We admit we can't play every game. And sometimes, we just don't want to.

Here are our picks of what titles we're neglecting for the week.

If you convince us otherwise, maybe we'll give them a try. But until then our apologies to the following titles...

Tracey's Not Playing...
"Too Human" on Xbox 360

Why she's feeling dubious about trying this game at the moment: It's been said that "Too Human" has some elements of "Diablo," and one preview even claimed that the game is "Microsoft's Diablo." Obviously I'm a huge "Diablo" fan, but I'm not sure I'll like this after reading some of the reviews (I don't have the game, and I haven't tried the demo yet; I might get to it this weekend). Are there any "Diablo" fans out there enjoying this game? I'm curious about what you think...

Stephen's Not Playing...
"Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2" on XBLA

How he kicked the habit: Those people who can't stop playing this game, take solace in knowing that I once was one of you. I once couldn't turn on my 360 without falling into the sandtrap of excellence that is "GWRE2." But there is escape! Simply identify a friend on your leaderboard who's score you want to crush. Then crush it. Then move on, relishing the victory. And -- this is key -- never looking back to see if they came back and beat you. Note that this strategy works best for players who are mediocre.

Patrick's Not Playing...
"PixelJunk Eden" on PSN

Why I'm avoiding this beautiful game: Twice now, I have attempted to understand what's so great about the latest "PixelJunk" release. I love the style, but can't get over the controls. I keep falling all over the place and tapping twice to properly jump just feels off. A number of people have told me to "stick with it" and it'll click, but considering how many games are being released lately (what happened to slow summers?), I don't have the time or patience to babysit something that hasn't clicked with me yet. It's on my hard drive, though. I'll go back to it sometime. But not now. Sorry.

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Readers, what games are you not going to touch this week, and why?

Sure, we here at MTV Multiplayer could give you a huge list of all the games we're playing and want to play.

But how boring is that?

In an effort to understand why some games get neglected by gamers, we discuss our weekly selections of games that we're not going to be playing. Here goes...

Stephen's Not Playing...
Xbox Live Arcade game "1942: Joint Strike"

Why he's neglecting the hard work of the game's creators: You'd think I'd be into this game. I liked the original top-down WWII shooter back in the day. And while I'm skeptical of my fond memories of old games, Capcom did what I often call for and re-made the game with some modern polish. I tried the demo. It didn't click. I think I may just be too old to enjoy shooting giant planes over the Pacific. In this summer of downloadable games, I'm giving this game the short shrift.

Patrick's Not Playing...
Every-platform-ever game "Madden NFL 09"

Why he's passing on "Madden" for the umpteeth time: I can't remember the last time I tried to play a "Madden" game. It was probably during the PlayStation days. For whatever reason, my friends have always been "Halo" fans, not "Madden" fans. Have you ever been sucked into playing a game simply because everyone else was, too? That was "Halo" for me, but not "Madden." Without a drop of interest in football not called the Chicago Bears, I find myself passing on another opportunity to see what the "Madden" crazy is all about. With so many games out right now, however, I'm okay with that.

Tracey's Not Playing…
"Madden NFL 09" on any platform

Why she has a confused look on her face when you ask if she's playing "Madden": I'm going with Patrick here; I may have never even tried a "Madden" game. I have a lot of football fans in my family, but the sport just isn't my thing. I'm intrigued by the purportedly easy-to-play Wii version, but other than that, there's very little chance I'll be picking this up anytime soon. Does anyone ever play "Madden" and not follow the real-life sport?

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So what do you think, readers? Are we crazy? What are you not playing this week? And why?

History will remember this 42nd edition of What We're Not Playing as a breakthrough in human civilization's efforts to understand why some games go ignored by gamers.

We used to try to help this field of study by presenting weekly (whiny) IM chats about what games we were shunning. We now offer a simpler presentation.

What follows are the games we're not playing this week and why. The comments section below is where you can tell us just how out of our minds we are.

Stephen's Not Playing...
Wii cooking game "Order Up!"

Why he's neglecting the hard work of the game's creators: I believe this is the first game to come packaged with a chef hat. That alone did not compel me to try this out on my Wii. But I did hear on the 1UpYours podcast that this game is the next evolution of "Cooking Mama," or something like that. So I'm going to try it someday. Just not in this "Siren"-obsessed week.

Tracey’s Not Playing…
Wii sports games "Summer Athletics: The Ultimate Challenge," "Little League World Series 2008," "King of Clubs"

Why she's neglecting the hard work of the game's creators: With New York’s temperature in the high '80s, I don't think I'll want to sit in my apartment swinging my arms like a maniac and drowning in my own sweat. Maybe in the dead of winter I’ll boot these up when I’m nostalgic for the blazing summer sun.

Patrick's Not Playing...
"Summer Athletics" for Wii

Why he's neglecting the hard work of the game's creators: Outside of the fact that there was very few games to even decide on passing on this week, I've never been fond of Olympic games. Not since they were called "Track & Field" and made use of the Power Pad, anyway. Yes, "Summer Athletics" is for the Wii, but it's also from Conspiracy Entertainment. On its face, that doesn't inspire much confidence -- unless a reader can prove me wrong?

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What are you not playing this week? And why?

After a light post-E3 release week, Patrick and I still found the cream of the crop to avoid in this week's "What We're NOT Playing."

In both deciding on "Final Fantasy IV" on DS, we somehow get to talking about "Final Fantasy XII" and MMOs:

PatrickKlepek: My issues with "Final Fantasy XII" stemmed from the combat. At times, I loved it. Other times, I hated it. Maybe that's why I've never played an MMO.
PatrickKlepek: I played maybe a months worth of "EverQuest II" because 1UP.com contracted me to. I swiftly gave it up after they pulled the plug on their MMO columns. All I did was fight crabs.
TraceyJohn: Well is it also the grind that turns you off? Or other people? Because you do play RPGs
PatrickKlepek: Maybe it was the real-time nature of it it, combined with the fact that it wasn't really real-time, you know? It was still turn-based. 12 hours or so wasn't enough to figure it out.
PatrickKlepek: I felt like I was playing an action RPG with the constraints of a turn-based RPG.

See what else we chat about and which game on XBLA I'll actually be playing...

Read more...

Of course they'll be plenty of games we'll be playing and not playing at E3 next week, but it's not next week yet.

Today in "What We're NOT Playing," Jason Cipriano and I run down our list of pre-E3 week games we're going to ignore, even though we have the time.

Lately, we've been obsessed with cats. Even though "Purr Pals" features plenty of them, that's not the kind of cat game we're looking for:

JasonCipriano: Make the cat the star. It's been quite some time since there has been a great cat staring in an action platformer. It's about time someone made a game like that.
JasonCipriano: Bubsy was essentially a Sonic rip off, but it was the last "good" cat platformer.
JasonCipriano: Feel free to rip off "Super Mario Bros." It's just that "Bubsy" came out 15 years ago.
JasonCipriano: Give the kitty a new game.
TraceyJohn: Ha. So you hear that game developers? Give us a new platformer starring a cat. Cip will be first in line.

Read on to learn what other games we're skipping, what games we'll actually be playing instead, and why we're worried about "Carnival Games"...

Read more...

It's almost a three-day weekend here at MTV Multiplayer, a much needed break before this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo kicks off.

But we can't end short week without talking about what games we're not playing this week.

Once again, Jason Cipriano and myself find ourselves agreeing on the game we won't be playing this week -- "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith." Both of us seem to have invested into the "Rock Band" experience and don't find the single-instrument games appealing anymore.

JasonCipriano: At least we have "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero" ... 5 years ago the closest thing to living the rockstar dream was that Journey game for the Atari 2600
JasonCipriano: Ya gotta take the good with the bad.
JasonCipriano: Really that's just the facts of life.
PatrickKlepek: There was a "Journey" game?
JasonCipriano: Oh man ... really.
JasonCipriano: You're kidding right.
JasonCipriano: Please tell me you're kidding.
JasonCipriano: I thought the intern was the only one I had to educate about classic games around here....
PatrickKlepek: I barely remember the Atari 2600 I owned.
PatrickKlepek: It's even possible I didn't own one. It was too long ago.
PatrickKlepek: I just remember "Pong."

Read on to find out why we won't be rocking out to "Dream On" anytime soon.

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In this week's "What We're NOT Playing," both Jason Cipriano and I give "Guitar Hero: On Tour" the cold shoulder for our own respective reasons.

Me, I just think I'll look silly (moreso than I usually do), but Cipriano, he's got a real physical problem -- he's got giant, man hands:

JasonCipriano: Putting my entire hand in front of the screen blocks too much
TraceyJohn: Your hand is too fat?
JasonCipriano: Not fat ... large
TraceyJohn: That's what I meant, of course.
JasonCipriano: Please ... your entire hand is about the size of my palm
JasonCipriano: It's a problem I run into a lot with the DS.

So fellow DS players, do you have problems with too-big hands for the DS? Read on to see what versions of "Alone in the Dark" we'll play (or not play), among other titles we're snubbing...

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The games industry has wisely chosen to avoid releasing anything too substantial in the week following "Metal Gear Solid 4." You know it's an off week when you're struggling to pick what you're not playing from a list completely made up of things you'll likely never play.

But I digress. In this week's edition of "WWNP," Jason Cipriano and I declare that "Secret Agent Clank," "Sea Life Safari" and "Deadliest Catch: Alaskian Waters" won't be taking up our playtime this week.

PatrickKlepek: You want a stealth "Ratchet" game?
JasonCipriano: He's a pretty great character.
JasonCipriano: But, I'm not a huge fan of stealth games.
JasonCipriano: But, I haven't played it at all.
JasonCipriano: It might work for the PSP.
PatrickKlepek: Why would stealth be inherently better on PSP?
JasonCipriano: Backed myself into a corner again ... Traditionally they haven't, (like that one "Splinter Cell" game that was released) but maybe as a tiny robot it might work better.
JasonCipriano: I'm fairly certain I'm defending the game because I like the character so much.
PatrickKlepek: Maybe you should speak to a psychologist. Clank isn't real, you know.
JasonCipriano: I think I wish he was

To find out why Jason might be crazy, keep reading.

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Even though we can't talk about "Metal Gear Solid 4" yet, it wouldn't matter for this week's What We're NOT Playing; we all plan on playing Snake's new adventure.

Unfortunately, we can't say the same for "Don King Presents: Prizefighter" and "Frogger 2." Jason Cipriano claims he'll get around to trying "Prizefighter" because he's such a "Fight Night" fan, but we'll see about that one.

JasonCipriano: I'll be shutting out "Frogger 2" this week.
PatrickKlepek: Fear of traffic?
JasonCipriano: I do hate being in cars, but no. Fear of another bad sequel.
JasonCipriano: The original "Frogger" was a classic.
JasonCipriano: Everything else that came after that was really just ... well... bad.
PatrickKlepek: Does this one have a story?
PatrickKlepek: Please say no.
JasonCipriano: I can't really find any info on the game.
JasonCipriano: WAIT.
JasonCipriano: Found a screenshot.
JasonCipriano: And it totally looks like it does.
PatrickKlepek: Kill me now.

Read on to find out why I'm passing on "Prizefighter" because of Electronic Arts.

Read more...

With Stephen Totilo on vacation, there's been more work and less play. But that segues perfectly into this week's edition of What We're NOT Playing.

Strangely, Jason Cipriano and myself both decided to ignore licensed games this week. While he passes on "The Bourne Conspiracy," sans an appearance by Matt Damon, I won't be spending my free time with "LEGO Indiana Jones."

PatrickKlepek: So stabbing someone with a Bic pen isn't an appealing prospect for you, I gather.
JasonCipriano: I actually prefer Pilot.
JasonCipriano: I've seen the first two movies, and just haven't gotten around to the third yet.
PatrickKlepek: See, I haven't seen any of them. I wonder if it matters.
PatrickKlepek: Or if I'm in a better position than you, having no expectations.
JasonCipriano: Really?
JasonCipriano: I think with this one, since they seem to be so closely related, it might be good to have a frame of reference.
JasonCipriano: Plus, they aren't that bad.
PatrickKlepek: No, I want to see them. They're on my Netflix. They just haven't come up yet.
JasonCipriano: Have we digressed into WWNW (What We're Not Watching)?

Do we end up digressing into more movie talk? Keep reading!

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