When I bought Halo 2 (H2), I wasn't interested in how well it played. I was interested in how well its multiplayer aspect worked. GWJ forum members had suggested it was excellent from a usability point of view. They were right.

H2 is the easiest game to play online that I've found. When playing the single-player campaign, one can receive H2 LIVE game invitations. One can join parties hosted by players on your friend list, or people in your H2 clan. One can see friends and clan members, along with detailed statistics about one's games, on Bungie.net; a great example of systems integration. In public games, H2 even matches players based on how good they are.

Though essentially solitary by nature, we gamers occasionally like company. What's more, we prefer it if that company is easy to come by. Sadly, thanks to technological advancements in orthopaedic shoes and neck braces, we can no longer spot kindred spirits by their bowed heads and shuffling gaits.

I have, therefore, committed to paper three methods (each having sub-methods) of drawing attention to one's gamer status, without alerting the general public or officers of the constabulary. (I wished I'd written them before an enquiry to a fellow office worker, about him 'being a gamer', was misconstrued as a homosexual advance. If either of us had been gay, the incident might not have been as traumatic.)

There's been some gnashing of teeth on the GWJ forums recently. It happened when a post about Halo 2's music was put up. Apparently Halo 2 was forgoing a score in favour of using songs from alt-rock bands like Incubus. ( "Incubus?" the GWJ members said incredulously, "but they're even worse than Hoobastank. And that's a made up word!" )

It came to light that the inclusion of the music was being handled gingerly. The bands are to appear on soundtrack albums, contributing songs inspired by the game. This news placated the GWJ lollygaggers, but it piqued my curiosity.

Burnout 3: Takedown (B3) rewards dangerous driving and making your opponents crash. It's an arcade game for your Xbox, a real pick up and play title: easy to learn, immediately satisfying and a hell of a lot of fun.

The speed of the game is astonishing, the graphics are wonderful and the game play will have you gurning, yelling and punching the air. It challenges SNES Mario Kart for the most fun I've had with a racing game. It's also one of the best games I've ever played, full stop.

Of course you know most of this already. You've read the reviews on other sites and, if you don't have the game now, you're about to buy it. Rightly so, too. It's a wonderful game. However it's not without its faults. So, instead of doing you a disservice by continuing to praise B3 to high heaven, I'd better mention some of the bad bits. After all, they're what are really important, right?

Watching the Olympics, I'm reminded of one of my own brief forays into exercise: two years spent learning Tai Chi Chuan, a Chinese martial art I bought into physically, mentally and financially.

During my study I ended up buying soft-soled martial arts shoes, kickboxing trousers, metal and wooden sabres and books on the art's applications and concepts. The latter had diagrams explaining combat, photographs of women defending themselves with umbrellas and poems that gave practitioners insight into the art's strategies and spiritual aspects.

These books, which were not available in many shops, conferred a sense of legitimacy. Also, having a kit, using a set of items necessary for practice, made me feel I was preparing for something. That I was on a mission. As if I had a Job to do. I suppose it's what Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in Commando felt loading his guns and strapping a bandolier across his chest.

January 2005. The offices of publisher Vivendi Universal. In a back room on an unimportant floor, three marketing executives are gathered around a table. They're tasked with emulating the Q4 2004 success of Fight Club: a beat "˜em up that, despite having little to do with the film and leaving critics underwhelmed, was a commercial success.

We join them as their meeting has just started.

Lucius 'Luke' Johnting (LJ. 45 YO. Divorced twice. Likes ice cream and little league.): "...such a hit the board have asked other for film-game conversion ideas."

Dong Godown (DG. 40 YO. Studied dance at MIT. Held record for longest time spent waiting for a post-concert Kenny G. autograph.): "So do we get to choose our own films or what?"

Doom 3 (D3) is about to launch. I've watched anticipation for the game grow on Gamers With Jobs and I've seen it eagerly talked about on other websites. Of course as is wont with the Internet, most 'talking' ends up nothing more than a series of shrieks and grunts - especially if someone claims to have got the game before launch.

Right now, across the United States, gamers who got D3 early are having their honesty contested as they try to convince other games-forum posters that, yes, the pictures of the game's box next to their computer are indeed real.

On average it will take 10 pages of embittered and jealous flame war for other people to believe them. That belief carries a heavy, heavy price.

When I was little I got the ninja/spy game 'Saboteur' on the ZX Spectrum as a birthday party present. (The Spectrum was a 1980s computer that needed a tape player to load games and had 48k of memory. As the games loaded the machine made a sound like train wreck arguing with a dial-up modem.)

Saboteur was the hit of the evening. The ZX was hooked up to a portable TV and my friends and I took turns playing. They were having a great time with a great game. Actually, the game was so good that I told my friends I'd wished they'd all go home so I could play it by myself.

It was a remarkably bratty thing to do. With hindsight I can only blame my immaturity on my age. Thankfully I've grown up in the intervening years. If I were then what I am now, I'd act differently. This time I wouldn't announce anything. I'd just swat my friends away from the game knowing they'd be too small to fight back.

I started to play Zelda: The Wind Waker the other day. Or rather, I started to play it again. I hadn't touched the game in months. Getting back in to it was a little awkward. Firstly, I'd forgotten what I was supposed to be doing. Secondly, I'd forgotten how to do it.

I knew I had to ask a boat for assistance. It could give me a hint about my next task. The boat told me what to do. Had I been playing the game regularly I might have understood the hint. As it stands it might as well have asked me to milk an owl with three nipples.

Perhaps I'd have more luck controlling my character than remembering why he was stuck on an island in the first place. "Link, sail the boat." The boat stood still. "Link, bring up the sea charts." Link yelped, jumped out of the boat and swam around in circles. He had ADD or I'd been manhandling the joypad.

Several weeks ago I went to a massive arcade in central London with a group from an Internet message board. All of us were gamers, none of us mainstream. Nary a "Tomb Raider: The Official Licensed Soccer Game" would be found in our collections.

The arcade had all sorts of machines in it: racing, shooting, sports, beat 'em ups, dance (on which South-East Asian players held court) and even dodgems. Naturally my group gravitated towards the most hardcore and leet game available - catching plastic ducks with magnetic fishing lines.

The interesting thing about our party, apart from the woman dressed as a Gothic maid, was that when people weren't playing games, they weren't interacting with games. If one wasn't a participant, one was an observer. There wasn't an in-between. "Why is that interesting?" I hear you ask. "It's always been like that," you insist. Actually, it hasn't.

When I was a child I used to go to the seaside on holiday. The resorts we went to always had arcades and I made a point of visiting them. I'd have couple of pounds in 10p coins and spend it on titles including Super Sprint, Dragon's Liar (which I never got the hang of) and Star Wars. Even when the money ran out - it never lasted long enough - the fun didn't end. I 'played' the games anyway.