G4TV

It's an excellent week for summer celebration. Whether you're celebrating Canada Day, the formation of the "We Hate Blair Herter" Facebook club, or America's birthday, there are tons of reasons to party this week. The G4tv.com gang is all set for a weekend of beaches, barbecues, karaoke, and more...but it wouldn't be complete without a healthy dose of gaming. Here's what your favorite writers and editors are playing this weekend. As always, leave a comment and let everyone know what you're playing.

Stephen Johnson: Because I am well known as an American patriot, and because the 4th of July is the most patriotic of all holidays (except Arbor Day) I will be spending my weekend revisiting one of the most blatantly American video games ever made. I’ll be playing Duke Nukem on the Xbox. In keeping with the 4th of July theme, I’m going to follow Duke up with some Oregon Trail on my iPhone and wash it all down with a PC MAME version of Burgertime.

 
Sterling McGarvey: Now that I’ve got 95 percent of my apartment unpacked and furnished (still need a new TV stand so I can use my coffee table for its intended purpose) and I’m hosting some international guests for a week, I have a feeling that in between smoky belches of BBQ, I’ll be celebrating America’s independence with one of our nation’s finest exports of the last century: good ol’ rock n’ roll. I haven’t raided the PlayStation Store for Rock Band tracks since before I kicked off my tenure at G4, and I’m due to unpack my equipment. Since one of my guests is in the upper echelons of Italy’s biggest Pearl Jam fan club, I think I know what I’ll be downloading first.
 
When I’m not fighting off carpal-tunnel as I drum, I’ll probably hunker down at night and log in some GTA: Chinatown Wars time before bed. Long story, but I had to start a new game when I moved to LA, so I’ve been slowly catching up to where I left off in my dope-dealing adventures.

Jake Gaskill: This weekend, I plan to finish the fight, as I continue my Halo 3 revisit. I’m actually finding this playthrough to be the most enjoyable for some reason, and there have been more than a few sequences that I just didn’t remember at all, so it felt like playing a brand new game, which was nice. On the casual side, I’m super addicted to Homerun Race 3D Baseball Slugger for the iPhone. It’s just so satisfying to blast 500-foot bombers, and the RPG element (earn cash, buy new equipment, upgrade your power and contact) keeps you always wanting to play just one more round. I should also be passing the 5,000 HR mark sometime soon, so that’s exciting. And if I can find the time, I’ll probably finally get around the playing the Broken Steel DLC for Fallout 3, so that I can then move onto Point Lookout without feeling too behind. It’s a good thing it’s a holiday weekend (and that all my illegal fireworks were confiscated), because otherwise, I wouldn’t have nearly enough time to get in as much gaming as the Founding Fathers would have wanted me too.

Joe Paulding: This weekend I’m going to be playing a smattering of games I’ve had on my shelf but haven’t gotten around to finishing yet. I plan on busting out the drum set and seeing how I fare on Guitar Hero: Metallica and maybe even try my hand at expert + on a song or two. I also plan throwing in Punch-Out!! and seeing if I can put Sandman to sleep. Additionally, I’ve been toying around a bit lately with Too Human, trying to decide if I like it or not, and I have an untouched copy of Soul Calibur IV that I purchased for $10 a few weeks ago.

Raymond Padilla: I'm taking a break from saving the world and foiling Sephiroth's plans in Final Fantasy VII. I'm still playing the game, but now I'm breeding chocobos, winning prizes at the Gold Saucer, finding items that can only be accessed by gold chocobos, and more. Thankfully, Sephiroth is cooperating by slowing down his plans for obliterating the world while I tend to these important activities.

In other news, I'm going to start up Fight Night Round 4 this weekend. I'm greatly looking forward to some pugilistic action. I'm going to create a fighter that looks just like Alexis Arguello, who sadly passed away yesterday. While my creation might be able to simulate his amazing technical ability and power, no video-game creation can duplicate the class this man possessed.

Patrick Klepek: A slower-than-usual week in news means I've actually been able to spend a little time at my desk playing games during the day, which almost never happens, despite working at, you know, a video game web site. I'm just about finished with the surprisingly impressive Doom Resurrection on the iPhone. With that out of the way, I can return my attention to Ghostbusters: The Video Game, which was snatched from my hands a few weeks back by my boss. There's a good chance I'll cave and purchase Sam & Max: Season One over Xbox Live, too, in preparation of next week's return of Monkey Island. If you haven't seen the gameplay teaser for Tales of Monkey Island, seek it out. Telltalle appears to have nailed it.

Billy Berghammer: Outside of the beach, a monster bike ride or two, it’s 4th of July weekend -- so that means shooting things in the face with fireworks. Azeroth will be my home for quite a bit this weekend as I try to level up once or twice and get some PvP action. But inFamous has been in my PS3 for quite some time mocking me, and I think it’ll be time to finish off that game as well. While I’m waiting for the fireworks to begin, Peggle on iPhone will be my compatriot.

Brian Leahy: This weekend I’ll be checking out the Dawn of War II “There is Only War” patch beta along with some more Fight Night Round 4 and Street Fighter IV. I tend to keep playing the same games over and over again instead of playing everything that gets released.