Blog Posts by Marc Saltzman

Instead of playing a strong and confident video game protagonist -- such as Uncharted's Nathan Drake or Tomb Raider's Lara Croft -- it could be equally as fun to control a hapless hero who can't seem to catch a break.

Whether it's a lovable loser like Leisure Suit Larry or the dimwitted Dirk the Daring from Dragon's Lair, it can be fun (and funny) when the star of the story has, er, issues.

You can expect this kind of misadventure with Chillingo's The Act ($0.99 cents), a new "interactive comedy" for iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

You play as Edgar on a quest to find love, keep your job as a window washer and prevent your bumbling brother from getting into trouble.

The smoothly animated game looks like a TV cartoon, but every few moments you'll be prompted to place your finger on the screen to control Edgar's action with a slow swipe left or right. It's not quite like those "quick-time events" in the aforementioned Dragon's Lair game — where you need to push up, left or right at the

Stop me if this sounds familiar: You're itching to buy a new tech toy for yourself or loved one, but when you walk into your favourite electronics store you find yourself staring at a sea of products that all seem to look the same.

So, how on earth do you know which one to buy?

This is why Sharon Vinderine started Parent Tested, Parent Approved (PTPA), a Canadian company that sends products out to families for hands-on testing and feedback — and only the cream of the crop get the coveted PTPA seal of approval to put on their packaging. While Toronto-based, PTPA has become popular south of the border -- appearances on the Rachel Ray Show and Fox and Friends probably have something to do with it -- and the company has also branched out to cover more than just parenting products.

In fact, PTPA has recently launched a Geek Tested, Geek Approved seal for premium tech products. Along with sending products out to Canadian and U.S. families, yours truly was also a judge on PTPA's recent "Tech

Fans of Family Guy are no longer limited to watching their favourite animated characters on the hit television show — now they can interact with them.

Now available for PC and Mac, Family Guy Online is a free-to-play browser-based multiplayer game that lets you walk around the Griffin household, beat up bullies on Spooner Street and hang out in Quahog's lamest watering hole, The Drunken Clam.

While Family Guy Online delivers plenty of laughs, impressive 3D graphics and fun missions for familiar characters, there are technical issues that can mar the overall experience. In all fairness, the free game is still in "beta" — meaning the developer is ironing out the kinks and applying feedback from users — but patient Family Guy fans will no doubt find this a "freakin' sweet" offering.

After you download the Unity browser plug-in, sign up for a free account (which lets you log on from any browser) and then you'll create a male or female character from scratch or choose a randomly generated

It's that time of the year, when you want to show your 'ol man how much you appreciate him. But rather than buying a tie (yawn), cologne (he won't use) or golf balls (he'll lose), consider a high-tech gift this year.

Hey, it's 2012 after all, so don't you think he'd prefer a cool gadget over knee-high socks?

The following are a few assorted ideas, covering a wide range of products and prices.

A is for Android

Out this week for only $30 on a 2-year Fido plan, Sony Mobile's Xperia U is a smart smartphone powered by the Android 2.3 ("Gingerbread") platform, including access to the Google Play store for hundreds of thousands of downloadable apps. Unique to this phone is a "transparent element" near the bottom of the device that changes colour to match your album artwork or photo gallery. Along with access to Music Unlimited (15 million songs) and Video Unlimited (TV shows and movies), the Xperia U can also beam media to a nearby DLNA-compatible television.

Read between the lines

Dad

Skylanders Giants

If you've been following Yahoo!'s The Right Click coverage of the recent E3 — the Electronic Entertainment Expo — you'll notice most of the video games profiled from the show are more adult-oriented in nature.

That is, "Mature"-rated games stole many of the headlines from E3, such as Call of Duty: Black Ops II, The Last of Us, Assassin's Creed III, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Halo 4, God of War: Ascension and Watch Dogs. After all, the average age of a video game player today is 36 years of age, says the Entertainment Software Association.

But while in L.A. for E3 I also wanted to give props to some of the kids games on display at the world's largest video game expo. Below, you'll see I chat about Activision's Skylanders Giants, Sony's PlayStation All-Star Battle Royale and WonderBook: Book of Spells, an augmented reality-infused book and game combo, written by Harry Potter's J.K. Rowling, that takes advantage of the PlayStation Move controller and PlayStation Eye camera.

Also,

Are you ready to play?

If the 18th annual E3 Expo is any indication, you'll have no shortage of extraordinary entertainment experiences to indulge in over the coming months and years.

The world's biggest video game trade show has just wrapped up and once again it served as a window to the future of the multibillion-dollar industry. More than 45,000 industry-only attendees packed the Los Angeles Convention Center to play upcoming games and new hardware.

The sheer size and intensity of the show means it's an exhausting one to cover -- no violins, please -- but after three days of roaming the massive showroom floor and getting hands-on time with games behind closed doors, the following is a look at some highlights of the 2012 E3 Expo:

Canada takes the lead

Whether it's EA Sports from Vancouver (FIFA 13, NHL 13), Digital Extremes in London, Ont. (Star Trek) or Ubisoft in Toronto (Splinter Cell: Blacklist), Canadians dominated this year's E3. Ubisoft Montreal, in particular, stole the

If there's one video game that has garnered the most amount of buzz at the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo, it's The Last of Us.

And for good reason — no other game at the show delivered the same level of intense action, gorgeous set pieces, smart artificial intelligence (A.I.) and character interaction.

Currently in development at Naughty Dog studios — best-known for its Uncharted, Jak & Daxter and Crash Bandicoot series — The Last of Us takes place in the near future, after most of the earth's population has been decimated by a deadly viral outbreak. Mother Earth has reclaimed much of the planet, growing over many of the streets and buildings.

You play as a hardened middle-aged man, Joel, who vows to protect a 14-year-old girl, Ellie, from a number of threats — including bandits with no regard for human life. While details are scarce about where they're going and why, the duo are making their way across the United States.

The behind-closed-doors demo of this PlayStation 3

It's no secret your mobile phone has evolved into a device capable of a lot more than just making calls.

In fact, talking on the phone seems to be one of the less popular activities these days — compared to email, instant messaging and texting, web surfing, playing games, listening to music, watching video, taking pictures, accessing social media or getting directions.

Much of the fun things you can do on a smartphone today require "data," therefore requiring a monthly data plan with your carrier that gives you a certain number of megabytes or gigabytes to use up by the end of the month.

If you find yourself going over your limit -- and thus incurring overage charges -- take heed to these following 10 ways to better manage your data usage.

1. Try to save the activities that eat up a lot of data — like streaming video — for when you're in a wireless network at home, a café, airport lounge or hotel lobby. To make sure you're using Wi-Fi, you might consider temporarily turning off