David Thomas: I'll be getting to 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. Why:

1. Like most middle-aged white guys, I yearn for the fantasy of being a rapper with hand grenades.


2. I just love characters named after money.


3. As far as I can tell, this is the first game about shooting people based on a real person that was really shot.


4. Didn't someone at Crispy say this was a good game? Or were you kidding?

After that, I'll try out We Ski and Snowboard because it would take me, oh, I don't know; a whole 90 minutes to actually drive to a ski resort to ride for real.

James Fudge: Castle Crashers is officially off my regular rotation after I (finally) unlocked the last character and found the last pet -- though I hope to play some multiplayer with Ryan if he's up for it. I had a lot of fun playing the game and the DLC, but there's nothing left to do here. I just picked up Street Fighter IV and I'll be spending some quality time with Robokill and Flashbang Studios' latest game Blush. I also just got access to Demigod -- it's locked, loaded and ready to play this weekend.

Tom Chick: Totally Empire: Total War. With a little 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand and Peggle: Dual Shot during the loading screens. Also, House of the Dead: Overkill with a pair of Nyko Perfect Shots and a gaggle of friends for maximum hilarity. Finally, some Resistance 2 online to wash the taste of Killzone 2 out of my mouth.

Kyle Orland: I'm actually headed down to Maryland to play in a spy mystery dinner party designed by a friend of mine. It's half improvisational role-playing, half water gun fight and half Mafia. That's one-and-a-half games! Should be an interesting experience. There'll probably be some Rock Band in there as well.

Evan Narcisse: Earlier this week, my 360 debug gave up the ghost while I was trying to put the NXE on it. Thankfully, my PS3 debug is unharmed and I'll be settling into a review build of Wanted: Weapons of Fate. I might pop in Stoked, the new snowboarding game from Destineer, because this mountain-phobic Brooklyn boy does love some winter sports games. I'd like to get some Left 4 Dead in, too, so we'll see if I can wrangle some Survivors together from my friends. Special to Tom: there's no way Killzone 2 was worse than Watchmen. Spare me your whining.

William Abner: Saturday, I will be playing Successors 3rd Edition -- a four-player board game set immediately after the sudden death of Alexander the Great, where his generals fought over his empire because Alexander didn't specify an heir, and his half-brother Philip III was an imbecile, and his son was born out of wedlock and was only four years old. Good times. I'll also start dabbling in Empire: Total War and continue my franchise in MLB 09: The Show.

Troy Goodfellow: Halo Wars for me, though I wish I were at Bill's house playing Successors 3rd Edition -- a four-player board game set immediately after the sudden death of Alexander the Great, where his generals fought over his empire because Alexander didn't specify an heir, and his half-brother Philip III was an imbecile, and his son was born out of wedlock and was only four years old.

Gus Mastrapa: Successors sounds hot. I've yet to play Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage, so put me in the camp that's just way behind when it comes to awesome Avalon Hill games. I'm still plugging away at Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon for my review. Will also be delving into Legacy of Ys: Books I & II. Man, is it a good time for strategy and tactics games. I also hope to spend more time with Fallout 3, where I continue to do evil, scrounge for tech to trade with the Outcasts, and kill anybody that looks at me sideways. I'd also like to spend more time with my niece in Animal Crossing. Apparently our last visit (when I dug a hole-moat around her) left a big impression.

Ryan Kuo: I'm hoping to find the time to play Castle Crashers co-op with James before he loses interest entirely. I want to slog through the game again to level up one of my other knights (I picked the blue guy to start with, on the basis that his armor was pretty, and realized after using his feeble ice spell that I'd made a big mistake), and doing it alone feels like an unjustifiable waste of time.


As usual, I'm several weeks/months late to the party, but Big Bang Mini has taken over my gaming life. I can't get over how much Arkedo packed into this dinky little cart. I'll probably finish the Arcade mode this weekend, and then be inspired to download R-Type Dimensions. We're setting Saturday aside for belated Valentine's shopping in Manhattan, so I might hunt for a copy of Soul Bubbles (another French-designed DS sleeper game I discovered while reading about Arkedo) in between. Is there a Toys "R" Us in this city?

Steve Steinberg: Bill was cool enough to let me review MLB 2K9 and MLB 09: The Show head-to-head for his site. So, even though it's still 15 degrees outside as I write this, I'll be able to enjoy some virtual spring and summer. Other than that, I'll still be cranking on my tailoring so that I can zip around Northrend on a "Magnificent Flying Carpet."

John Keefer: I'm playing Empire: Total War all weekend -- barring any family issues. Just got the review copy and I can't wait to see how it stacks up to the others in the series.

Scott Jones: Still trying to get Grand Theft Auto IV momentum going during my spare moments. I've got a bunch of crap I have to play through for some upcoming Reviews on the Run shoots (NASCAR Kart Racing, etc.). And I've been secretly craving Hot Shots Golf for some inexplicable reason. I'll also be playing two other games: Brush the Cats and Pay My Bills.

Russ Fischer: Hopefully I'll be doing a bit of the Resident Evil 5 Mercs mode. Since having Mastrapa around to play a bunch of co-op in the game last weekend (it's so much better that way), I'll hopefully be able to rope a local into that. Also, Resistance: Retribution for review, which means I'll probably revisit Resistance 2 as well. I finally picked up Noby Noby Boy, and am really not sure what I think of it, so I'll be investigating that more as well.

Marc Saltzman: Along with cracking the spine of Sega's Empire: Total War (which I hope doesn't require a mandatory Windows Live account to play an offline single-player game as you do with THQ's Dawn of War II ... the nerve!), I look forward to continue playing The Path, an experimental computer game from the designers behind The Graveyard.

Paul Semel: I'm working on a review of Resistance: Retribution, but when I'm not working on that I'll be busy trying to finish Fable II while taking occasional respites with House of the Dead: Overkill.

Harold Goldberg: I'm working on a secret project with another game person. So I'll be spending time on the weekend with that. I'll be playing HAWX. Then, there are a ton of (well, four) baseball games for reviews that Elise has assigned to me. I'll also be cleaning my desk area, which is full of games, press releases, those Mario Tennis socks, my repaired Xbox 360, receipts, bills, newspapers and two Sherrilyn Kenyon fortune cookies from the New York Comic Con. Maybe I'll find my lost PS3 Bluetooth keypad under the pile.


Finally, after immersing myself for several days for review, I'll be happy to not play Phantasy Star Portable.


What's on your own playlist this weekend? Inquiring Game Trusters want to know. Leave a comment below.