40Tech

After a long love affair with Bioware games, I’ve found myself smitten with Skryim, by Bethesda. As with the other two games in the Elder Scrolls series that I’ve played, Morrowind and Oblivion, Skyrim features a huge, do-anything world for you to explore. Unlike those two earlier games, Skryim has me completely addicted. If you’re not playing it, you’re missing out on one of the best games in years. Skyrim’s world is tremendously immersive. The number of books that you’ll find all over Skryim adds to that immersion. The drawback with the number of books that you can find is that reading them takes some time. I have limited time, so I wanted a way to read the books when I wasn’t in front of the computer. Thanks to an enterprising gamer, you can do just that.

Perhaps it doesn’t rise to the level of the PC vs. Mac religious war, but PC gamers and console gamers often express strong opinions about their platform of choice. While one platform isn’t inherently better than the other, each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Which do you prefer, and why?

Although Apple’s new iPhone did not electrify either the media or the stock market quite so much as Apple might have hoped, it has certainly proved popular with their most vital audience: the consumers, who have made it the most successful iPhone launch ever, with 4 million sales already. It’s achieved worldwide success, including unprecedented penetration in the Chinese market.

Many people probably picked up the 4S for the Siri Personal Assistant, or the much-improved 8Mp camera, or just because it’s fun to have the very latest high-end phone. Hopefully they will sooner or later appreciate the true power of this new handset, which goes far beyond what we’ve come to expect in smartphones, particularly in several areas crucial to gaming: notably processor power, graphics chip, and the possibilities unlocked by the iCloud and AirPlay services.

One of the biggest bitches for me when it comes to Facebook is the way it handles social gaming. Yes, social gaming can be fun, and the quest to get the most points, coin, trophies, et al has its satisfying moments — but the constant invitations, notifications, and culling of said items from my Facebook stream is annoying as hell. I know I’m not alone in that sentiment, either. Google+ is jumping in to the games space today, and I’m happy to report that they, once again, appear to have gotten it right.

I don’t know about you, but my gaming time is pretty limited nowadays. When I do game with others online, I don’t want to join in with a bunch of griefers, cheaters, and immature players. Where then can I look for some like-minded players? Well, here at 40Tech, we’ve got a great community, with many mature commenters and friends. Perhaps some of you would like to do some gaming, in the right environment, and with the right game and platform? If so, let’s set up a time that we can game together.

Welcome to another long-weekend edition of 40Tech (Canada Day today and the 4th of July on, well… the 4th). To commemorate this joyous occasion, we present you with yet another 40Tech Random Tech Video(s)! We hope you enjoy it (them), enjoy your day, and enjoy the hell out of you long weekend. Cheers! :D

If you grew up in the 80′s, do you remember games like Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and perhaps the best of them all, King’s Quest? They were games from the legendary, and now defunct, Sierra Entertainment. If you long for the fun of yesteryear, then you’re in luck. You can now play the first three King’s Quest Games if you own a Mac or PC. The best part? They’re free.

I hated this app. Not because it wasn’t fun, and not because there was something wrong with it — no, no, none of that. It was because it called to me in the middle of the night, squawking at me softly, compellingly; demanding that I play it over and over again until the wee hours before the dawn. Even now, as I write this, the little red bird that promotes the game’s evil is peeking at me with his sinister cartoony eyes, poking his head around the left-most edge of my Evernote window.

I couldn’t allow it. Angry Birds for Chrome messed with my productivity mojo – and this is why the Birds had to die.

For most of us, our time is valuable. For the gamers among us, it can be frustrating to get online and end up in a game with griefers, idiots, or worse. Wouldn’t it be great if you could join or even set up games with like-minded players? PlayerMatching, an online video game matchmaking site, allows you to do just that. We’ve got some beta codes, below, to put you at the top of the invite list for the PlayerMatching beta.

Ok, I know this has been my only post this week, and that it’s light and fluffy — but bear with me, the flu sucks and the chuckles are making me feel better. Besides, who doesn’t want to see Mike Tyson slap something? And I don’t care how angry those crazy red birds are, even a mild slap from Tyson is a good bet to get them to hang up their sling shots…