The Video Games You Should Play This Weekend – March 20

If you need a new game to absorb an entire weekend, it’s hard to think of a better option than Crimson Desert. Pearl Abyss’ single-player action-adventure epic is the talk of the town right now, and for good reason: it’s a massive do-anything game, sprawling and gorgeous, and riddled with little means for getting lost.

My own opinions mirror our contributor Hayes’ thoughts: in some moments Crimson Desert is a technical marvel, achieving both scale and wonder on a degree rarely seen; in others, it’s an overstuffed cornucopia of game ideas and systems that don’t really interlock in meaningful ways. If I can offer any recommendations, it’s to get to the section where you establish a camp for the Greymanes as soon as possible. It’s one of the better sections of the game. Also, unlock the wrestling moves. There’s nothing better than Stone Cold Stunning a guy with a sword-and-shield or lance into the dirt.

Really, I hope the folks who want something from Crimson Desert find it there. One man’s 7 is another’s 10, and if you want a fantasy world to absolutely dump hours into, few wells are as deep as Pywel.

Read Game Informer’s Crimson Desert review right here, or you can watch the video review below.

Josh Wardle, who you probably know as the guy who invented Wordle, released a new game earlier this month: Parseword. I’ve been playing it every day for about a week, and I’m really into it, even though I know it’s unlikely to reach the same level of popularity Wordle did. It’s essentially an easier version of a cryptic crossword clue, formatted in such a way that makes the style of game easier to learn.

Cryptic clues hide their hints and solutions in unassuming words. For example, one of the game’s tutorial puzzles is a six-letter word for “Artist retracted reward.” If you’ve done a lot of these puzzles, you’ll know the answer is “drawer.” The first word, “artist,” is the solution’s definition. The word “retracted” tells the clue-solver to retract (or reverse) the letters in the following word, and “reward” spelled backwards is “drawer,” or a synonym for artist.

If you’re thinking “that’s stupid and confusing,” you’re correct! It’s intentionally obtuse, but Parseword adds some clever quality-of-life tools to make the process easier. The definition is clearly marked, so you’ll know what word you’re looking for from the start. It also allows you to click or tap on a word to see all its potential functions – in this instance, highlighting “retracted” tells you that it can reverse a word, and dragging it over to “reward” automatically reverses it. The game also includes tutorials, difficulty modes, and hints, making it relatively accessible and easy to grasp. The amount of explanation required to recommend it disqualifies it from Wordle-level popularity, but it’s a well-designed game that wordplay fans should check out.

For the last week, I’ve been playing MLB The Show 26, the latest in Sony San Diego’s long-running baseball franchise. While I’m still hours from being able to render my final verdict, I’m having a great time. The MLB The Show franchise has typically been the most consistently good annualized sports franchise, and this year’s feels no different. Upgrades to Road to the Show help the experience of playing through that player-lock career mode, but Franchise – an oft-ignored mode in other sports series – got a big upgrade, emerging it from the previous March to October format into something much more customizable. The gameplay remains rock solid, too, as it still feels amazing to snag a deep flyball on the run, strike out the side, or launch a ball into the cheap seats. Stay tuned to GameInformer.com next week for my full review!

When this new Starship Troopers game was announced, I wondered if it would simply emulate the design of its biggest copycat, Helldivers, like a snake eating its tail. Thankfully, that’s not the case. Ultimate Bug War is not a cooperative squad-based third-person shooter (though something close to that does exist). Instead, it is a single-player first-person game molded more closely after ’90s-era shooters, colloquially known as “Boomer Shooters” to the kids I’m definitely hip to.

The polygonal presentation offers a fun visual throwback, while the shooting feels more contemporary in that it’s actually weighty and impactful. Mowing down hundreds of bugs in large arenas filled with objectives has a Dynasty Warriors-esque satisfaction, and I enjoy the B-movie tier character dialogue from the uber-patriotic Federation soldiers. The franchise’s satirical vibe permeates the experience, namely in the humorous live-action cutscenes featuring Casper Van Dien, who reprises his role as protagonist Johnny Rico from the original film to serve as the players’ commander. Rico’s pep talks, along with goofy propaganda commercials, are the best reward after riddling thousands of alien bugs with bullets. I’m doing my part!

I loved Ghost of Yōtei last year. You can read my review right here. I felt like I lived a prominent portion of Atsu’s life during my playthrough, and I miss being in that world. Thankfully, Sucker Punch gave me an excuse to return by releasing the completely free online co-op mode, Legends, last week. You do need to own Ghost of Yōtei to play it, so there is an asterisk next to “free”, but despite being a mode that encourages you to progress and collect loot, it is entirely without microtransactions of any kind. A breath of fresh online multiplayer air.

If you follow me at all, you know I am not an online multiplayer guy. I like going on my own little personal adventures in video games. But I played through Legends’ available content (more is coming soon) in its entirety and had a good time. Mainly, I just love the combat of Yōtei, so I enjoyed running around an abstract version of Ezo, while fighting abstract versions of familiar enemies, and exaggerated monstrous versions of the Yōtei Six (though not all six are in the mode yet).

I spoke with Legends’ lead designer, Darren Bridges, earlier this week to learn why and how this mode exists, and I will post the full transcription of that interview soon. But in the meantime, if you miss Yōtei as I do, hop online and play through a few levels. You won’t regret it.

When I snag MVP for the game the very first match in which I play a new character after they appear in Marvel Rivals, it’s a pretty surefire indication I’ll be seeing a lot of that hero for the foreseeable future. That’s been my experience with the arrival of Silver Fox, a powerhouse of a healing strategist who is the biggest addition to today’s new Season 7 of the ongoing superhero battler. The new season also pushes into some new story territory about  (yet another) crisis in New York, along with the expected arrival of a new battlepass, events, balance adjustments, and more. Black Cat and a new Lower Manhattan map will join the show in a few weeks. The game continues to draw large player counts even as its roster of characters expands; early matches this season have been the likeable mix of colorful, chaotic, and rewarding.
 

Wishfully and Thunderful Publishing have delivered on all fronts with the sequel to Planet of Lana. The new game offers beautiful visuals, a thoughtful and emotional story that is mostly told without words or understandable language, and some excellently crafted puzzles that carry the game forward. While knowledge of the first game might enrich your experience, the game goes out of its way to help this installment stand on its own, and get new players up to speed right from the start. It’s also hard not to love the companion dynamic between Lana and the strange creature named Mui; their interactions power both the storytelling and gameplay. If you’ve been hungry for wonderful puzzles in an equally wonderful world, it’s an easy pick for your weekend play.

You can see some gameplay from Planet of Lana 2 in a recent episode of New Gameplay Today below.

Death Stranding 2: On The Beach was released last summer on PlayStation 5, and it’s a good game! Some guy at Game Informer (me) gave it an 8.75 and wrote in his review, “Death Stranding 2 is a game with faults and annoyances, but it also makes big, expensive swings and is trying to establish its own unique genre, often successfully. I’ll happily take the misses alongside the hits. The world is bizarre and beautiful and impressively thought out, from the overall design of the world down to the UI of its fictional phones. What keeps me coming back the most, though, and the reason I will continue to make deliveries after publishing this review, is Death Stranding 2’s boundless sincerity.”

The short version is it’s a game that is not without faults, but it’s hard not to get swept up in it and appreciate its bizarre world and story. It was released yesterday on PC and includes some technical bonuses like unlocked framerates during gameplay, ultra widescreen support, DualSense controller support, and upscaling and frame generation. If you played it on PlayStation 5, I don’t know that there is much incentive to play it again on PC. But if you skipped it last year or were holding out to play it on your top-of-the-line rig, this is your reminder that it is, in fact, available.