The Video Games You Should Play This Weekend – November 21

The recent release of the new Lumines game isn’t one you should let slip past you. Arise gives the long-running block-dropping music game a similar treatment to what Tetris Effect back in 2018, adding some flashy new gameplay mechanics and community features, while holding on to the core of immersive play the series has always had. The result is a mind-bending puzzle experience that induces “flow” more than almost any other game you might think of. It’s a long road to master Lumines, but this new installment helps you along the way with multiple difficulties, tutorial-style challenges, and more. Just make sure and bring headphones.

You can read Game Informer’s Lumines Arise review by following the link.

Aiming to shake up the formula, Black Ops 7 veers into weirder territory with its newest explosive campaign, offering hallucinogenic experiences that explore warfare and violence through the lens of a mind-warped perspective. Of course, the short but bombastic campaign is only one small part of the larger package, which this year includes a wealth of updates to the multiplayer experience, a new approach to Zombies, as well as a reworked approach to movement to lean into fast, agile traversal through play spaces. As part of an ever-renewing formula, it’s hard for Black Ops 7 to completely break the mold, but developers Treyarch and Raven have done an impressive job this year providing some new twists on what we’ve come to expect.

You can read Game Informer’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 review by following the link.

Kirby Air Riders is not a game I was expecting or hoping for, but now that it’s here, I’m very grateful for it. Masahiro Sakurai is best known for his work directing the Smash Bros series, and if you’re a fan of those games, Air Riders will feel shockingly familiar. From its flashy presentation to its dizzying number of achievements and unlockables, there’s a level of style here I didn’t know I was missing. Even the menu design, with its floating shapes and bright colors are reminiscent of past Sakurai games. I admittedly haven’t had as much time to play as I’d like, but the vibes alone are off the charts.

Roguelike can mean a lot of things nowadays, with so many genres crossing over with it in an (exciting) attempt to innovate. But what I like about Morsels, an indie twin-stick roguelike from developer Furcula, is how it feels like a “classic” roguelike. In a run, you collect little creatures called morsels, each with different abilities and attack styles. If they die, you lose that creature from your roster, and you’ll only ever have three — it’s sort of like a game where your weapons are also your lives. It stands out, however, because there’s relatively little macro progression (at least in the opening hours), meaning the only way to progress farther is to just get better. Couple that with a smattering of secret objectives and a general drought of explanation, and it almost reminds me of Spelunky. You learn by doing and dying. Some runs are just unlucky. But when you get a good run with the right amount of skill, the game feels awesome.

Silent Hill 2 is back. Again! Bloober Team’s excellent remake of Konami’s 2001 psychological horror game is available on Xbox Series X/S. The game released on PlayStation 5 and PC last year and I liked it quite a lot. I can’t imagine the Xbox version of the game will bring anything new or novel to the experience, but I am glad it is on a new platform so that more people can check it out. And if you finish that game wanting more, Bloober Team’s 2025 horror game, Cronos: The New Dawn, is pretty solid, too, and definitely has some Silent Hill 2 vibes.