Reader Jacob Reiff pointed out that we have yet to ask the most important question of the weekend, so let's wrap up Saturday with just that. So, what are you playing this weekend? Me? Thanks for asking. Still powering through Bully, and I also downloaded the Iron Man demo, Ikaruga, and Black from Xbox originals (dunno why).

I am also playing the super realistic Apartment Security Deposit Challenge 2K8: Oven Cleaning, and I downloaded the optional Refrigerator De-Scum Map Pack for that one too.

Seriously, let us and let everyone know in the comments what you're jamming to until we resume our regularly scheduled lives on Monday.

Hey! You got your Pong in my Breakout! You got your arm rasslin' in my Tetris! I swear, the only way to make boring classic video games playable and entertaining in modern times is to rig them to insane controls or pair them with another classic. Here are two.

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These evergreen features are made for weekends: GamesRadar has a list of the 15 best video game stories of all time. It's good for a mid-afternoon bull session between the hours of whatever you're playing (still hammering on Bully, myself.)

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My brother, Fletch, and I were 8 and 6 years old, respectively, when Pac-Man debuted. As this IM conversation demonstrates, to this day we approach the game with the same wide-eyed curiosity and emotional maturity as we did in 1980.

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Working weekends here at Kotaku means that we can't lay claim to articles when we find them — and I'm constantly amazed as to what interesting articles I've come across have (and haven't) been posted by the time I stumble in on Saturday mornings. This week, it was the 'Infocom Drive,' a complete backup of Infocom's shared network drive from 1989 — including a whole lot of discussion and documentation about the unreleased sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Milliways: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It's an interesting look at the internal workings of Infocom and a look at a game that never was:

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Before you get all excited, this is a mod, not a Wii laptop. I saw this and racked my brain for an actual real world use, ending up with a vision of a Wii on a beach hooked to 1.4 miles of extension cord, and some Charles Atlas musclehead shadow-fighting with Wii Boxing.

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Michael Abbott of The Brainy Gamer is putting together an undergraduate seminar on the history of the RPG (fun!), and the whole process of deciding what games to include and the reasons for that is pretty interesting — admittedly, I find syllabus construction to be an interesting process that can tell you a lot about the person teaching the class (and a simple fact of life for those of us who want to stay in the Ivory Tower). He's put together a lengthy list of RPGs that will be whittled down (with some assistance from helpful readers) to 15 titles that will fulfil his criteria:

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From the Best of Craigslist in Raleigh, N.C., here's an ode to true love that, to non-gamers sounds about like Survivor's "The Search is Over." But this should melt the heart of any girl who has taken controller in hand and crusaded against unrelenting hordes of enemies, wondering if there ever was a boy out there who considered her just as worthy of the fight.

"Oh GameStop Girl, how you make my heart meter skip a beat. If you were being held captive in a mountain fortress by a ruthless mutant mafia gangboss and I had to fight my way through 16 levels of fire-breathing undead ninjas with swords the size of small ponies, I would find a way, even if, after every level, a small man continued to taunt me by saying that you were in another castle. EVEN IF."

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This is an oldie (appearing in 2006) but goodie if you're interested in interactive fiction — Jimmy Maher wrote a lengthy, well-written and comprehensive history of interactive fiction, from Eliza to the era of Infocom to the state of IF today. It's a fascinating wrap up, even if you're not one of the handful of active IF players; but IF's fall from commercial grace hasn't stopped IF creators from trundling on to creating bigger and better things:

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This close-cropped image, purported to be of a poster for a Metroid movie coming next year, proves absolutely zilch. But a Swedish blog says the director John Woo will announce such a film at Comic-Con, now underway through Sunday in New York City.

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Steve at PlayNoEvil has some interesting analysis up on the current state of gold farming in MMORPGs (though he does admit that since hard stats are difficult to come by, "any analysis is more akin to reading tea leaves"); using data provided by mmobux, he looks at the pricing trends to try and divine what might be going on in the wild world of selling gold:

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Another highly entertaining "Meet the" video for Team Fortress 2 is up at Gametrailers. Here we get acquainted with the Scout, who has kind of a Kevin Bacon mien about him. Just one thing, why does everyone have to pick on Heavy when he's eating? Real freakin' original there, Scout. Let him enjoy his sandwich, willya?

Meet the Scout [Gametrailers]

Chris Plante has an interesting post up on kid's games — well, sort of. Following the idea that there's no reason to patronise children with edutainment and titles aimed specifically at wee munchkins, he argues there are plenty of games that grown up gamers play and love that are appropriate for kids, including ... Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword for the DS? Well, yes — with a few caveats. But why a Ninja Gaiden game of all things? It's all in the mechanics:

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Just to show I don't have knee-jerk Microsoft hate every time an Xbox crashes, here is an utterly retarded story that involves a bricked 360, fire, and Arkansas. Dangerous combination, in all.

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While Ethan Allen makes mosquito nets look romantic, living in a country where mosquito nets are purely utilitarian and totally necessary (mine was a hideous blue colour with an ugly flower pattern in the netting, and was rigged up to the ceiling with fishing line - no four poster beds to be found) will dash any romantic ideas post-haste. April 25th is World Malaria Day, and as part of the 'Nothing But Net' campaign to get mosquito nets to parts of Africa where malaria is a very real and very deadly problem, the UN has commissioned an easy little came called 'Deliver the Net':

The challenge: race the sun and hand out as many insecticide-treated bed nets as you can to African families. The more nets you deliver - before the mosquitoes come out - the more lives you save. Once you're done playing the game, sign up, confirm your email, and a life-saving bed net will be sent on your behalf!

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Lazlow Jones, the principal DJ for Grand Theft Auto since it introduced a radio GTA III, went into the studio with Opie & Anthony on Friday and Holy Toledo, the first segment of his talk is shot through with spoilers.

Not the kind of spoilers that ruin missions or stories. This is more like a hands-on discussion of the game's feel and environment. But if you want to go into this game wide-eyed, jaw-dropping at the depth and complexity of the world you'll be living in for the next three to six months, especially if you're employed, then do not follow the jump.

I think you can still listen to this and be blown away by the game, but if you're sensitive to this sort of thing, you have been warned.

Clip one is the juicy spoiler clip. I'm not even going to mark timestamps because there's really no nonspoiler material. You either want to listen to it or not. Here's some highlights:

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Alright ... there's "Bark at the Moon" on expert, and then there's "The Swan" by the Berliner Philharmoniker's number one asskicking cellist, whomever that is. Considering that success in this genre involves at least knowing the major riffs before you play it, I'm thinking that this flash game is more difficult by half than anything Guitar Hero or Rock Band has ever cooked up.

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Sweet Baby Jesus. I'm keeping this originals intro ridiculously short because the originals list is ridiculously long. Forty-one pieces of original reporting, mostly because we were at Midway Gamer's Day and Namco Bandai Editor's Day. The proverbial one legged man in an asskicking contest is the Maytag Man next to us. Because when we kick arse, we use both legs and both arms, and a headbutt or too. Scan the list for what you might have missed since we last did this.

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