It can happen any given Saturday Morning.

I wake up at 7:30 am, the same time I wake up for work during the weekdays. I get up and go through my normal routine. I check the forums for my Guild, I check GamerDNA, and then I check Myspace. I stare at this website, and think it needs content, but I'm not quite aware of my surroundings yet. In the sleepy haze, I may check the News and make sure we're not pissing off another global power.

And then...I double click something.

I want to say I head over to Guild Wars, my game of choice for the past 2 years. I want to say I'm a good officer for my guild and always check in there first. But in truth, I usually click on something else....for I usually get these cravings for slaughter. I love my Guildwars crew, and I love my Guild, and I also love that game. But....I have many mistresses. Often when I'm caught I'm flooded by a sea of Xfire messages...usually like "You want to come kill things back in OUR game, right?"

"Oh, another online game I see?"

"No, you're not addicted."

My torrid affairs....

One particular Saturday Morning, I went and jumped on Diablo II. I needed that fix...for too long I've went without the satisfaction of the click-click-click. The random dungeons. The sheer fun of just slaughtering hordes upon hordes....

But alas, my Mistress had grown older. Perhaps if I had more regular trysts with her over the years...but the long absence has instead showed me an older crone than the young lady I savored many late nights with long ago. I had spent years stroking myself at the fling we once had...to come back and find the aged face of only an 800x600 resolution, pixelated graphics, and a quieter Battle.Net. I still gave her my love that morning...but by noon I was already out the door, grabbing a pop-tart along the way.

Diablo II had a bastard love child with a dirty threesome between Guildwars and DOOM. That child's name was Hellgate: London. Unloved, thrown to the curb. She spent her youth kicked out of every home she was in....but I saw a charm and a possible beauty to her. Oh my, she has grown into a helluva woman. She still has some issues to work out, but she's a firery wild child and, oh my, she looks good. She plays good too. She gets rough, she gets explosive. She beats me down and burns me. She doesn't play nice like the others, and she's into some kinky new shit. If it wasn't for her being broken goods...I'd permanently settle with this one. But while I can't fully commit....oh my...I can't keep away.

During the afternoon...I needed to break away and rest my eyes. I needed something a little less intense to unwind with...something not so serious to get involved in. I check the little black book of Hack'N'Slashers...decided to look up some of my old 1 night stands of the console years. D&D Heroes? Nah, only fun in groups. Ah! Here we go! Hunter: The Reckoning....she's familliar territory! I know the ins and outs of her well...and I was in and out in an hour.

Lament for the Innocence.....

Like a Predator on the Prowl, I was eyeing Mythos. Mythos, you see, was Hellgate's sister. She wasn't as dark and scary as her older sibling...she was also loved more. She has a sweet nature to her, a sort of innocence. Still young, many feel she's already the better of the two, and her potential alone makes her watched by all...including me. I couldn't stand it any longer...looking at her lush, supple graphics...I had to play.

Oh, I cry for the heart break with this one. She wants so bad for me to love her. She diserves better men than I. She opened her world up for me to explore, begging and pleading that I stay with her. She gave me all of her beauty, she let me in to her Beta, closed to many others who are eager to play within her realms. But alas, child, you simply bored me. I couldn't stay focussed....you didn't give back to me like the others did, you merely held still and took it from me.

The Runner with Awesome Cleavage.

It's one of those scenarios: You're with your friends, and one of them mentions a familliar name. Yeah, you played with her...once, twice maybe. She was fun...but nothing that stood out. At least that you remembered, right? And then, she walked in. You feel that bulge and your pulse starts to rush a little. Oh yeah...you remember now. But, she seems a lot better looking now. Not so rough around the edges. Still, she had a dry sense of humor that got old after a few rounds right?

A couple beers in, and all your friends are hamming it up with her. Okay, she's loosened up a bit, and has developed a LOT of personality since the last time you delved into those caves. You remember telling these friends before "Hey, I found this one...Dungeon Runners?" and they all look, shrug, say "Yeah, I guess I can see the appeal. But, Guild Wars man! Ya gotta love her!"

Now, they're getting that click-click finger. There's a grin on their faces, a twitch they need to satisfy. Guys who never gave her the time of day, even the ones who are hard to please, are stopping and checking her out. Yeah, she's got some goods. She may not be crazy like Hellgate, but she's got something to her. You don't have much time to think on it....you spend the next 10 hours just you and your friends having a group Romp on Dungeon Runners.

She's still at home, waiting for you.

Holy crap. Have you been out all weekend? It's Sunday morning...you wake up, your fingers sore and your back hurting. Have some breakfast, sober up a little. You think....oh god, I need to get home. Guild Wars is waiting for me. She needs to be played too...otherwise, I might lose her. Your attempts to leave fail as your pointer ends up clicking Dungeon Runners again for a couple more hours.

You finally, slowly, come back home. She doesn't ask. She probably doesn't want to know. You go on with your day, like nothing ever changed. You run the same instances, you play the same levels, you farm the same mobs. The same things you've been doing for years. At the same time, you're humbled by your nice Guild Hall, you walk through your Hall of Monuments reflecting all the times you had. Your heart is still here.

Maybe, someday, she'll change. You keep telling yourself that this is just for now, until things are different. Something you gotta work out of your system. Until then....you keep on playing.