to make that happen via this project.”

Take the Eye Pilot, a collaborative project from Toronto tinkerers Drawing with Frames and indie game builders Craig “Superbrothers” Adams (whom you might know from his work on Sword and Sworcery for the iPhone) and Damian Sommer.

Drawing with Frames had already been working with the EyeWriter – a device that allows people to draw by tracking movements from their eyes. It was originally made to enable people with a debilitating disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Los Angeles-based graffiti artist TEMPTONE, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2003, continued to draw with the EyeWriter, even as his body became almost entirely paralyzed.

Drawing with Frames also created an art presentation for Toronto’s Nuit Blanche overnight art hullabaloo earlier this Fall. While developing the installation, they partnered with Adams and Sommer to make a videogame using the Eyewriter.

The end result was the Eye Pilot, a Pilotwings-like game where you fly using the EyeWriter camera, while strapped into a mean-looking cockpit harness contraption. Look left, and your character will veer to the left. Look right, and likewise to the right. Over the course of a few minutes you’ll soar over a canyon, through a tunnel, and over a sparkling sea – all in an ethereal, washed-out palette reminiscent of Adams’ Sword and Sworcery game.

“It’s really accessible technology,” says Adams. “So if you can’t use your hands for some reason, you can still talk to the computer using your eye movements, which is sort of a beautiful thought.”

The impossibly complicated Analog Defender (bottle of Stella not included)

At another stand, created by Media Lab Toronto and game guy Alexander Martin, takes the concept of Space Invaders and makes it impossibly complex. A giant console is covered in physical knobs and switches while a screen displays gauges that give no indication of what they’re actually measuring.

Players navigate the console just to try to figure out what it does, and see any number of surprises – from firing a catastrophic death ray at incoming aliens to outright committing suicide – on the screen. It makes one feel as if they were really sitting in a sci-fi cockpit without a manual. Over the course of the night, people checking it out leave Post-it notes describing the functions they have discovered for whoever tries it out next. It’s added a social element to an old-school game – without Facebook Credits being involved.

These and other games are the result of just one part of TIFF Nexus: the Peripherals Initiative, organized by Jim and Emilie McGinley, already well-known in the local gaming scene for running their video game creation jam, TO Jam. By including hardware hackers and engineers in this endeavour, the once disparate communities are creating something new that challenges what people may consider it means to interact with games, technology and stories.

It’s just one part of the TIFF Nexus project, one of many to emanate from the new home for the Toronto International Film Festival – the Bell Lightbox at the corner of John and King Streets.

While a conference that includes indie game developers and hardware hackers might not seem the obvious fit for a film festival organization, to Smith the connection couldn’t be more obvious, or more important.

Three members of the Eye Pilot Team (video: http://www.tiffnexus.net)

“We recognize that the future of cinema is changing. Ultimately, it’s about storytelling. It’s about narrative in all its forms. That’s what cinema is, that’s what games are, it’s what interactive media is. It all comes down to storytelling,” he says.

The Nexus project is powered by more than the indie developers and hackers – it’s partnered with the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and sponsored by design-software giant Autodesk. Ubisoft is part of the project as well to represent the AAA-budget half of the Canadian gaming scene.

Judging by the packed house for the Locative Media Innovation Day, developers, students and film buffs alike want to know where technology and local minds are taking storytelling next (despite the mouthful of a title for that day’s conference).

The next TIFF Nexus conference, Women in Film, Games and New Media, takes place on December 8.  Part of that event will showcase a creative jam featuring “women creating a game that they would like to play and that they think other women would like to play,” says Smith. “Women who don’t have a background in gaming or programming, are coming together from diverse backgrounds to create a game by women for women.”

RAGE's outdoor vistas are a sight to behold.

In the last year of development for id’s newest first-person shooter RAGE, you might be forgiven if you thought “MEGATEXTURES” was actually its title. The word had been bandied about by PR horns and the videogames press so much that it was almost easy to forget that this was a first-person shooter made by the people that effectively created it with Wolfenstein 3D almost 20 years ago.

Yet here we are, on the tail end of a promotional tour that made no bones about it: RAGE is the next DOOM. But has id evolved beyond its innovative roots to carve a niche for itself among a market bloated with shooters?

At the beginning of RAGE, your character is one of several humans parked inside a cryogenic chamber called an Ark. A giant asteroid is on a collision course with the earth (apparently Bruce Willis was unsuccessful) and the Ark people will one day reawaken to repopulate the human race.

My character’s name is a mystery, as well as why he was chosen to become one of the Ark’s inhabitants. Perhaps the world’s governments considered his mute-ism a valuable asset.

Several problems present themselves once you’ve awoken. Somehow the Ark technology has failed every other super-special human locked in stasis, leaving them shriveled corpses in shiny caskets. Walking out the door introduces you to the new Earth – a wasteland.

What the hell happened to everybody?

Things are pretty bleak from the outset. It seems a few humans survive in the Wasteland, but it’s hardly a camping trip. Cities sleep in ruins, bandits menace travellers foolish enough to venture outside the few safe havens, and an oppressive organization known as The Authority strikes fear in the hearts of men and women just at the mention that they might be in the vicinity.

The Authority: experts in high-tech weaponry and human pyramids.

The game goes on for several hours without so much as a peep from The Authority though, so for the first few dozen quests that several colourful characters send you on – take a shipment here, clean out the bandits there – you might be forgiven to think that the real oppressors are just the bunch of lazy mechanics and narcissistic politicians standing in front of you.

And don’t expect them to do anything other than stand there for the roughly 10-15 hour single-player mode – most of them won’t interact at all with you or the world around them short of giving you missions and thanking you when you’ve completed them.

The wasted potential is doubled by how emotive and well-animated they are for the half-dozen or so lines they deliver. Dan Hagar’s calm demeanor suggests a weary middle-aged man who sees a surrogate son in your character. Kvasir, an expert in robotics, is permanently hooked up to his lab, his Doctor Octopus-like appendages move with a delightful whimsy, as if they had childish minds of their own.

The landscapes you’ll see while driving though the Wasteland are a sight to behold. The sun casts brilliant shadows across the rocky canyons and cliffs. Dust and shredded bits of paper linger in the stale air. If I had a 3-D monitor it would probably make me cough.

It’s disappointing, then, that the incredible vistas come at the price of any interactivity. Prepare to knock ineffectually at doors barricaded by little more than planks of plywood. Shoot all you want at that vase or, hilariously, that dilapidated cardboard box over there. Nothing’s going to move unless it’s trying to kill you.

The gameplay is as beautiful as the scenery, and thankfully carries a lot more variety as well. Every enemy gang or clan acts differently, from the tinkering Gearheads to the power-armoured Authority soldiers who act with impressive squad tactics and high-tech weaponry.

The individual AIs, though, are truly impressive: goons change their tactics on the fly, and you’ll never guess whether an adversary will take cover or weave, bob and roll around your frantic shotgun bursts. Some will crawl on the ground after a fatal injury, while others prop themselves against a wall and continue to fire in their last moments.

The Mutants are the most impressive and fearsome examples of RAGE’s artificial intelligence, ducking, rolling, and running along the walls all directions solely to bash you over the head with a rusty knife. It’s a manic and welcome change of pace from the “regular” human gangs you meet throughout the Wastelands.

Subway Town, one of the game's main hubs, drips with personality (and possibly sewage).

The voice work for the enemies is excellent, as well. The Wasted chat with Cockney accents while tinkering with their dune buggies in the garage. Authority soldiers chatter tactics and signal their teammates on their radios. “Come on, we just want to make friends!” taunts one bandit. “Whoa, stop throwing those things everywhere!” says another as I chuck a grenade in his direction.

Along with an impressive arsenal of weapons like crossbows and shotguns, all with inventive alternate ammo fire like explosive shotgun shells or crossbow bolts that turn your enemies into mind-controlled time bombs, the combat in RAGE is incredibly varied, unpredictable and satisfying.

If only the rest of the game’s structure and philosophy were as robust.

Every level is laid out in the same circular path that leads you out the same entrance, with extremely few detours or open areas. The Wasteland itself isn’t nearly as open-ended as you might expect – you’ll often drive from one mission to the next with little in the way of exploration.

You’ll run into bandits on their buggies, paving the way for some vehicle-to-vehicle violence. It’s a nice distraction in a Mario Kart-meets-The Warriors kind of way, but falls far behind the meat and potatoes of the first-person shooting. You can play several races and combat matches that organizers in the two main hub cities provide, but with only a handful of modes and maps it won’t sustain you for more than a couple of hours.

While pretty, everything besides the core shooting gameplay feels half-baked and incomplete. It’s a shame given how good a first impression the world and its inhabitants make on you that you’re only given a slight idea of just what you and the handful of Ark survivors – none of whom you ever encounter – were supposed to do when you woke up.

The campaign ends abruptly and with zero payoff, leaving you to ask the same question I asked at the very beginning when I walked dazedly out of the Ark: “What the hell happened to everybody?”

Location OCAD University Great Hall, 100 McCaul Street – Free event

The Toronto Independent Game Development Jam (TOJam) is a free, annual game-making event open to the public. For the last 5 years, they’ve gathered together the craziest game makers in the world for a 3-day, around-the-clock game making binge. TOJam attracts a mix of hobbyists, students, and professionals. For some, it’s an opportunity to try new ideas, for others it’s a chance to focus. TOJam #6 was held May 13 – 15, 2011.

TOJam Arcade will feature a curated exhibition of a minimum of 10 games from TOJam in a cool and entertainment focused space where people can easily flow from one screen to the next.

In addition to the Arcade, a launch event that features all TOJam #6 games will take place on October 28 in the OCAD University Great Hall.

Digifest showcases digital media creativity in Toronto, bringing together academic, industry and the public to experience the convergence of interactive & mobile media, gaming, art and design, architecture, simulation and more. Digifest will celebrate the latest achievements in visualization, simulation and interaction in many fields, inspiring and connecting all involved.

Digifest has been renewed and updated by the School of Design at George Brown College in partnership with the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, the Toronto International Film Festival Group (TIFF), Applied Arts Inc., Meet The Media Guru (Italy), TOJam, Gamercamp, OCAD University, Ryerson University, Seneca College and various media and venue partners.

Innovation Days
(Wednesday October 26 – Thursday October 27, daytime)

This exciting portion of Digifest will showcase results of industry/school research partnerships to a crowd made up of industry members, academics and students. The content will be selected by Digifest and its academic partners. Each morning / afternoon will be devoted to one of the four Digifest streams: play, touch, build, watch.

Talks will be delivered by industry “thought leaders” followed by shorter presentations from various innovators in related fields.

Tiff Nexus Innovation Day
(Friday October 28)

TIFF.nexus is the connection of the existing and emerging media sectors of Film, Gaming and New Media, designed as a catalyst for collaboration between them. This innovation day will feature emerging technology talks and presentations as well as the results of the 2011 Gaming Peripherals Jam – putting game developers together with hardware hackers to innovate in areas of interface – which will be showcased in an evening reception at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. More info here.

Meet The Media Guru
(Wednesday October 26 – Friday October 28, evening)

Meet The Media Guru (MMG) is a Social Network and an Open Community of Digital Culture that organizes local Events in Italy to meet the world famous protagonists of Innovation. Digifest is bringing MMG events to Ontario by making them a key component of the DF schedule. These evening speaker events will bring innovators from across the globe for thought-provoking presentations that will inspire and challenge attendees.

Exhibits and Activities
(Saturday October 29 – Sunday October 30)

The Digifest weekend activities will feature an array of exhibits, interactive displays, presentations and more, with many free events open to the general public. Events include:

- TOJam Arcade: featuring a day of talks by local game makers and industry thinkers, exclusive in-progress demos, and an arcade installation of over 20 games from www.TOjam.ca.
- Art by Gamercamp exhibition, displaying digital art and design installations.
- Ziris™ wall: an on-going display of Digifest Ziris™ competition entries to be featured on the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts Ziris™ wall throughout the week and into the weekend.
- 1st Person: A game industry meet and greet trade show
- An epic Halloween party

Plus lots more exciting installations and interactive displays across the city! Stay tuned for more information.

More information here.
Facebook event page here.

Update: 40% industry discount and 70% student discount added.
Contact Peter Kuplowsky (pkuplowsky@tiff.net) for student rate details.

Discover the latest trends in mobile and locative media!

As part of Digifest 2011 Innovation Days, TIFF Nexus hosts the first in a series of conferences that bring film, gaming and new media professionals together at TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Friday, October 28 from 1pm to 7pm

Join us for inspiring talks with industry experts and hands on activities including:

Bill Buxton Presents “Whereable Media”

Design guru and author of Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design, Bill will discuss how the three rules of digital are more-or-less the same as those for real-estate: location, location, location.

Spacing Toronto Presents Locative Services and Augmented Reality App Lightning Talks

Shawn Micallef, senior editor of Spacing Magazine introduces a series of talks that will inspire attendees to try out the coolest geo-location based and augmented reality apps coming out of Ontario.

Future Stories Presents a Hands-on Workshop with SnapDragonAR Augmented Reality Software

A guided immersion into SnapDragonAR, a unique tool for artists, educators, and storytellers of all ages. Attendees will experiment, prototype and tell new stories with this latest platform out of York University’s Future Cinema Lab.

Feeling inspired yet? This TIFF Nexus conference closes with a Networking Reception and Technology Demo where attendees will meet presenters, share ideas with film, gaming and new media professionals and get a closer look at projects from the TIFF Nexus Peripherals Initiative creative jam.

Only from TIFF Nexus and only at TIFF Bell Lightbox

More information here.

Forza 4’s career mode, called “World Tour,” puts the player through a series of increasingly difficult racing events in order to unlock new cars and in game credits. Driving around the same world famous tracks during the game’s career mode seems like it should get boring after several hours of gameplay. However, the game’s leveling system constantly gives the player XP and rewards, such as new cars or in-game credits, which helps to keep the gameplay relatively fresh as each new vehicle can perform drastically different from the one before. Doing almost anything in the game earns the player XP, which helps to give a nice sense of progression to the overall game. Furthermore, the game offers a variety of race types that help keep the game from getting stale. The game’s A.I. drivers also adapt to how well the player is driving and will become more aggressive in the presence of a skilled player. The adaptive A.I. can help to create dynamic races with drivers that feel different in each new event. Unfortunately, the A.I. is not perfect and the player will still find moments where races can seem either too easy or too difficult. Also, even though the game features a variety of different races and cars, the game can begin to feel repetitive at times, especially since the player will revisit the same tracks over and over. Thankfully the game’s focus on controlled and precise driving is surprisingly fun and even if one prefers a more arcade style of racing game, as opposed to Forza’s simulation-based racing, one should give Forza 4 a try just to engage with the games polished mechanics and to experience the joy of driving a powerful real-world vehicle around a twisting track.

Beyond racing around a track Forza 4 also gives players ample options for upgrading and customizing vehicles. One can use the credits they have earned during singleplayer and online play to purchase upgrades that can dramatically alter the performance and handling of a car. The player can also customize the look of his/her cars with custom paint jobs and decals found both in game or created by the Forza community. As well, the game features the new Auto Vista mode that lets players examine select cars in greater detail to get extra information about the given vehicles. Upgrading/tuning, customizing the look of one’s car, and Auto Vista help add some extra content to the overall package of Forza 4 but are not essential to completing the game. Nevertheless, the upgrading/tuning/customization can become rather addictive and one may find themselves spending a long time testing out new upgrades in order to get the optimal performance out of his/her car. On top of the racing, Auto Vista, and customization options the game also features a robust online multiplayer suite that adds hours of new gameplay and community experiences to the game.

Forza 4’s huge online component is where a player’s racing skills are really put to the test, as players compete in 16 player matches in order to get the best times or the top scores. While online, player’s can find standard races, drifting competitions, drag racing, and more arcade-type options like soccer and tag. The number of online game modes ensures that a player will rarely be bored with their online experience. If one gets tired of one game mode then one of the many other online modes are always available. Along with the race types and customization options found online, the game also features two new multiplayer additions to the series: Rivals and Car Clubs. Rivals is a game mode that pits the player either against their friends best time/score on a track or another random player’s best time/score on a track. If one beats the rival’s time then they move up the leaderboard and earns in-game credits and XP. Rivals is a surprisingly addictive gameplay feature and is a great way to introduce new players to Forza 4’s online gameplay. Car Clubs are a new community feature where player’s can join together to create a Car Club which allows players to share cars and pool their tuning and driving skills together to help their club move up the leaderboards. Car Clubs will not be for everyone but creating a Car Club might be a great option for one wanting to share their creations and love of cars with others. Overall, Forza 4’s multiplayer suite is incredibly robust and offers nearly every kind of competitive gameplay a gamer could hope to find in a racing game.

Forza 4’s massive amount of content and customization options will satiate both the drifter’s and drag racer’s desire for speed and precision. If one is new to the Forza series, or new to racing games in general, Forza 4’s vast selection of cars and options can seem daunting, but if one likes cars then there will certainly be something in Forza 4 to enjoy. Additionally, the game’s robust online multiplayer suite makes Forza 4 an incredibly rich and fulfilling game. In short, Forza 4 will offer any gamer with a love of cars a great driving experience.

At the Forza Motorsport 4 launch event in Toronto we got a hands-on demo of the game. Forza Motorsport 4, from Turn 10 and Microsoft Studios, offers a myriad of new gameplay, customization, and community options that are sure to entice any racing fan. However, the Toronto launch event highlighted the variety of controllers a player can use to control the vehicles in the game, which is a particularly unique feature of Forza 4. We had the chance to try out three of the game’s major controller options: Driving with Kinect, using Microsoft’s new Wireless Speed Wheel, and playing with the standard Xbox 360 controller. Thankfully none of the control schemes we tried offered any terrible experiences, but some definitely felt better than others depending on the type of driving experience the player is looking for.

Driving in Forza 4 with Kinect works by having the player hold his/her hands out in front of him/herself as if the player is holding an invisible steering wheel. Once the race starts then the player turns the invisible wheel to steer the car left and right.  The steering works fairly well but beyond turning the car there is little else one can do with Kinect. It seems that Kinect in Forza 4 is strictly for a casual experience. When playing Forza 4 with Kinect all the braking, accelerating, and gear shifting is handled by the game so there is nothing else to do but hold one’s hands out in mid-air and pretend like one is driving. The Kinect is also utilized in the game’s Auto Vista mode where the player gets to “walk around” some select cars and highlight sections of any given vehicle to get extra information on the given car.  Using Kinect in Auto Vista is a relatively smooth experience but for racing fans wanting an authentic driving experience Microsoft’s new Wireless Speed Wheel is a better choice than Kinect.

That said, Microsoft’s new Wireless Speed Wheel is not really a wheel at all. The controller is in the shape of a U and the player holds on to each side of the U when playing the game. The A, B, X, and Y buttons are placed near the top of the right side of the controller and the triggers are placed on the underside, near the top, on either side of the U shaped controller. With the Wireless Wheel one can accelerate, brake, and gear shift with ease. Steering is handled by turning the controller left and right in mid-air. The controller is surprisingly responsive and playing the entire game with the wireless wheel certainly seems like a viable option. However, the Speed Wheel does not offer any force feedback, which is not a major concern when driving low-end to mid-range cars, but once one drives a high-end car some force feedback would help with turning at high speeds.

The wheel definitely requires some getting used to and starting out using the Wireless Wheel with faster cars is not recommended (unless one is playing on the easiest difficulty settings). Rather, one should begin with low-end to mid-range cars to get used to how the wheel works and feels then move on to higher-end vehicles. However, making fine directional adjustments with the Wireless Wheel can feel like a chore at times (especially if one wants to make sharp turns with a supercar without the car careening off the track). Nevertheless, based upon how the Wireless Wheel felt in our hands, and after acclimatizing one’s self to the feel of turning in mid-air, one can most likely manage to control very fast cars, coupled with difficult game settings, using Microsoft’s Wireless Speed Wheel. However, if one is looking to jump right into the game with tight, precise, and responsive controls then the standard Xbox 360 controller is the best option of the three we tried.

The classic 360 controller’s dual joysticks, rumble, button positions, and the placement of the triggers all add up to the controller that offers the best controls for the hardcore gamer wanting to top the leaderboards with his/her track times. The joysticks and triggers give the player complete control over any vehicle and allow for miniscule directional adjustments with even the most unruly cars in Forza 4. However, before one simply pushes the Wireless Speed Wheel aside one should note that Forza 4 offers a myriad of options to make the game either easier or harder. For example, one can adjust the braking settings to offer assisted braking, which means the game will actually brake for the player at times, or the player can choose to have no braking assistance at all. The player can also turn traction control on or off, adjust the difficulty of steering (ranging from assisted to simulation), and so on. These difficulty options are important to note because they do adjust how both the classic controller and the Wireless Wheel feel and how easy it is to control the game with either (Kinect is locked into one difficulty mode that seems set to the easiest difficulty settings). So if one has the Wireless Wheel but feels that it is too easy or too difficult to use then one should try adjusting the games settings to find the optimal sweet spot that fits how one likes and wants to play Forza Motorsport 4.

Overall, the type of experience the player is looking for will determine which controller the player will want to use. If one just wants a relaxing casual experience that might be great for younger gamers then Kinect is a good option. If one wants the experience of gripping a wheel but can’t afford an expensive force-feedback wheel, then the Wireless Speed Wheel offers a nice alternative. If one wants to have maximum control over the vehicles in Forza 4 to make the best turns and track times then from what we experienced the standard controller is the best option. The inclusion of a number of different controller options for Forza 4 shows how much variety and customization the game offers. Though none of the new controllers we experienced can replace the standard 360 controller, it is a nice touch to have the different controller options, which allows for the player to customize his/her driving experience beyond simply tweaking difficulty settings.

Related video: Forza Motorsport 4 “Endangered Species” Trailer

Gears of War 3 from Epic Games and Microsoft Game Studios is one of the most definitive and comprehensive third-person shooters on the market. Gears 3 offers fans an action heavy conclusion to Delta Squad’s story, as well as an excellent selection of online game modes. The game provides the same solid gameplay and great visuals the series is known for but there is little new in the campaign that will entice new gamers to the franchise. Even some Gears fans may find the game’s singleplayer campaign lacking in substance.  On the other hand the game’s polished and varied versus and co-op game modes should convince many gamers to give Gears of War 3 a try.

The story in Gears of War 3 opens strongly with a wonderful look at how the human populations and Locust populations of Sera are coping with the loss of a strong military presence, coupled with the ubiquitous presence of the Lambent. The opening few hours of the game, and a few intriguing moments throughout the campaign, focus on the cost of the Locust and Lambent war, highlighting the stakes involved in Delta Squad’s final mission. Unfortunately the few poignant moments in the game are often preceded or followed by cheesy one-liners, huge explosions, and over-the-top action that makes any attempt at subtlety and grace ultimately fall flat. Gears 3 even attempts to paint a sympathetic picture of the Locusts towards the end of the game. Adding some complexity to Delta Squad’s actions is a nice touch but comes too late in the overall story and only makes one wish that the complexity had been introduced earlier in the series to make the action in Gears 3 more engaging. However, Gears 3 is an action game and the singleplayer campaign certainly delivers some fun and fast-paced action set pieces.

The frantic and hectic pace of the gun battles in Gears 3 is largely due to the excellent enemy A.I. and new Lambent enemy-types that can transform mid-battle requiring one to shift tactics on the fly. Even with new enemies and new weapons the game can still feel derivative at certain points as the player moves from one gun battle to the next and from one explosion to the next. There is some variety in the gameplay when one must control a vehicle like the Silverback, which is a small mobile mech with a heavy machine gun that can also become a stationary rocket launcher turret that provides cover for teammates. The boss encounters also help add some variety to the campaign but ultimately the gameplay never strays far from the Gears of War formula. Furthermore, it can sometimes seem like one’s A.I. teammates are overly adept at reviving one from certain death, which can eliminate some of the tension from boss fights. For example, it can sometimes be a sound tactic to not avoid incoming attacks because one’s A.I. teammates will almost always revive a downed player making some encounters less exciting than intended. Even with a few missteps Gears 3 still boasts excellent gameplay and level design that work together to create a fun and exciting experience that is light on complex storytelling and heavy on blood and chainsaws.

Though the singleplayer may not set Gears of War 3 apart from the other games in the series, the game’s multiplayer options certainly elevate Gears 3 to the best of the series. Almost every online game mode from Gears of War 2 has been reworked and tweaked in Gears 3 to create an accessible and streamlined experience focused on strategic teamwork and intense gameplay. The re-worked King of the Hill and the new Capture the Leader game modes standout as excellently crafted online experiences featuring a great balance between strategy and action. In King of the Hill players must simultaneously fight and defend control points that shift location during the match requiring shifting tactics and coordinated assaults. In Capture the Leader players must fight for control over the other team’s leader while also protecting their own team leader requiring a team to both defend and attack as one. Furthermore, the presence of classic team deathmatch game modes, a better matchmaking system, and a leveling system that allows a player to unlock new skins to customize his/her online character all help to craft an extremely enjoyable and engaging online experience. The online maps are also well designed allowing for complex team strategies that make it necessary for one to constantly scan the environment for flanking enemies.

The versus multiplayer is not the only online interaction reworked in Gears 3. The developers have expanded the co-op story to allow up to four players to play together and Horde mode is completely redone making it more strategic and enticing. The new Beast mode is also an extremely fun and unique co-op experience. The revamped Horde mode is still focused on fighting off waves of Locusts but there is now a money system that is used to purchase defenses like turrets and barriers to aid in the fight against the Locusts.  The new money system adds some extra strategy as players determine when and where to purchase barriers and turrets in order to give the best defense.  Beast mode has the player control a Locust creature while trying to kill off human soldiers within a given time limit. Money is used to purchase different Locust creatures and destroying defenses and enemies gives players money and adds time to the clock. In short, the new Horde mode and Beast mode offer some incredibly addicting and entertaining co-op gameplay. (Also, there is nothing quite like controlling a Locust Berserker as it charges through enemy defenses and lays waste to groups of soldiers).

Gears of War 3 will satisfy fans of the series with an action heavy conclusion to Delta Squad’s story. Even if one is not a Gears of War fan the robust, fast-paced, varied, and strategic team-based multiplayer in Gears 3 should make any action game fan give it a try. Though the singleplayer may not satisfy as much as hoped the multiplayer makes Gears of War 3 well worth its asking price for those looking for a game that has excellent gameplay and an exhaustive list of features.