This, from the Globe & Mail, is another look at the free-to-play Family Guy Online, developed by Vancouver’s Roadhouse Interactive.

More than five million people watched the season finale of Family Guy. The television show’s Facebook page has nearly 46 million “likes.” And it seems that many of those fans want to see for themselves what it’s like to walk around Quahog, the fictional town that provides the setting for the series and the game.

My look at Family Guy Online, from this week’s Georgia Straight.

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo earlier this month, in the lobby of the Los Angeles Convention Center right beside the Starbucks booth and the endless line of bleary-eyed video-game-industry insiders, was a “pop-up” Drunken Clam. Staffing the pub, a feature of the animated television show Family Guy, was a bevy of attractive women dressed in pink tees and hats, barely resembling the character of Meg Griffin.

In the Straight this week is my updates on what’s been recently released by social games companies in Vancouver, including Exploding Barrel Games, Hothead Games, East Side Games, Piranha Games, and Roadhouse Interactive.

I’m in L.A. this week covering the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Here’s my look, from the Straight at some of the surprises revealed during the first few days of the extravaganza.

The annual video-game gorge is going on in Los Angeles this week. The three-day Electronic Entertainment Expo, which wraps up Thursday, is always prefaced by media briefings staged by some of the biggest players. In the months leading up to this event, both Microsoft and Sony quashed rumours that they would be revealing new consoles, which left little room for surprise. But there were a few announcements that astonished.

It’s true. I say so in this week’s Straight.

It’s never been easier to play games on Apple computers—and not just by running Windows on them, either. More often now, publishers are releasing video games developed with OS X in mind.