Review

I recently took the time to visit Microsoft’s first ever Surface Café on Toronto’s Queen Street West. You can read about the session I attended where DC comic book artist (and the guy who currently draws Batman) Francis Manapul showed how Microsoft’s new tablet has become an integral part of his digital workflow. But I wasn’t just at the Surface Café for demonstrations and to see how the Surface Pro 3 went over with an audience largely comprised of creative professionals. This was my chance to get my hands on a Surface Pro 3 to see if it lives up to Microsoft’s claims of being the tablet that can replace your laptop. Here’s what I thought of it.  

It’s been a long couple of years since the release of UFC Undisputed 3. For UFC fans, this has basically been an eternity. In the last two years, the Flyweight division was announced, as was women’s bantamweight. These are two of the many new things you’ll see in EA’s first UFC title. Was it worth the wait?  Let’s check it out.

It was probably the most anticipated game of E3 2012, and then the most anticipated game of E3 2013. Finally, Watch Dogs is out for pretty well every major console (WiiU coming soon) and promises to be one of the most tense, nail biting thrill ride games in years, stepping you in the shoes of an anti-hero hacker. But was it worth the wait? Click below and find out for yourself.

A game about a small world of Miis who actually have personality. In fact, that personality is the driving force behind their Tomodachi Life. The sort of thing Animal Crossing fans will understand immediately, Tomodachi Life pits you against the daily needs of your own personal island and the Miis that inhabit it, and manages to win your heart in the process. 

In the sequel to 21 Jump Street, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are heading back to school looking for a new drug that is being distributed on campus. Yes, this sounds very similar to the first one.

Have you ever wondered what’s in those store bought popsicles? I’ll skip the secrets and just go ahead and tell you that besides water, the only other real ingredient is sugar. Not just one type of sugar either – the last box I picked up had both sugar syrup and corn syrup, not to mention other artificial ingredients to give them colour and flavour. That’s why the Zoku Quick Pop Maker is one small kitchen gadget I don’t want to be without this summer.

Now that Microsoft is offering a version of its ubiquitous Office productivity suite for the iPad, Apple’s tablets are even closer to being a device that can be used for getting serious work done. Mouse support and multi-window functionality in a future iOS version would be nice, but with a decent Bluetooth wireless keyboard, an iPad does a pretty good job these days. I took one of the best-known iPad keyboard solutions for a test run and was impressed by just how good the experience can be. The ZAGGkeys Folio not only offers a compelling Bluetooth keyboard, but it mounts it in a clamshell enclosure that transforms the iPad into an ultra-portable laptop. How well does the ZAGGkeys Folio work? I wrote this post (over 1,000 words) using a ZAGGkeys Folio and my iPad Mini with Retina Display and it was virtually as fast as my usual PC-based writing setup.  

The Sony MDR-HW300K Wireless Headphone System transmits uncompressed audio between the base station (TMR-HW300) and the headphones (MDR-HW300). These are not bluetooth headphones, so putting them up to products in that category is not an apples-to-apples comparison.   A nice little package that sets up seamlessly and will get you enjoying wireless audio quickly. Although I wouldn’t recommend these headphones for critical listening applications, they could be just the ticket when you need that home theater punch without bothering the neighbours.

The untold story of Disney’s most iconic villain from the classic Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) places an irreversible curse on the king’s newborn infant Aurora (Elle Fanning), but as Aurora gets older, Maleficent begins to care about her and she needs to figure out a way to reverse the curse.