A normal summer day at the beach

Here in the sunny UK — by which we mean heavy rain and flooding — we're well into summer, a time of year when the rain has a distinctly warmer feel on the skin. We're sure that some of you live in far more temperate climes than this, but for those that don't there's always an answer — playing video games.

That's what many of our staff will be doing, and the time has come to share our weekend gaming plans for you: some are scandalously using platforms other than Nintendo, but we'll forgive them. We'd also like you to give a warm welcome to a new member of our North American writing team, Morgan Sleeper.

James Newton

Harvest Moon 3D: The Tale of Two Towns — I'm always up for some farming but now the animals and crops are in 3D (3D!!) I'm even more excited.

Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown — If this were a disc it would never leave my PS3. Incredibly deep and rewarding fighting game that, if it were on a Nintendo console, I would totally kick all your backsides at.

Tom Whitehead

Mutant Mudds — I downloaded this earlier in the week because everyone seemed to say it was fantastic, and it is. It's gloriously difficult, but as someone who likes to think that there's no platformer that can't be beaten, I'll be continuing my quest for all 40 water sprites, or whatever they are. 19 and counting...

Rayman Origins — Although I can appreciate how wonderful this game is, it's never grabbed me and made me compulsively want more. I've been chipping away at it on Wii since Christmas but now the end is in sight I plan to sit down and finish it off.

Corbie Dillard

Kid Icarus: Uprising — Finally getting a chance to play some Kid Icarus: Uprising after putting it off for so long. Looking forward to diving into this one further after only getting an hour or so on the game back when it was first released.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz (Vita) — Imported this little beauty for the Vita and I've run through the beginner levels; so far it's been a lot of fun. I plan to spend some more time with it this weekend to try and delve further into some of the more difficult levels.

Mike Mason

Project Zero 2: Wii Edition — I'll be scaring myself witless in the name of reviewing Wii's new horror game.

Xenoblade Chronicles — The epic RPG is ever present on my play pile, might be completed one day.

Philip J Reed

Working my way through more of the puzzles in Mario's Picross, which is genuinely one of my favourite games on the 3DS VC! I'm also going to be replaying Super Mario 3D Land, because it's been just long enough since I've finished it that I can come back with fresh eyes and enjoy it all over again.

Joe Walker

Pokémon Conquest — Man oh man, is there a lot to do in this game.

Skies of Arcadia (Dreamcast) — My wife and I hooked up all of our retro consoles last weekend, so I'm finally sitting down to play through the RPG I should have played years ago.

Pokémon White Version — I'm brainstorming competitive team ideas for when Black and White 2 finally come out, and it's never too soon to start preparing!

Marcel van Duyn

Project Zero 2: Wii Edition — I got it a bit early (gotta love shops breaking their street dates!) so I'll be going through it this weekend. I never played the original, so I'm sure there'll be quite a few jumps ahead of me.

Team Fortress 2 (PC) — Just updated with a new game mode and a bunch of new weapons, the first big update since last December. I've already sunk thousands of hours into it, so a few more couldn't possibly hurt!

Ron DelVillano

I'll be spending most of my weekend with The Amazing Spider-Man and Gravity Rush. If I have time, or just need a change of pace, I might crank out some Pushmo (Pullblox) as well.

Jamie O'Neill

Shucks, the last two weeks have flown by. I ended up neglecting Jet Force Gemini and focusing upon finding all the red star rings in Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II. I also discovered a sudden urge to exercise using The Fight: Lights Out on PS3, so that game is a definite again for this weekend. Unfortunately, N64 Jet Force Gemini is likely to be ignored again, the brand new Gunlord by NG:DEV.TEAM has just arrived for my Dreamcast and side-scrolling run-and-gun games are my very favourite genre.

Morgan Sleeper

I'm on the road this week, and working on a Kirby feature for his upcoming anniversary, so I'll be packing as much of the pink crusader portable adventures into my weekend as possible with Kirby Mass Attack and Kirby Canvas Curse.

A good variety of gaming weekends planned, but what will you be playing?