If you’re in Toronto next weekend you should go check out the Art Gallery of Ontario. Aside from just art, they’re now ready to show off their newly ‘finished’ Frank Gehry^TM renovations. The public opening takes place from the 14th to the 16th with free admission and you’re invited.

[Press Release]

Gears of War 2 is set to be one of this year’s hottest game releases. Its namesake released two years ago to huge critical acclaim and remains one of the most visually impressive titles on the Xbox 360. With the sequel everything was promised to be improved in every aspect. With all the other impressive new games on the scene this month, Gears of War 2 doesn’t really need to bring its A-Game in order to get decent sales – It could have pulled that off on residual excitement alone. Luckily for us though, Epic Games did not rest on its laurels for the sequel and actually tried to push beyond the hype and existing loyal customers in an attempt to actually expand its fan-base.

As nice as Gears of War was when it originally made the scene, it is no secret that it had its share of problems. Multiplayer, for instance, was an undercooked afterthought. Most notably though, story was sorely missing in the original. With this franchise turning in to a signature series, a lot more effort was invested this time around in order to make it a deeper and richer experience. Though, of course, not perfect, this sequel just may have accomplished it’s much touted goal of being in improvement in all aspects over the original. continue…

Role playing games have a long and celebrated history. They often elicit strong attachment from their players and can become thoroughly engrossing as players learn to identify with their avatar and develop a personal attachment to this alternate personification of themselves. The problem is that as deep as these games can be they can also be somewhat complicated and forbidding. Not all players want to study statistics, memorize obscure qualitative and quantitative relationships or deal with obsessive and often tedious exploration and documentation of their game world. Last week we had the chance to sit down with Xbox Canada’s Jake Reardon and Jeff MacDermot (pictured below) to go through Fable 2 at it’s launch event in Toronto and try it out first hand.

Fable 2 allows for an RPG style experience yet attempts to streamline it so as to be more accessible to casual players without sacrificing the richness that more dedicated players come to love from the genre. Beyond that the game also attempts to encompass concepts of morality, virtue, economy and sociology to create a rich world which is more the product of the player than the player is a product of it. This is an ambitious game and for better or worse lends itself so much to comparison with other RPG games that it is difficult to talk about it without discussing the rest of the genre. continue…

This evening the TIFF will have a free screening of the People’s Choice winner of the festival. It goes down at nine o’clock tonight at the Elgin Theatre but the film in question has not been announced yet – they let us know this afternoon at an unspecified time. If you want a ticket, they are only available on a first-come first-served basis at seven o’clock tonight at the theatre. One ticket per person – so your sweetheart will have to wait in line with you. No doubt if you get a ticket you’ll have to then wait in line for two more hours to get a seat as well. No doubt the movie will be a good one but is it worth spending the whole afternoon waiting in line? Tickets are free and doled out democratically so that is the price you pay. You’ll be in good company though – last year’s people’s choice winner was Eastern Promises. Hopefully this year it’s Burn After Reading or Che.

UPDATE: The winner is Slumdog Millionaire

Last night was X08 in Toronto. Held at CiRCA, the event showcased software by Microsoft Game Studios as well as fourteen third party developers.These included Ubisoft, EA, Disney Interactive Studios, and a whole bunch of others.
continue…