It is Friday. Bully has come out in Europe and, thanks largely to the tireless efforts of closet panty-wearer Jack Thompson, I have gone from disinterested in what appeared to have been one of Rockstar's throwaway games to very in the blink of an email icon proclaiming me the threatened subject of another of Jack's baseless lawsuits. So what the hell do you think I'm playing this weekend?

I find it decent so far. I'm not quite so enamored of it as Eliza is: to me, it seems relatively clear that it was toned down thanks to the publicity. Yet I also suspect that it's a better game for the outside scrutiny: it certainly does seem to me to be the last gasp of the GTA engine, wrapped up in slightly different trappings. I wouldn't be surprised if this was intended as a disposable Rockstar title. Yet the scrutiny, I think, helped focus it; they seemed to realize that the controversy meant that, no matter what they did with the content, the game needed to be excellent and well-written. And it is well-written. Like Crecente, I find the game's message — if there is meant to be one &mdash' rather muddled; Jimmy Hopkins seems rather transparently tamed. Luckily, I can forget all that, because it has a strong antagonist. Gary? A total fucking cunt.

What about you? What are you playing this weekend? Is it all Bully? Or have less high profile titles sneaked into your list? Florian Eckhardt

Never say whining doesn't pay off. After I griped yesterday about how Blizzard didn't send me, Florian Eckhardt for god's sakes, a Burning Crusade beta key... guess who got one? That's right. It wasn't God. It wasn't you. It was me. Many thanks to the anonymous Blizzard employee who took pity on me. And, while I'm at it, I'd really like to just bless the entire concept of favoritism in whatever ideal Platonic form it inhabits in the metaphysical realm.

So this weekend will be spent "testing" (read: playing, griping about the bugs, but never reporting them) the expansion. Unfortunately, I don't have a level 60 character to take to the Outlands. However, I anticipate a hilarious bout of metagaming, as I feverishly distribute misinformation about the contents of the new expansion.

Early this morning, I called Eliza up. Even at the best of times, her voice is far from melodious, but early in the dawn, it flatulates from her throat in Greco-Jabbaesque farting noises. It's like having someone press their anus up to your ear, then whispering through their bowels.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Eliza! Guess who got into the Burning Crusade beta? Here's a hint: NOT YOU."

"You have fun with your Blonde Elves or whatever," she replied.

"I don't have time for your womanly passive-agressive jealousy," I sneered." I have mounts to fly. And hey. You know what? Rogues have this new, PVP-only talent. It's called Assassin Recall. You use it upon a ganked target, and when they respawn, it instantly teleports you back behind them, already stealthed, full energy. Five minute cooldown. Neat, huh? LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU, ELIZA! Ha ha ha ha."

"I hate you."

"NYEAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!" I screamed into the phone. I'd been drinking. She hung up.

Anyway, so you know what I'll be doing this weekend. You? Florian Eckhardt

Well, I hate to say it, but probably World of Warcraft. But it's so boring when I say the same game two weeks running, so let's plumb the gelatinous depths of the old noodle more deeply, eh?

Actually, wait. I did buy Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow this week. It's like a better looking, slightly expanded Aria of Sorrow in a slightly better looking and expanded simulacrum of Dracula's Castle. Lucky enough, Aria of Sorrow was so good that's good enough for me.

What about you guys? What pristine, shimmering disc did you get your hands on this week? Let me know in the comments section. Florian Eckhardt

Filled with self-loathing, I renewed my World of Warcraft subscription and am currently spending most of my time trying to learn the ins-and-outs of my undead warrior, ZuleikaZombi. Without a doubt, in previous experience, I've discovered that the most idiot, both breathing tards have tended to play the warrior class, so I wanted to take at least one imbecile out of any further grouping equations. Unfortunately, I'm discovering at level 14 that I have just as little idea how to play one as anyone else: it seems to require a hell of a lot of finesse to keep aggro off of that mage spitting fireballs over your shoulder.

So that's my weekend, right there. I'm currently doing the endless trawl from Ogrimmar to Thunder Bluff to pick up the rest of the RFC quests, since I know none of the barely-cognisant Serbian grinders loitering outside of the portal will have them. What about you? What will you play this weekend? And remember, anyone can comment: just enter a message, a name and a prospective password, and an intern chained to a desk in New York will approve you if you even marginally exceed our loose standards of literacy. Florian Eckhardt

So what will I be playing this weekend? You really want to know? Absolutely nothing. I just have too much shit to do. I hired my first cleaning lady and, ironically enough, that means I need to spend all weekend cleaning the apartment to such an extent that her services will no longer be required.

Boring, I know. But that's adult life. And, frankly, some weeks, I'm pretty sick of games after writing 60 posts about them. But what about you? You aren't cynics; your enthusiasm for our dorky little hobby always leaves me in the dust. What will you guys be playing? Maybe you can stoke me up by proxy. Florian Eckhardt

You know, I have no idea what I'll play this weekend. Seriously. I'm just plumb out of ideas and I suspect that, this weekend, I ought to clean. I live in a gigantic den of corrupting filth, much like Eliza's precious Rose. Moreover, I'm hiring a cleaning lady next week — this will practically guarantee that I will spend hours making the house spotless before she arrives every week. I don't think I have time for dicking around in virtual worlds.

Still, I might give Metal Gear Solid 3 a try. It is wobbling at the top of a large to-be-played-already stack next to my television. I did put it in the other day, but fell asleep in the middle of a twenty minute opening cut scene. My initial impressions were that "Snake" (whom I only realized was Big Boss after Eliza called me an idiot) sounded like Todd McFarlane's Moondoggy.

I'm also sorta tempted to give Oblivion just ONE more shot. I don't know why. I don't understand why I'm so bored by it where as everyone else is so entranced.

What about you guys? Saving your sock money for the Wii or PS3? Or do you have some new hot purchase you'd like to thwack your chest gorilla-like about? Let us know in the comments.

'm in Rotterdam right now, well looking forward to a weekend of establishing calluses on my ass and gaming. At the risk of painting my friend Sven in an unfavorable light, I expect I will be doing a monstrous amount of gaming this weekend: he has one of those modded XBoxes with a wide library of games just sitting on the hard drive. His PS2 has an HD Loader. All these games exist in ISO form on his network. Does he own them all? To be honest, I'm afraid to ask, because then I might be tempted to either take or break a moral position... and Rez is calling, after all.

Regardless, with Leipzig next week and having spent most of this week in Dutch "coffee bars", insanely rambling while space-eyed, flaxen-haired tell me how deep I am, I need some chill time this weekend. And, like I said, Rez seems to fit the trance-inducing bill. What will you be playing? Let us know in the comments/ Florian Eckhardt

It's Friday. Time to slough off the crackling dead skin of the corporate drone and be reborn as a nascent gamer, dripping with the fluid of enthusiasm.

Usually, I sort of do this post and ramble on about what games I'll be playing. But I doubt I'll be playing any this weekend: I'm galavanting off to the Netherlands early next week, and there's fungus in the apartment that needs scraping, lest it overtake my house while I'm gone.

The extent of my gaming may very well be practicing my more bitching licks on Guitar Hero. I'm bringing it as a host gift to my friend in Rotterdam, and I have visions of impressing my friend's constabulary of attractive female drop-bys by an impromptu, bad-ass acing of "Take It Off" on Expert.

You? Florian Eckhardt

The beautiful Irish weather continues unabated even as I seethe. Instead of sitting in my basement, mastering my Dead Rising zombie disembowelments, decapitations, defenestrations, gelatinations, I'm forced to go outside and stroll in the sun, muttering obscenities under my breath. I resent every second in the sun, every molecule of darkened melanin bronzing my godlike skin.

The other day, I was walking in the park, when a small child skipping jump rope absent-mindedly accidentally hit me with his loop of rope.

"Sorry, mister!" he said with an innocent, earnest smile.

I twitched dangerously, "What did you say to me, you LITTLE FRICKIN' PUNK?" I gradually elevated the volume and shrillness of my voice with every phoneme until by the last word, I was screaming. A few hours later, local Gardai found his jump rope flossed through him and being used to dangle him squirming from a tree. In retrospect, I may have overreacted.

Such is my ill humor over the summer's insidious attempt to thwart my gaming. But the other day, something occurred to me: I have a DS Lite, hello! So I'll spend the weekend sitting in the cursed sun, playing Tetris DS and Metroid Prime: Hunters. On the former title, I need to get 200 lines to unlock Korobieniki... I got 199 lines last night, lost, and went on a Jack the Ripper style rampage in Temple Bar. On the latter: those of you who suggested that I really needed to use the thumb pad were dad right, and the helpful people at GAME on Dawson Street were able to supply me with one for free (it never did come with my DS Lite, apparently). So it's all good, although still cramps my hand fairly quickly; another criticism is the music really doesn't feel like Metroid.

Enough jabbering. What will you be playing this weekend? Florian Eckhardt

Over the past week, Ireland has been home to some depressingly nice weather. Cerule, cloudless skies and temperatures in the high 70's have found me basking in the sunshine like a gecko in my backyard until almost 11pm, which is sunset around this time of year.

Needless to say, I'm sick to fucking death of it. Good weather puts a great deal of pressure on someone like me to spend time outdoors, curled up with a good book, drinking a beer. It takes me away from vices like gaming. And just when I have Dragon Quest VIII spinning idly in the PS2, just waiting for my attention.

Luckily, the sky is grey and dour right now. I would like nothing better than a weekend of rumbling thunder and downpour, so I can guiltlessly tuck away into a gaming weekend.

You know the drill: this is your thread to tell us what you'll be playing, to brag about new purchases, to crow about virtual victories. Make the jump and join in! Florian Eckhardt

It's the weekend, thank god. I swear, if I had to write one more post, I was going to beat a small child to death with a bag of puppies (or perhaps vice versa) out of a pure need for malicious cathartic relief.

But now it's Friday! Hooray! That means 48 hours of gaming! So what do I have planned? Well, I'm trying to beat Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas... I've still never done that, but I'm closer than ever before. Unfortunately, I just hit Flight School. Sigh. As tedious as everyone has claimed. I think the only way to get through it is probably to just get really drunk this evening and power on through.

What about you, o my little poppets? What virtual adventure will absorb yet another 48 hours of your mortal coil? Let us know in the comments. Florian Eckhardt

Tee. Jee. Eye. Eff. Man. What a week. But a weekend of couch-sitting, Cheetos-grazing and game-playing beckons seductively behind tomorrow's murky veil. So what will you be playing this weekend?

I will continue to play Diablo 2 wanna-be Titan Quest. It's... okay. It ain't no Diablo 2, though. In D2, the character tended to have numerous skills that you would switch between on the fly depending on the situation. It was very twitchy... a flurry of hot-key hammering to trigger different skills, only limited by your mana. Titan Quest, like Guild Wars decides to go for the cool down approach, which is less frenetic, and therefore a bit less interesting. Also, I only really ever seem to use one or two skills. It's a beautiful game and still quite good... but it doesn't drive me towards the same compulsion that Diablo 2 did.

Otherwise, I picked up a copy of Civilization IV for my Mac and I'm eager to revisit how much I suck.

What about you? Fly into our forums and start jabbering. You never know if this won't be the thread Crecente picks to scrutinize for a winner of today's contest, after all. Florian Eckhardt

I can tell you what I'm damn well not going to be playing this weekend. Metroid Prime: Hunters. While the Gamespot review wanks off about the incredibly fluid, intuitive control scheme, my experience is directly opposite: I'm about ready to gouge my stylus through the lower DS screen in frustration.

Who can play a game this way? The stylus works okay as a mouse, but holding the DS in the air with one hand and using the stylus with the other quickly leads to hand cramping. I can balance the DS Lite on my knee, except then, I can't actually see those tiny orbs floating around shooting at me. As near as I can tell, the only comfortable way to play this game is hunched over your DS at a desk, squinting. Unfortunately, I like my portables portable... as in not requiring a stationary flat surface to play on.

So that leaves me pretty much out of ideas. I've been in the mood for a Diablo-like, but unfortunately my torrent of Titan Quest hasn't finished yet. Note to Ironlore's lawyers: just kidding. Actually, I don't really know if it's been released over in Europe yet. All signs point to 'no'. Perhaps it's just time for a Diablo 2 hardcore run. What the hell... it was on sale around the corner for 40 clams. Purchased.

Comment section, people. You know the drill. Florian Eckhardt