Ohmpage

We surf hard so you don’t have to. Ohmpage brings you content covering the intersection between technology and culture. Relax. It’s good for you.

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Raj Patel is a technology culture blogger and architecture professional in Toronto. Editor of Ohmpage.
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Jess Henderson is a self-professed culture sponge based in Toronto with a soft spot for food, music, and fashion.
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Court Sin is a multidiciplined designer at a top Toronto architecture firm, an artist, and contributing author.
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Sachin Hingoo lives in Toronto and is a dedicated follower of tech culture, video games, and film.
Hi. Welcome to Ohmpage. We try to deliver content we find interesting ourselves and encourage our readers to participate. We're undergoing some changes for 2010, expanding the site to include more voices and variety by adding new contributing authors. We've got a new site design and as always are encouraging reader participation. Don't hesitate to get in touch with us about our content. Ohmpage is fully independent and run on a volunteer basis. Much of our content is syndicated elsewhere on the web and we are lisenced under the Creative Commons. If you would like us to review your product or content or if you would like to advertise with Ohmpage please email us about it.

Review: Fable 2

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…

TIFF People’s Choice screening

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

X08 Toronto

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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.
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Zunes descend upon Canada

zunelogo.jpgLast month Ohmpage was sent an 8GB Zune. This new toy had been out in the US for a while now with lots of talk surrounding the little device but surprisingly little solid information since a lot of the discussion ended up in heated opinionated brawls with false analogies and rampant speculation. Comparisons to the iPod seem unavoidable though rational ones remain oddly rare. The toy is out in Canada this Friday the 13th, finally, and still so few people have any idea of its existence. Many of those who know it exists know little about it. So let’s clear some of that up, shall we? continue…

Think Ageist

Spacing Toronto is usually pretty respectable. They’ve just announced a new urban design ideas competition. Lets not get in to the whole debate about weather competitions are appropriate or beneficial for good design. Lets look closer at the intent and the rules. They seem to want new, exciting ideas which can rejuvinate Toronto and improve it’s urban condition. Thats all good stuff. They invite Architect, Urban Planners, et cetera to participate. Then they add in big bold letters that they will only accept ideas from those under the age of thirty-five. How many urban planners do you know under forty years of age? A good idea is a good idea, regardless of who it comes from. They claim to have picked this age restriction to showcase the ideas of the next generation but it seems very counterproductive and against the proclaimed spirit of the competition to start with. Its a shame too as Spacing used to have some degree of integrity. Considering they have jurors over 35, it makes one wonder what the whole point of this exercise is. Its clearly not that they distrust anyone over 35.

Toronto, Canada
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