My how you’ve grown!

Hi there everybody! So there has been a bit of an unexpected hiatus these last twenty days or so! Actually, Eggplante was victim to a hacker (or two or three) that didn’t do much damage other than wipe out the last bunch of posts we had on here. In any case, I’m working to get them back up for you to gander through if you haven’t seen them already, and to try to make up for the downtime, I’ll give you a peek into some soon-to-be-published content:

- Kinect vs. Move should tickle your tastebuds for the hottest new gaming technology coming out of Sony and Microsoft in just a couple of weeks (Move) or months (Kinect). I had the chance to play with both at E3 and have some pretty set opinions on both of them.

- Halo: Reach. Okay, did you really think this wasn’t coming? In fact, you could probably write the review yourself right now: Amazing music. Amazing storyline. Could’ve used more Master Chief. I’ll try to be as impartial as I can.

- MMVAs were technically up already and they got taken down, but I can’t give away all my content, now can I?

- FanFest will also be on the docket, although I’m not sure in what way yet. I’m thinking an interview with Scott Jones and perhaps….. the entire cast of Reviews on the Run and the Electric Playground? We’ll see, we’ll see.

Stay tuned, Eggplante is back and in a big way! You will start seeing some changes on the site here and there and hopefully you’ll like what you see. If not, you can always sound off by shooting me an email from the contact form (which was also something that got taken down last week, so if you sent one last week, be a dear and resend it, mmkay?)

And of course, you can follow us on Twitter, although there hasn’t been much posted there in a while, and I took down the dead links to all those ghost posts (damn hackers). In any case, we’ll be broadcasting from there and informing you of news on Facebook as well, so keep in touch somewhere!

Justin Bieber is dead.

The Eggplante has been on a bit of a hiatus lately, as you may have noticed. The reason? A much needed vacation. There is no reason for the silence other than the lack of content to post up. I’m away in Europe for the first time in four years, visiting family, travelling with friends, and making some memories. With that said, I just haven’t been able to attend any concerts or events that I could post on Eggplante. Of course, resident game reviewer John Kalanderopoulos is on top of the game reviews floating around on here, and I’ve got some long-awaited pictures from the Much Music Video Awards coming up soon.

I do have some pretty great news, however. First off, Justin Bieber is dead. Okay, we all wish, but in any case, I return to North America in less than one month, and in the first two weeks I am back there, I’ve got about five concerts to attend and am going to be bringing back the best photos and concert review you’ve seen on here in a while (if only because there haven’t been any recently).

See you soon, and enjoy the teaser from the MMVA photos!

Go Pink for Cancer!

On May 27th, CityPulse24 (CP24) partnered with the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation to raise awareness and funds to beat breast cancer. People were invited into the Much Music parking lot to donate money, eat some delicious barbeque, and schmooze with various CP24 personalities at the same time. I headed down to the event to capture some photos of the people, the popsicles, and the PINK! Among those in attendance were Brian Mulroney and Tanya Kim from eTalk, the CP24 news room staff, and some Much Music VJs made it into the crowd as well. Take a look at the pictures below and please do your part and donate to the Princess Margaret Hospital here or any organization you feel worthy.

And for those who didn’t wear Pink, at least you did your part by showing up! (I’m looking at you, Brian Mulroney!)

Ubisoft Montreal

As a reward for winning the Splinter Cell Challenge, my brother and I were taken on a private tour of Ubisoft’s Montreal studio where we were shown around the various departments, given instruction on sound design, and got to play Splinter Cell: Conviction’s Co-Op levels with some of the development team. And that’s just the beginning. Here’s the rundown:

We arrive at Ubisoft Montreal around 9:25, just in time for our meeting with Christophe, our guide through the studios at half-past-nine. We wait in a pretty swanky reception area, complete with swag, clothing, posters, and art books to buy. This is the only publicly-accessible area of the entire building, however, and we were about to be taken beyond the restricted area where over 2000 people work. Yep, two thousand.

We’re first taken up to the game-test labs. These are long booths with a two-way mirror where everyday people sit and test games. Players are watched from behind the mirror by the development team where they can monitor every move and see what works gameplay-wise, and what is an utter failure. We took a gander into another lab where FarCry 3 was loaded up on a machine, indicating that it is playable, perhaps? Or that they are building on older tech and making this game more akin to an add-on, hence the quick turnaround? Who knows, all I know is that apparently, people get paid to do this stuff. Get me on that list, somebody, please! We’ll return to the game-test labs later on in the day to play Conviction.

From here, we’re escorted along the outside of a long corridor where Avatar: The Game was developed. Christophe told us that there were two very unique things about this game. First off, the entire area was blocked off and some corporate big-wigs at Ubisoft didn’t even have access because the story and characters were so secret. Second, there were two servers in the room: one that connected to James Cameron’s production company, and the other one that was a local server within Ubisoft. These assets could never be connected to both servers at the same time, thus never being able to leak any sensitive information to the public. Now that’s security.

We head all the way upstairs after this, to the employee lounge and cafe area. We’re shown the wall of all the Ubisoft Montreal titles, and there are a heck of a lot of them! Following a side hallway, we see a massive King Kong statue (one of many, apparently), some more swag, lots of it being Splinter Cell, and awards galore. E3, IGN, and many others. Tons and tons of awards.

We now head down to the floor where Assassin’s Creed was developed. Over two hundred people worked on Assassin’s Creed II, which was the largest for any single game in Ubisoft history; it only makes sense considering how massive the game world was. We spied on some shots of Assassin’s Creed Rome, which is apparently a standalone game, not an expansion or downloadable content for the ACII, as well as what looked like concept work for Assassin’s Creed III. Yep, there’s your inside info! Then we were ushered away quickly from here.

Alright, on to the gameplay. We head back to the game-test labs for some hands on with a co-op mode of Splinter Cell: Conviction. Truth be told, if you’ve played the demo, it’s more of the same, but that is such an incredible thing. Often, co-op modes seem like either a very different game or the exact same one that you’re running through with two people. This is different. Co-op in Conviction has its own unique maps, in addition to some borrowed from the solo campaign, but each with specific objectives. You start out with needing to kill ten people in a given area. Be spotted and reinforcements show up. Yes, that means another ten baddies show up. Do it stealthily, and you’ll be rewarded with a quick progression to the next level. Gameplay is swift, clean, and efficient, just like Sam Fisher.

This was all for our visit to Montreal, unfortunately. However, you can check out the video in which we won the challenge HERE and the video highlighting our trip to Montreal HERE. Oh, and there’s Ubisoft’s Employee #1′s video HERE. Alright, now get to watching!

You can find Eggplante on Twitter and Facebook!

Splinter Cell Challenge

Over the next few months, you’re going to be hearing a lot about video games. In June, Eggplante heads to E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, in Los Angeles. Leading up to that, we’ve got some pretty massive game reviews for you to read about, not the least of which is Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction. The game launches on April 13th, so our review is a few weeks away, but my brother John and I had the opportunity to participate in a contest called the “Inside Splinter Cell Conviction Challenge”, hosted by Microsoft and GameStop (EB Games).

A few weeks ago, I entered a contest after picking up a little advertisement flyer at my local EB Games. Forgetting about it almost immediately after submitting, I went about my life. About two weeks later, I received a call: “My name is Mark and I’m calling from Microsoft to tell you that you’ve been selected as a winner of the Splinter Cell Conviction Challenge.”

Holy shit.

Fast forward to Saturday, and I’ve chosen my brother John to be my partner along this adventure. ID in hand, we are given custom Splinter Cell sling packs, jackets emblazoned with the Splinter Cell and Xbox 360 logos, and a whole mess of Splinter Cell-style items: fake ID, convex mirrors, passports, and NutriGrain bars. Hey, even Fisher’s gotta eat! We are given instructions that we are to complete three of the four challenges set up for us around the city of Toronto. They range from the north-east end of the city to the south-west near the starting point.

Our strategy was to start far and work our way back. The three missions we chose were “In Soviet Russia”, “Isabella”, and “Burroughs”, opting out of “Mark and Execute”, although word has it that it was the most uniquely-designed mission, although they were all pretty stellar. We decided to forego the transportation the organizers provided (a TTC pass) and use taxis for the entire route of the trip, with the exception of the end. We were first to get our jackets and materials, out of pure luck, and a bit of ingenuity (read: going under the queue marker). And so it begins.

“In Soviet Russia” led us to 44 Wellington Street, to a bar called “Pravda”. We were to meet a man named Ivan and get information from him. We entered the bar and headed upstairs to see a 50s-era red curtained area with two rather large bodyguards in front of it. We asked to speak to Ivan. Of course, he doesn’t speak to people he doesn’t know. We are given a package and told to find Vladimir, who supposedly works the streets within a hundred metres of the building. We find him, deliver the package, and head back to Ivan with another. We are let behind the curtain this time, and are told to find some details from a bottle of vodka somewhere around the bar with only a small photo fragment of the label. John looks around, adventurously jumps behind the bar, and finds the information. He hops back over, we get it to Ivan, and he tells us: 7:50, 7/6, Poland, Oksana. What the hell?

Our next stop is “Isabella”. Luckily, seeing the general area on the map, I instantly realize the mission is named after Hotel Isabella. We hop in a taxi and hightail it north to almost Bloor where our next mission takes place. I remove the fake ID (Apparently, I’m an Asian USAF pilot named John Butler) from my wallet and tell the receptionist that I’d like to check in. She tells us to go to our room and wait for a call. We get up to our room and there is a TV with the Splinter Cell Conviction demo running. I yell at John, “play this game! You might need to know stuff about it!” We get a call with a mysterious message: “Go down to the lobby. Take the employee-only staircase to the subbasement. Find the present and get what he knows. Don’t touch him. Don’t untie him. Don’t move him.” Click.

We head downstairs to find a crippled old man tied up, battered, bruised, and worn. He tells us he hasn’t eaten in three days and that he will only give us what he knows if we give him water. Finding a water bottle in our pack, we put it on the table next to him. He gives me a look of disgust because I don’t put it in his hand. He begins yelling: “Go to Room 304! Get the package for room 304! Don’t come back!” He pulls a gun and we run off, scared as if it was real. Hell, for all we knew, in that moment, it was. We head to the lobby and ask for the package for Room 304. We’re questioned, “what happened to the guy that was supposed to pick it up?” My brother and I look at each other and ask “What guy?” She gives us a plane ticket and we leave. Upon examining the ticket, we notice the following highlighted: 1:30, 3/28/2010, Ukraine, M. Azarov. On to the Burroughs.

For this mission, we head south-west to an abandoned rock club that closed down a few weeks ago. We are told to look for an unlocked door to get in. We go around back to an alley way and see a man carrying a bunch of newspapers. He motions for us to follow him and asks us to get him some information from the roof. He lets us in the building and we realize it is quite heavily guarded. We make our way to the third floor and John stealthily sneaks past a sleeping guard to pick up two roof access passes. We traverse the stairs another four floors to the roof, getting stopped by security along the way (thank goodness for our passes), and meet informants on the roof. They provide us with binoculars and we are to look for some information around a furniture factory, no other information given. Not even thirty seconds into the search, John spots a cloth hanging from a building that provides us with our next pieces of information: 18:22, 19/8, Japan, Takawara. We head back downstairs, but are forced through a pitch-black room where a guard walks his post with a flashlight in hand. We make our way to the elevator on the far side of the room, narrowly avoiding detection, and call for our trip to the bottom floor. As the door closes, I yell “YO!” and hear “Hold it right there!” The door is already closed by the time the guard gets to us. Safety.

Our last stop takes us to our “check-in” point at GameStop and Bathurst and Bloor. We arrive and are greeted with a “wow, you’re early!” from one of the challenge facilitators. We are given a UPC code and told to find the game on the shelf that it corresponds to. Five minutes of searching and we find it (Avatar: The Game, no less) and present our finding to receive our last bits of information: 14:55, 25/12, Turkey, Soyadi. Huh?

We get intel that we need to meet back at Downsview Station, all the way North on the subway line. We get there to find more event coordinators who are shocked at how fast we get there. We nearly beat them to the station. The next team doesn’t arrive for forty-five minutes. Once all six arrive, we’re taken away to a jail. Literally.

Our bus travels for about five minutes to a jail setup (okay, so it was a movie set, but still!), and we’re ushered into our petite cells and left to wither away for an hour. We are given instructions as to how the last challenge is to play out, and there are dozens of spectators watching above us. A prison break is at hand, and the six teams race across to the cells opposite to get information from a code written on the wall. We jot down a bunch of seemingly random numbers and rush back to our cells. When we arrive, there are puzzle cards that have been thrown into our cell. A bit of math and literally no more than eight seconds later, we’ve figured it out. “FINAL ANSWER! FINAL ANSWER!” my brother and I yell. They look it over.

“Congratulations, you just won the grand prize to the Splinter Cell Challenge.”

Once again: Holy shit.

In a true Hollywood-style, they break us out of the side of the cell opposite to the bars, and run us around to the front hall. The warden and guard have since been locked in a cell and there is smoke and gunfire all around. The words “Get to the Chopper” are lit up on the side of the prison, just like the projected text in the actual game, and we run through the smoke to the other side where there is a hangar. We meet our pilot who has just informed us we are literally going to be taken up in a helicopter for our mighty escape.

The crowd gathers around the helipad and cheers us on as we take off for our monumentous achievement.

This was an absolutely incredible day and we participated in something phenomenal. The game was truly brought to life and the tiny details made it all happen. The questionable stairwell in Isabella, the guard on a path as if he were AI-controlled, and the projected text all added to the immersive experience and really made us feel badass.

We flew away to Montreal the next day to claim our prize: a tour of Montreal’s Ubisoft studio and some face time with the game, playing alongside the developers. You’ll hear about that in an article in the coming days. I will say that we saw some things that we weren’t supposed to see and I’ll be reporting back in full with all the details shortly!

Make sure you follow Eggplante on Twitter for the latest updates and our Facebook page will have updates too! You can follow all the Splinter Cell Conviction details by using the hashtag #SCCxbox on Twitter and by following UBI_EMPLOYEE1 on Twitter as well! There will be an official video of the festivities up shortly, but there are already plenty you can check out around the web on the various pages!!

Photos: Old Montreal

The good ol’ purple vegetable has been quiet lately! The goal for this year is to increase our post volume by quite a bit, and I’m worried that we’re not getting off to the greatest start so far, but I’m hoping that the rest of the year makes up for it. We did about 80 posts last year from May through December, so I’d like to get that up to over double this year, which should be quite the feat if we can do it! In any case, I had the opportunity to visit Montreal this weekend and stopped by the historic Old Montreal district and couldn’t resist taking some fabulous photos of the area. I’m really proud of these ones.

Also, as a heads up, Eggplante will be at Canadian Music Week, The Indies, and the Canadian Radio Music Awards this year, spending lots of time with the great folks at the event and taking plenty of pictures and getting some face time with the stars. Who knows, perhaps we’ll even do some video stuff!

If you want to check out more from Montreal, take a look at this photo set on Facebook and don’t forget to follow Eggplante on Twitter and fan us on Facebook!

Jersey Shore in Toronto

These kinds of events are not the typical Eggplante fodder. But with fodder in mind, I bring to you the crap that is Pauly D and Mike “The Situation” from MTV’s Jersey Shore. While I don’t know them personally, these guys seem like total douchebags. Completely self obsessed and famous for doing nothing more than putting shellac in their hair, the girls swoon for who knows what. I mean, the guy has a Cadillac tattoo down the side of his torso. Yeah, a Cadillac. Tattoo!

Either way, the guys were in town to “DJ” a party at Wetbar and Suite 106 in Toronto over the weekend. The party was cramped, the music was pretty crappy, and the reason DJ was written in quotes there is because neither Mike nor Pauly D did any actual DJ-ing at Wetbar. The place was rammed over capacity at more than 1000 people between the two clubs, and it was absolutely chaotic. No one could move, fights broke out, people were falling on each other, and cover was $20! For a guy with a blow out! He should be paying me to see him!

Not my kind of thing, and not really the Eggplante-style event, but I wanted to test it out and see what you think of these kinds of events. Let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook page. Or follow us and send a message on Twitter!

Next up: Snooki is coming in two weeks. Have fun; I won’t be there.

Year Two: Welcome to 2010

This is year two of Eggplante. The first full year we will have. The first of the decade. And the best so far.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who supported Eggplante in 2009, and I promise to bring you even more content in 2010! Since I usually turn the camera on everyone else, I’d like to show you a bit of my home: Toronto. Here is our glorious city, some familiarity, some streets, and some friends. This is Toronto. Toronto is Eggplante. Enjoy.

And why not something a bit familiar….

For those of you who scrolled all the way down here, you get a treat. I’m announcing today that Eggplante will be undergoing a pretty major redesign within the next several months. Some things that are going away: awkward photo management and naming schemes (yuck!). Something that is sticking around: the simple design (that’s not to say it won’t change). Something that’s getting better: photo sizes, Twitter integration, and…. oh, that’s all the time we have today folks. See you again soon!

The Year in Photos

We are officially on day 365. Tomorrow, we begin at 001 again. What better way to celebrate than by taking a look back at the year in photos. Click the photos to see the original articles! And because you deserve a treat, I will divulge that there will be a big Eggplante redesign in the new year. Larger photos, new features, more frequent coverage…. tons of new stuff for you to look forward to! See you in 2010!

Eggplante’s first ever picture. This is Justin Furstenfeld from the band Blue October. Unedited. Very purple. Very emotional. Not quite setting the stage for things to come, but a photo I love, nonetheless.

This is Eggplante’s pretty exhaustive E3 coverage from Los Angeles in June. This Summer was filled with some pretty big events: E3, the MMVAs, Wakestock, Warped Tour, and the list goes on.

Speaking of the MMVAs, here is one of the most infamous events of 2009. Actually, I think we can all agree that Lady GaGa is an infamous event in and of herself.

Warped Tour was a huge success and Eggplante had plenty of coverage; show coverage, lots of photos, and an interview with my girl LIGHTS!

Same deal with Wakestock 2009, but with more interviews, and an even larger gallery of photos!

I also did the occasional movie review…

… and the only slightly more frequent Video Game Review.

There was plenty of Much On Demand coverage, including LIGHTS, Stereos, Leona Lewis, Justin Bieber, OneRepublic, and more!

We had some cool event coverage like the War Child’s Busking for Change series which featured artists all around the streets of Toronto!

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And last, but certainly not least, Eggplante has some incredible fortune to have such amazing concert coverage with some pretty stunning photos, if I may say so myself. I actually had a lot of fun making this one, too:

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You know that you can follow Eggplante on Twitter (@eggplante) for all the latest coverage, and of course Fan the Eggplante page on Facebook. On there is “The Greatest of Eggplante”, a Facebook exclusive set of our favourite photos! Be sure to check it out!

Video Game Awards 2009

by Christopher Kalanderopoulos, Editor
December 14, 2009

Whaaaaaat!

That was the first word out of my mouth as I began to watch Spike’s 2009 Video Game Awards. I didn’t play Arkham Asylum, but I was in awe of this new trailer. Perhaps more so of the way it was unveiled, but in awe nonetheless. The tagline is “The sequel you didn’t see coming” and as the first game only launched a few months ago, this couldn’t ring more true. If you want to know more, albeit not much, check out their teaser at the game’s official website.

The Video Game Awards, or as I like to call it, the Halo: Reach Premiere Show, is essentially a series of world premieres and game announcements to fill the time between the E3s and GDCs of the world. They throw some slightly relevant celebrities into the mix in the form of Tony Hawk and Samuel L. Jackson, but the show was hostless for the first time, a concept that worked well considering a (presumably) hot European woman voiced-over the night.

Speaking of Halo: Reach, there are a few thoughts I have on the new trailer. Meh is the first. The point of a trailer is to leave you wanting more. To leave you with questions that you want answered immediately. But this could have been any other game were it not for the Halo-esque characters. I say “-esque” because they looked like mismatched and deformed spartans, bitching at each other. Fan creations, even. Like a serious episode of Red vs. Blue with some new armour designs. The trailer looked less polished than anything since Halo 2, let alone Halo Wars or ODST which, despite being non-Master Chief tales, had the best cinematics I’ve seen in any game. Ever.

So, it’s not Halo 4, and it’s not supposed to be. But it worries me that Bungie says that Reach is their last Halo title. I will play Halo: Reach. I will love Halo: Reach. But until then, I’m almost starting to think it won’t be all that great. But let’s be honest, this is Halo. I’ll just have to wait until E3 2010 for a good taste of Bungie’s latest. And you know Eggplante will be there!

As much as I hate to admit it, there are other games highlighted at the show and, while I won’t go into the winners of the night, I will say that I feel every single one of them deserved what they got. Except Jack Black. Did that many people really like Brutal Legend?

On to Tron. Where do I begin? Look, it may be a classic, but some classic games can only be marginally improved. Pac Man, Space Invaders, and yes, Tron, fall into this category. The movie tie-in doesn’t even jive with the original story anymore; get on with what you do best: re-releasing your old game on an Atari Collector’s Edition disc!

The other games at the show need no comments; I think everyone was in awe. The Force Unleashed II and, uhh, well that’s pretty much it. It seemed to be brimming with tons of new games and announcements, but for the most part, I found the show pretty stale. It was a neat mix of announcements and previews, but I feel like people are getting tired of just seeing video of what they can expect in two years to come. They’ll forget by breakfast tomorrow, anyways.

The show was a success, if not simply because they did what the set out to do: award those who deserved it. And they did sprinkle in some good content in between the celebrity appearances and acceptance speeches. This is a show that is going to be a hit every year, but should probably have some more unique things going on. An on-stage Rock Band contest? Video Games Live as the audio provider? Hotter European woman voiceover? We’ll keep you posted for next year. In the meantime, check out some of the biggest announcements by clicking on the pictures below!