DK and Jnr have been unimpressed by the wait...

Once upon a time we posted regular articles in which the Nintendo Life team shared its weekend gaming plans and the community would do the same; it was rather pleasant. Then the poorly organised features editor responsible for the series lost track, once forgot to publish the article when submissions had actually been made, and messed the whole thing up.

Bygones shall have to be bygones, as it's now back. It's the weekend, we're planning to play games, so there's no reason why we shouldn't all share those plans. This is also an opportunity to learn a little more about the tastes of some recent additions to the team, upon which they shall be mercilessly judged — we're joking, please don't do that.

There are a lot of team members to get through and a ton of games, so let's stop stalling and get on with it.

Tom Whitehead

I have one EMBARGOED thing to play a little bit, but will mainly be finishing off some overdue reviews and trying to indulge in some of my other games in sore need of attention. On 3DS I want to try and complete Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies, which I've really enjoyed over a fairly lengthy period of time. On Wii U I reckon I'll buy all three GBA titles, because I want them all — which is silly, because I've already got Metroid Fusion on my 3DS. My main focus will be Dark Souls II — I bought it two weeks ago and have played it for about 30 minutes because I've been a tad busy, but hope to set aside a few hours to finally get stuck into it. Apparently I should expect to die a lot, which'll cheer me up no end.

Jon Wahlgren

I've got family visiting from out of town so I don't suspect I'll get much spare time to sit on my keister and play games. If I do, though, it'll be a pirate's life for me as I continue my swashbucklin' ways in Assassin's Creed IV on Wii U. Those Spanish fleets aren't going to rob themselves.

Philip J Reed

I'm going to make some long-overdue progress in the story mode of Etrian Odyssey: Millennium Girl Untold. It's a great game and I was quite enjoying it, but I got sidetracked a while back and never finished it.

It's time to change that!

Or wander around in circles killing low-level monsters because I stink at RPGs!

One of those things!

And speaking of stinking at RPGs, the only thing I stink at more is sports games. Which is why it's kind of surprising that I'm loving Inazuma Eleven so much. It's one of those rare games that I'm deliberately taking as slowly as possible, because it just so much fun. It's been ages since I've played a game this charming and seductively cheery.

For the record, I'm keeping that weedy little Willy in my main rotation, no matter how many better players I pick up along the way. Has anyone else felt compelled to do that? It feels like a point of pride for me, though I couldn't exactly tell you why.

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Ron DelVillano

Easily the most important thing that's happening this weekend is that I'm going to my first Tigers game of the season. Baseball is back and I couldn't be happier about it.

When I'm not watching baseball, I'll be spending some of my weekend playing it in the form of Rusty's Real Deal Baseball. I'll also be playing Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate - Deluxe Edition, a game with an absurdly long title, on my Wii U. The second of these two is for review, but I'm looking forward to both of them.

Finally, I promised Tom that I'd help him check out the multiplayer elements for his upcoming review of EMBARGOED. Should be fun!

Morgan Sleeper

I'm still working my way through Bravely Default, having a great time levelling up jobs and listening to Ringabel, but lately I've been totally and hopelessly addicted to another 3DS title: Yumi's Odd Odyssey. I've already run my 3DS's battery into the red by playing late into the night several times this week, and I fully plan on continuing that trend through the wee hours of the weekend — it's an amazing game! I've only got two exits left to find, and then it's onto serious backpack hunting; since this is one of the very few games that's ever given me the speedrunning bug, I'll be trying to work my way up the leaderboards as well — hope to see some of you there!

Provided I can manage to pull myself away from Yumi's addicting adventure for a bit, I'm also planning on playing some more Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze this weekend. I started it last week and have been completely blown away so far; it's such a gorgeous game, and the level design is wonderfully creative — I can't stop searching for secrets, and every one makes me smile! I'm only on the fourth world and I already don't want it to end — between Natsume and Nintendo I'm in platforming heaven!

Dave Letcavage

Well, I'm downloading Rusty's Real Deal Baseball as I'm typing this, so I suspect a good deal of my weekend will be spent hitting home runs and fielding ground balls. This will of course be accompanied by Tigers and Dodgers on the television thanks to the recent release of the MLB TV app on Xbox One.

When I'm not indulging in all things baseball, I'll be back at LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. There are so many characters to unlock and things to collect, that I'm finding it hard to not be consumed by the experience. And I mean that in a good way. I'm not usually a fan of Lego games, but with the amount of fan service on show, it's hard not to be charmed by such a marvellous package.

Lastly, I need to get back to Titanfall. I think I can confidently say that it's my favourite online shooter outside of the Halo series. I just find the high-energy Titan-on-Titan action to be irresistible.

Rory Cocker

After buying the last five Assassin's Creed games in a row at full price, and thinking they were all a bit pants, I promised myself I would never be sucked in to Ubisoft's pickpocket-and-sit-on-bench-'em-up world of minor historical inaccuracies again. But here I am, with a freshly wrapped copy of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag raring to go.

As I'm a huge fan of the TV show, Mr. Kenway will be fighting for my time with the presumably fantastic South Park: The Stick of Truth. A bunch of 10-year-old kids in an all-out brawl with a Welsh pirate called Edward. Yep, that sounds like an episode of South Park.

Kerry Brunskill

I’ve been rather ill this week, which means I’ve fallen back on some simple and familiar gaming comfort food – the Resident Evil series. Playing through the series in order is far too sensible for my paracetamol-infused brain so I’ve flitted from Resi 5, to the “director’s cut” of the original, to Code: Veronica like some zombiefied butterfly. Reports that I’m now trying to justify spending £200+ on various limited edition Japanese collectors editions are not entirely unfounded.

Tim Latshaw

Sonic Lost World keeps staring expectantly at me, as if it thinks my purchase of it came with some stipulation that I would also play it. I suppose I should humour it sooner or later. Really, I've been meaning to get to it for a while now. I might also celebrate International Tabletop Day this Saturday with some Crimson Shroud (in addition to actual, physical, tabletop games, of course).

Lee Meyer

I will be spending the weekend enjoying a few PS3 games (thanks, PlayStation Plus!) that I am in the middle of: Borderlands 2, Tomb Raider and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. And yes, I know that there's no way to juggle all three successfully, so at some point I'll likely throw in the towel and try out Nintendo's bizarrely charming new free-to-play Rusty's Real Deal Baseball. Sigh... is Mario Kart 8 here yet?

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Liam Doolan

This weekend I’ll be burning rubber on the track in the recent Wii U Virtual Console release, Super Mario Kart. I’ve managed to work my up to 150cc during the week, so I’ll be using the restore point system from here on out to champion my way to the finish line. This method might come across as a cheap tactic, but when you’ve got Donkey Kong Junior in your drift stream, there’s not much else you can do but use equally as dirty tactics to stop his never-ending flow of banana peels.

I’ll also be checking out Game Boy Advance titles on the Wii U. One I’m particularly looking forward to playing again is Advance Wars by Intelligence Systems. For those who somehow haven’t experienced it before, it’s pretty-much the video game equivalent of Chess – portable strategic warfare (just not so portable anymore). Not that chess was ever that playable on the go...unless you’ve got one of those magnetic boards, or it’s a digital form of Chess?! I’ll just stop now.

Samantha Sofka

To be quite honest I'll probably be diving back into Dark Souls 2 on the PS3. I'm probably a good twenty hours in with the end nowhere in sight. If (and probably when) I get tired of dying over and over, I'll probably grab a group of friends and play a little TowerFall Ascension on the PS4, or maybe (just maybe) dust off my copy of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. It's been haunting me since I picked it up on launch.

Andrew Karklins

This weekend, I will be continuing occupy my limited free time by playing Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft on my Surface Pro. This has been my game of choice over the past few weeks, playing matches while doing schoolwork or browsing the world wide web. On the Nintendo front, I will probably spend some time tinkering with Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball, a perfect companion to the first full weekend of the MLB.

Conor McMahon

Two very different games will be the focus of my weekend gaming this week, but both are equally capable of getting my pulse racing.
First, after a lucky eBay find, I'm aiming to finish off a title from a few years ago that deserves to be far more well known, Split/Second on Xbox 360. It's a racing game with an awesome twist, whereby every driver charges up the ability to trigger explosive events mid-race to take out opponents. This can range from something as simple as a burning truck rolling onto the track, to smashing an entire cruise ship into a dock, wrecking your rivals and providing a handy shortcut too. It's very frantic, very fun, and very Burnout 3 (the best non-kart racing game ever made).

The second title will be the ever-amazing Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, which I bought during the eShop sale on Wii U recently enough. Nintendo Life's own Martin Watts was a valuable mentor, and playing online with him made me the slightly capable hunter I am today! Looking forward to another session very soon.

Jowi Meli

The weather’s set to be pretty nice here on the US East Coast, so I think I’ll engage in one of my favourite outdoor pastimes: playing Nintendo portables! Seriously though, I think I’ll plop down in the park to play some Bravely Default on 3DS — though I’ve already finished the main story, the completionist in me hasn’t quite satisfied his urge to master every single job for every single character.

When night falls and it’s time to return home, I’ve got even more plans for weekend gaming action. Having experienced the wonders of flippin’ fantastic JRPG Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch on PS3 for the last couple of weeks, the next few nights will see me finishing up the main story and attempting to secure every trophy the game has to offer. It might take more than one weekend to snag 250 familiars, but I can try, right?

Jake Shapiro

I finally got around to Pikmin 3. Despite the cute exterior, it gives me quite the spanking. On the 3DS side of things, I just started Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies. Do you think it has a long enough title? It's my first Ace Attorney game! It's a bit too text-heavy for my tastes, but the dialogue is surprisingly well-written and the artwork is gorgeous. Once it actually gets around to the gameplay, there's nothing else quite like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies: Apollo Justice - Turbo HD Remix.

Lewis Childs

After years of putting off the Mario & Luigi series, I recently promised myself I’d play through them all as soon as I found a mint boxed copy (being a collector I have trouble settling for ‘cartridge only’) of Superstar Saga. Unfortunately many listings have come and gone since then, which just happened to be a little out of my price range. However, fast forward a couple of months and those lovely people at Nintendo announce that Superstar Saga will be part of the GBA Virtual Console launch line-up. OK, it’s not a mint boxed copy I can display proudly on my mantelpiece, but for a little over £6 it means I have no excuse to put off the critically acclaimed series any longer. So yes, this weekend I’ll be working my way through the Beanbean Kingdom, for a change of scenery.

Marc Zablotny

So, I have a small confession to make. While a sizeable number of 3DS owners are still raging over the fact that GBA games have yet to come to its eShop, my 10 Ambassador titles have been sat there pretty much untouched since they were so generously gifted to me in 2011.

It was only recently that I booted up Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. As a Fire Emblem newbie, I was not nearly as emotionally prepared as I should have been for the perma-death feature I've heard so much about. I've spent the last couple of weeks mourning over Lute, Vanessa and God only knows how many others my strategic incompetence got killed.

I need to be strong and move on, so I'll be returning to the continent of Magvel for another go this weekend. If it's too emotionally scarring however, I'll probably dust off Super Mario 3D Land to finish the last few special worlds with Luigi.

Phew, so those are the weekend gaming plans of various members of the Nintendo Life team. Let us know what you plan to play over the next few days in the comments below.